Development finance institution, African Development Bank Group, has appointed Nourredine Lafhel as acting chief risk officer, effectiveApril 6, 2020. It will be interesting to see how the Canadian national, who is currently the Sovereign Credit and Market Risk division manager, in the directorate of the Group Risk Management Function of the African Development Bank Group, will wade through and provide critical leadership and innovation to ensure that a high rating is maintained by the Bank.
An experienced risk management professional, Mr Lafhel has more than 20 years of experience in finance and risk management, and is a proven leader in the development of innovative solutions and strategies for balance sheet optimization, capital adequacy and market risk management. He has also worked in several continents including North America, Middle East and Africa.
As division manager, his role revolved around reviewing market risk, sovereign portfolio reports, sovereign credit policy as well as the Bank’s credit policy and graduation. He has been instrumental in defining the institution’s economic capital requirements for market, credit and operational risk. He was part of the team that developed the Room to Run initiative, an innovative $1b synthetic securitization deal.
Before joining the Bank, Lafhel held senior treasury and credit risk roles at S&P Global Ratings as director, sovereign and international public finance rating, and as senior director, credit risk management and rating at Acreditus, in the United Arab Emirates. He provided strategic advice, policy guidance and analytical support to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) sovereign entities in the area of capital markets, credit risk management and ratings on confidential basis.
Prior to this, he served at the Bank of Canada as a Principal Credit Risk officer where he was responsible for the implementation of the internal rating methodologies and scorecards of sovereigns, GREs, supranational institutions, and banks. He led credit risk assessments and internal ratings of investment and trading counterparties.
Lafhel is fluent in French, English and Arabic, and holds a Master’s Degree in Applied Finance from the University of Quebec at Montreal – ESG School of Management, Canada and a Bachelor (Honours) in Financial Management from the Faculty of Law, Economics and Social Sciences, at University Hassan II of Casablanca in Morocco.
