Ganiyu is a highly experienced management professional with nearly 40 years of diversified experience in insurance, reinsurance, audit, consulting, business advisory and financial management. His professional journey started with Pannell Kerr Forster and later Arthur Andersen & Co where he trained and qualified as a Chartered Accountant and gained top quality experience in audit and financial consulting.

He subsequently worked at African Reinsurance Corporation (Africa Re), for 19 years, holding key positions, including Director of Finance & Accounts/Chief Financial Officer and Deputy Managing Director. He played a lead role in the creation and initial supervision of the risk management function at Africa Re and supervised the design of the Corporation’s investment guidelines and asset allocation. He was also instrumental in the preparatory work and the eventual setting up of the Retakaful subsidiary in Cairo, Egypt and reinsurance subsidiary in South Africa, where he served on the Board and Audit Committee for several years.

He left Africa Re in 2011 to join African Capital Alliance (ACA), a leading pan-African private equity firm as Insurance Sector Specialist and a Director on the Board of Cornerstone Insurance Plc. He moved to Cornerstone Insurance Plc in 2012 as the Group Managing Director/CEO and led the team that transformed the company into one of the leading insurance institutions in Nigeria. He was at various times Chairman of the Nigerian Insurers Association, Chairman Council of Bureaux of the Ecowas Brown Card scheme, Deputy President of West African Insurance Companies Association (WAICA), Chairman, Nigerian National Bureau of the Ecowas Brown card scheme, amongst others.

Ganiyu currently serves on the Boards of an independent Oil & Gas producing company, a Pension Fund Administration company, an electronic payment solutions company and a microfinance company, amongst others.

Ganiyu holds a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc. Hons.) degree in Business Administration and a Master in Banking and Finance (MBF) degree, both from the University of Lagos. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (FCA), having won multiple National merit awards in the qualifying professional examinations. He is also a Senior Member of the Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria. He has attended several professional, management and leadership development programmes at home and abroad, including the Institute of Management Development (IMD), Lausanne, Switzerland and Harvard Business School, Boston, USA.

An avid golfer and immediate past Treasurer of the Ikoyi Club 1938 Golf Section, GM, as he is fondly called, is happily married and blessed with two wonderful children.