Corridors in focus: Our People – Lape Seriki

Lape Seriki, Executive Principal, FI, BBDs, shares how trusted relationships and global connectivity help clients pursue cross-border growth.

When people talk about Africa, they talk about opportunity. But opportunity on its own is not enough. What matters is connecting opportunity to the right markets, the right relationships and the right insight at the right time.

 

Lape Seriki

Executive Principal, FI, BBDs

Watch Lape’s story and discover how she connects clients in Nigeria with opportunities across global markets.

For Lape, that belief took shape early. Growing up, she would visit her mother at work and watch her help banking clients solve problems and identify opportunities to grow.

“I saw her interacting with her clients,” Lape recalls. “The clients come with problems, and she provides solutions and creates opportunities for them.”

That lesson has stayed with her: understand the client’s ambition, build the trust to have the important conversations, then connect the expertise that can help move their strategy forward.

Trust before the transaction

“Any bank can provide products, but what clients are really looking for are trusted advisors,” Lape says. “Someone that will listen to the strategies they’re trying to implement and provide solutions for them.”

That distinction matters when clients look beyond their home markets. Many know where they want to grow. The harder question is how to get there.

Cross-border growth requires an understanding of the client’s strategy alongside relevant market insight, relationships and specialist expertise. Trust allows those conversations to move beyond an immediate transaction towards where the client wants to go next, the challenges ahead and the connections needed to make progress.

Nigeria’s expanding global connections

Lape sees Nigeria playing an important role as trade flows expand across Asia, Europe and the Middle East, with its financial institutions increasingly equipped to support cross-border transactions.

She points to economic reforms that have increased market transparency and enhanced foreign-exchange liquidity, alongside international investor interest. She also sees the recapitalisation of Nigerian financial institutions as supporting their ability to compete globally.

For financial institutions, deeper connections with international markets can create new avenues to support clients, participate in cross-border flows and pursue growth.

Many clients already know where they want to go. The challenge is understanding how to get there.

 

Lape Seriki

Executive Principal, FI, BBDs

Connecting ambition with execution

This is where Standard Chartered’s international network comes into play.

Lape Seriki connects Nigerian financial institution clients with relevant expertise across Standard Chartered’s markets, product teams and geographies, connecting them with international perspectives and capabilities as they pursue opportunities beyond their home market.

When ambitions span several markets, the relationships, insight or expertise needed to advance them may sit elsewhere. The commercial value lies in bringing those elements together around the client’s objective, creating a clearer path from ambition to execution.

“That is how ideas become opportunities and opportunities become growth,” Lape says.

Passing opportunity forward

Lape’s belief in the power of relationships extends to the next generation. Drawing on more than 26 years in banking, she mentors younger professionals, including women building careers in the industry, sharing the experience and values she has acquired throughout her career.

It brings her story full circle.

As a child, Lape saw how relationships could create opportunities. Today, she applies that principle across borders, connecting Nigerian financial institutions with expertise and opportunities across Standard Chartered’s network.

“The great thing about working in Standard Chartered Bank is that I’m able to connect Nigeria to the rest of the world,” she says.

For clients looking beyond their home market, that connectivity can turn the question of where next into a clearer route forward.

https://www.sc.com/en/news/corporate-investment-banking/corridors-in-focus-our-people-lape-seriki