The African Development Bank (AfDB) has appointed Samuel Mugoya Higenyi as director of syndication and client solutions.

Higenyi, who has over 30 years of pan-African commercial banking, development finance and oil and gas industry experience, joins the bank from the Eastern and Southern Trade and Development Bank (TDB), where he had been since 2017.

At TDB, Higenyi established a syndications and agency operations function, in doing so implementing the bank’s syndicated lending strategy, targeted at financing the infrastructure needs of sovereign member states. He also led on medium to long-term capital funding requirements of corporate clients, by arranging and closing over US$5bn in syndicated loans.

Higenyi had previously spent a decade at the African Export-Import Bank (Afreximbank), where he set up the bank’s syndications and specialised finance department, implemented global standard systems and processes, and arranged and executed more than US$7bn in syndicated loans over the period.

Higenyi started his career with Uganda Commercial Bank, and then worked briefly as a bank liquidation consultant with KPMG Uganda, before joining Shell, where he worked in various roles for more than seven years.

Commenting on the appointment, AfDB president Akinwumi Adesina, says: “Samuel is an experienced negotiator with a proven track record in structuring and closing complex debt transactions, and demonstrable success in establishing new functions, processes and systems. I am delighted to have him on board.”