The Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, Zenith Bank, Mr Ebenezer Onyeagwu, has emerged the CEO of the Year at the Sustainability, Enterprise and Responsibility Awards.

The bank said this in a statement on Monday entitled “Ebenezer Onyeagwu emerges ‘CEO of the Year’ as Zenith Bank wins Big at SERAS Awards 2020.”

The statement said the awards held at the weekend in Lagos.

It stated, “According to the judges, he was selected for a plethora of reasons key among these practices include a robust environmental and social management system for screening credit facilities and continued investment in social initiatives in support of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and for joining 131 other banks from across the globe as a founding signatory to the United Nations Environment Programme Finance Initiative Principles for Responsible Banking.

“The judges found him worthy for his commitment to the promotion of sustainability and responsible business practices in Nigeria, by his frontal leadership of sustainability in Zenith Bank, thereby enabling best industry practices in the banking sector, and for his passion to reduce carbon emissions in the bank’s operations.”

Zenith Bank said it also emerged winner in two other categories at the SERAS Awards, carting home the awards for ‘Best company in promotion of good health and wellbeing’ and ‘Best company in promotion of good health and wellbeing’.

Out of the five finalists for the Best company in promotion of good health and wellbeing category, Zenith Bank emerged winner for donating N1bn in support of efforts to address the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria, donation of N200m towards Lagos State Government efforts to provide relief to the victims of the Abule-Ado pipeline explosion, and for spending over N300m in 2019 to support various healthcare initiatives across the country.

The statement said Zenith Bank was adjudged winner in the category for the Best company in promotion of gender equality and women empowerment for its Z-Woman initiative which offered credit facilities to women-owned businesses at single-digit interest rate and for a gender-balanced workforce (about 49.80 per dent female and 50.20 per cent male).

The Z-Woman initiative has so far extended up to N1bn in total credit facilities, it said.

It stated that SERAS was an initiative of TruCSR which celebrates and promotes investments by corporate organisations in the society through CSR and sustainability initiatives.

It made its debut in 2007 and participation was opened to other countries of Africa in 2016.

 

The statement said 2020 awards featured 1,500 projects by 98 organisations.

 

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