WAICA Appoints Davis Iyasere new secretary general/CEO

By Cynthia Ezekwe

The  West African Insurance Companies Association (WAICA) has appointed Davis Ebelechukwu Iyasere as the new secretary general/ chief executive officer of the subregional body.

WAICA is the umbrella association of insurance and reinsurance companies as well as brokers in anglophone West Africa. Iyasere’s appointment which followed the retirement of  William Coker, the incumbent secretary general/ CEO, marks him the  first Nigerian to occupy the exalted position in WAICA’s 50 years of existence, and gives him the avenue to operate from the association’s secretariat in Accra, Ghana, to oversee the activities of insurance institutions in Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Gambia.

Prior to his appointment,  Iyasere was the deputy director in charge of corporate communications, human resource, and administration at the Nigerian Insurers Association where he had a career spanning almost two decades. Whilst in the services of the Association, he was noted for his dedication to duty, and commitment to the ideals of the Association.

He joined the association as corporate affairs manager in 2004 and rose through the ranks to his current position by a dint of hard work, strength of character, pursuit of excellence, humility, and strong intellectual capacity.

The new WAICA CEO  started his career as a freelance sports journalist with Vanguard newspapers and later with National Times newspaper before he joined the Guardian newspapers as a sub editor in 2000.  He later joined Sporting Champion, then Nigeria’s highest selling weekly sports newspaper from where he joined the Nigerian Insurers Association as corporate affairs manager in 2004.

Iyasere  is a member of the Nigerian Institute of Public Relations (NIPR), Advertising Practitioners Registration Council of Nigeria (ARCON), Chartered institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria (CIPM), Chartered Insurance Institute of Nigeria (CIIN), Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), USA, and Association of Corporate Governance Professionals of Nigeria.