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JUSTIN BOYE: Hi, everybody. I'm Justin Boye, executive managing director and head of Global Client Solutions, here, at TD Securities. Thanks for joining me today.
In the UK, October is recognized as Black History Month, a time to remember and celebrate Black history and excellence. I'm fortunate today to be joined by Emeka Njokanma, head of emerging markets rates trading out of our UK office. We're going to spend a little bit of time today talking to Emeka about his career journey, from Lagos, Nigeria, to the UK, to his current role in emerging markets, and ultimately about the impact that has in supporting growth in developing nations as part of our ESG initiatives at the dealer and the broader bank.
Emeka, thanks so much for joining me today. Before we get started, can you share a little bit about what your career journey at TD has looked like and how it led to your current role?
EMEKA NJOKANMA: Thank you very much, Justin. As a quick introduction, I was born in Lagos, Nigeria. I studied in Nigeria up until about the age of 16, and then I moved over to the United Kingdom, to study engineering, and then post-graduate in operational research and statistics. Growing up in Europe definitely has given me quite an interesting perspective on race, social dynamics. And that for me was evident in my first job in an artificial intelligence lab, at British Telecom, prior to then pursuing a career in the city.
So I joined TD, in 2007, as an associate. Now at the moment, I am responsible for all of our local markets trading business. I obviously have started in 2007, as I said, worked my way through progressive products and portfolios. I believe it's accurate to say I've covered pretty much every instrument we trade under our policy, from short-term FX to long-dated cross currency. That's a brief background of how I got into the UK and how I got into TD and what I'm doing now.
JUSTIN BOYE: Great, Emeka, and thanks for that. And maybe for people in the listening audience, who don't necessarily know about the differentiation between developed markets and emerging markets in our business, maybe perhaps give them a little bit more context there.
EMEKA NJOKANMA: Thank you, Justin. The developed markets differ quite significantly from the emerging markets. Some of the characteristics of the markets that I'm active in are generally smaller financial markets, smaller economies. And these are economies that are trying to grow their way out of essentially, to a large extent, poverty. Now, within the emerging market universe, there's a spectrum. You've got the BRICs, which is an acronym that people are very familiar with, fast growing emerging markets, then you've got frontier. Predominantly at TD, we would look at economies that fall into that category.
JUSTIN BOYE: You touched on this a little bit and the fact that some emerging market nations are focused on growth and their potential, in an attempt to emerge from poverty, with an ultimate goal of being considered a G20 nation from an economic and socioeconomic perspective. When you think about your background in Lagos, Nigeria, talk to us a little bit about the impact your job has in emerging markets and in raising debt, for example, for countries who fall into this EM category.
EMEKA NJOKANMA: I think, for me, it's obviously something that's quite close to home. But the one that I think
closely aligns to supporting the growth of emerging markets, I would say, it's our role in advising investors. In particular, investors are looking for exposure via SSA borrowers. These are the supranational funds who actively raise funding to invest, in projects across the globe, predominantly in developing nations. There can be themes on this, whether they invest in infrastructure, invest in healthcare, invest in sustainable technologies. These development organizations, supranationals, are vital to the ability of some of these countries to take the capital and lever, appropriately, mix it with human capital and write policy in order to drive growth, locally.
That's a very interesting story that I have-- one I can share. The World Bank is one of our most active borrowers. And I recall driving through Lagos on a trip back from the UK. And I drove past one of their programs. It was an MSME initiative, where the World Bank provided capital, training, and some infrastructure to boost the activity of local retailers, people who sell perishable items. I thought that was quite powerful and very easy to explain to people what I did.
JUSTIN BOYE: Yeah, it's interesting. When we think about bond deals, and you look at the use of proceeds from the bond deal, at times, it can be very satisfying, especially when you think about infrastructure, to see a toll road, a hospital, a school, or, in this case, an initiative to support retailers in Nigeria. That's really where you see capital markets' activities come full circle with respect to their impact on the community and the environment.
So from that perspective, maybe chat to us a little bit more about how your role at TDS, whether that's as an EM trader or in some of the other initiatives you're involved in, how they relate to helping the bank achieve its ESG and diversity goals.
EMEKA NJOKANMA: Quite simply, the work we do with the supranationals is absolutely outstanding. I had a look back through my time at the firm, since 2007, I think I've been involved in 1,200 plus transactions as single bond deals across 20 currencies. I think the notion that we've raised, as a firm, in supporting all of these activities is close to $50 billion. So from a personal point of view, I think gives me great satisfaction to know that, one, being someone who's actively fascinated by markets, I've had the opportunity to trade 20 currencies, develop deep relationships with my partners, in sales and DCM, and also, more importantly, with some of the borrowers.
In terms of TD's impact, I think it's quite significant and borders, I would say, largely on the social part in terms of social impact. The amount of advice we can give these guys and their ability to make an impact on the ESG rating is quite high. And personally, in terms of D&I, I see my role more is just being accessible. I think the bank has clearly set aside for itself very ambitious targets when it comes to representation. And we have a fantastic culture, fantastic framework.
And I think my job here is to really just be accessible to people and having open conversations about how we work together, collaboratively, to hit these targets. Because the truth is we are very, very sure, from the data, that very diverse work forces do make it competitive and actually a lot more profitable.
JUSTIN BOYE: Yeah, and to your point, Emeka, about being accessible, I think that's hugely important. It's that access that allows people to learn a little bit more about your story. And oftentimes, especially for young people joining our firm or those in our industry, sharing that story about your journey and your background, that can be inspirational and motivating to them and act as a roadmap for where their career could go. So from that perspective, I really appreciate you joining us today and continuing to share and look forward to working with you much more in the future. Thank you very much
EMEKA NJOKANMA: Thank you very much for the time, Justin.
