Benedict Okoh

Benedict Okoh is an entrepreneurial executive with a broad background in financial services and innovation. His work focuses on collaborating with firms to uncover new opportunities, and then developing solutions – not products – to capitalize on those opportunities.

Professor Okoh is passionate about teaching, and he enjoys mentoring and having intellectual exchanges with students. His teaching philosophy strives to equipoise rigorous treatments of fundamental principles and theories with actual examples of how material learnt in the classroom is used in the real world.

Outside of Columbia University, from creating first-of-their-kind equity indexes to collaborating with firms to uncover and pursue new opportunities, Professor Okoh’s work has culminated in dozens of issued technology-implemented Financial/Business Practice U.S. patents in which he is principal inventor (and co-inventor with American Express). He is also principal inventor in an additional 50+ pending U.S. patents. 

As a trusted adviser to the Central Bank of Nigeria, Professor Okoh played a crucial role on a high-profile project that created a blueprint for overhauling Nigeria’s financial system to transform the country into a regional financial hub and one of the world’s 20 largest economies. The Nigerian presidency subsequently approved the blueprint for implementation. Over the years, his works have been featured in several major publications.

AfriFinance LLC, the New York City-based boutique that he founded after stints in banking and in wealth management at J.P. Morgan Chase, has advised firms ranging from Fintech startup and nonprofit companies to American Express, GE, African banks, and the Central Bank of Nigeria. Through AfriFinance, he has worked with clients to innovate and grow their businesses in the U.S. and in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.