Dr. Abdullateef Bello obtained his Master’s and Doctor of Philosophy (D.Phil.) degrees in Applied Statistics from the University of Oxford, UK. He was awarded the prestigious international Rhodes Scholarship for exceptional ability, academic excellence, and performance that enabled him to complete his studies at Oxford and became the 10th Rhodes Scholar from Nigeria. He also attended the Management Development Programme of the Centre for Management Development, London Business School, UK.
As an international development banker, Dr. Bello served in different capacities -- including treasury (dealing room), operations, and research departments --- at the Islamic Development Bank (IDB), where he worked for over 24 years on various initiatives and themes including Islamic finance, data analytics, capacity development, strategies, policies, and emerging development issues facing member countries of IDB.
At IDB, he occupied three senior managerial positions simultaneously: Director of Economic Research and Policy; Director of Data Resources and Statistics; and the IDB Group Chief Librarian. He also attained the highest professional and technical position at the Bank. He began his career as a lecturer with the Federal University of Technology, Akure (Nigeria), and later became a software developer with the Numerical Algorithms Group (NAG), Oxford, UK.
In 2003, he won the highest and most coveted “IDB Award for Excellence in Performance”, and authored, among others, “The role of Islamic finance in achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”.
As an international scholar, he served as a board member of several international bodies and initiatives including the boards of the Global Strategy to improve Agricultural and Rural Statistics (FAO), and Partnership in Statistics for Development in the 21st Century (PARIS21) as well as a member of IFSB’s Taskforce on Prudential Islamic Finance Database.
Dr. Bello has travelled extensively to more than 40 countries representing IDB at various conferences and initiatives.
