Subomi Balogun is a banker, founder of the First City Monument Bank, and patriarch of an emerging professional dynasty. Subomi Balogun was born 1934 in Ijebu Ode to a native authority court register of colonial Nigeria. He had his secondary education at Igbobi College, Yaba, Lagos afterwhich he worked as a teacher for a year. After an insulting experience with a boy lawyer, he had decided on the path to follow. In 1956, he proceeded to read law at the London School of Economics, graduating and being called to the English Bar three years later. Under the sponsorship of the former Western Region government of Nigeria, he received special training in Legal Drafting in Whitehall and the City of London. Thereafter, he served as Counsel in the Regional and later, Federal Ministry of Justice.
When the Nigerian Industrial Development Bank (NIDB) was being set up by the World Bank in 1966, he applied for, and got the post of the Company Secretary. There, he developed the idea of setting up an investment bank. While agonizing over his failure to be recognized for this idea he muted to his bosses, his 8-year old son, Ladi Balogun had wondered why he couldn’t set up his own bank.
