Sadiya El-Rufai is a Senior Attorney, and qualified Arbitrator with over 17 years of multifaceted legal practice and management experience with proficiency in Corporate & Commercial Law and Commercial Arbitration; led various legal advisory projects advising top tier corporations on significant commercial transactions ranging from mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance and project finance.  She has a combined work experience as a private legal practitioner and in-house counsel at Development Finance Institutions.

Prior to setting up El-Rufai Attorneys at Law, Sadiya was a partner at the law firm of Dikko & Mahmoud and she led the firm’s strategic restructuring to consolidate its reputation as a premier law firm and enhance its overall business prospects. As a pioneer staff at the Development Bank of Nigeria Plc, she spearheaded the structuring of the Legal Department including the development of manuals, service level agreements, policies & procedures; established the documentary recording & filing system; standardization of the credit appraisal and approval process; facilitated the Bank’s first examination and Board evaluation exercise; enhanced the Bank’s efficiency and stakeholder interface through robust and effective strategies. At the Bank of Industry, she introduced major innovations at the regional office in Abuja including the standardization of loan documentation for major projects, review of loan disbursement process, enhancing the Bank’s efficiency and customer interface as well as strategically improving stakeholder relations.

Sadiya was called to the Nigerian Bar in 2004 and is a graduate of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria. She holds a Masters’s degree in Business and Commercial Law from Bayero University, Kano. Sadiya has an advanced certificate in International Arbitration awarded by the Chartered Institute of Arbitration UK and was admitted as a Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators UK in 2017. She also trained at various institutions, including the Smith’s School of Business Queen’s University Canada, International law Institute and Association of African Development Finance Institutions.