#BreakTheBias: Foodpro Celebrates 11 Extraordinary Women
Over the years, Foodpro has been dedicated to empowering women and fostering sustainable socioeconomic growth in our immediate community. We pride ourselves on having a female-dominated workforce that continues to work hard to deliver the quality products you love.
To celebrate the 2022 International Women’s Day we are honouring eleven (11) extraordinary Nigerian women from diverse industries who are making a difference in their fields and truly Breaking The Bias.
These women are exceptional leaders who have been selected because of their exceptional career paths and achievements. Each of them have played a key role in pioneering their industries and are respected as thought leaders and industry experts!
We don’t only want to celebrate them, we also want to thank them for charting the course for many generations of young women to come, for being role models, for investing in women in their industries, for hiring, developing and mentoring women in their organisations and for consistently telling their stories and breaking the bias.
Because they did…many of us can dream it and achieve it!
We salute you ladies!
- Ifeyinwa Osime
Mrs. Osime is currently an independent Director at Coronation Insurance and an independent Non-Executive Director at Access Bank. She is a versatile and result-oriented professional with over 30 years of experience in the insurance industry and commercial legal practice at management and board levels. She has championed and established a special needs programme that is actively involved in the management and care of children and young people with special needs.
- Temi Marcella Awogboro
Temi Marcella Awogboro is a leading investment professional and executive with over 15 years of experience across deal origination, execution, portfolio management, exits, business building and board management in developed and growth markets across a number of sectors including technology, healthcare, and financial services. She currently serves as the COO with Evercare Group wholly owned by TPG Capital. Prior to this, she was the West Africa deal lead of the Health Fund. She is a Co-Founder and Partner with Kairos Angels and the Magic Fund.
She is a firm believer in the power of private capital to transform lives and is passionate about harnessing this power as a catalyst for profound, deep-rooted change globally. She has committed over half a billion in private partnership capital across strategic sectors globally.
- Ayo Amusan
Ayo Amusan is a Retailer and Multipreneur who has been influential in the growth of the Nigerian retail sector. Her operational and leadership experience in the Retail, Entertainment and Real Estate industries spans over 20 years, out of which she has successfully launched retail partnerships with Global Brands such as PUMA, Lacoste etc in Nigeria.
Ayo serves on a number of Corporate Boards, amongst which are – Persianas Retail, VIVA Cinema Limited, Persianas Nigeria Limited, Skillup Africa, Seaview Investment and Jendaya – Positive Luxury, to mention a few.
She has high interests in empowering women and promoting the rights of women to influence social change for themselves and others. This she has done through: WARIF- Women at Risk International Foundation – Nigeria’s foremost Anti-Sexual and Gender Based Violence Organisation implementing impactful initiatives in Health, Education and Community Service.
The OOA Foundation –This is an impact organisation focusing on displaced youths and women.
Others are – supporting initiatives that cater for Widows (through community service) ; Promoting Gender equality in the workplace ; Advocate for Women’s Health etc
Ayo is a Business of Fashion (BoF 500) member and multiple award winner.
- Tannaz Bahnam
Tannaz Bahnam is a serial entrepreneur – who turned her hobby of collecting and sharing information and knowledge about Lagos into the Lost in Lagos Empire that she runs as MD/CEO.
She is also the Founder of The Kitchen Nigeria and creator of her own brand of Chai Latte: T-Kup Chai Latte, a tea based drink that is sold and served at cafes, restaurants, and supermarkets around Lagos.
- Oyinkan Adewale
Mrs. Oyinkan Adewale is a highly experienced finance expert with over 30years’ track record as Chief Financial Officer in various companies and 20 years’ experience serving on various boards. Before being Independent Non-Executive Director at Lafarge Africa Plc, She was the Executive Director/Chief Financial Officer of Union Bank Nigeria Plc. Mrs. Adewale was also the CBN-appointed intervention Executive Director/CFO at Oceanic Bank where she supervised all the bank’s subsidiaries and also served as a director of some of the subsidiaries. She was also the ETI Group Head of MIS following the acquisition of Oceanic Bank by ETI and its merger with Ecobank Nigeria in 2012 where she managed the integration.
- Mojisola Adeyeye
She is the Director-General of the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC). Professor Adeyeye was the founding Chair of Biopharmaceutical Sciences and Professor of Pharmaceutics and Drug Product Evaluation at the College of Pharmacy, Roosevelt University in Schaumburg, Illinois.
She was a Professor of Pharmaceutics and Manufacturing for 21 years at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA. She is the founder of a socially conscious start-up company – Elim Paediatric Pharmaceuticals.
Her research interests include preformulation, early phase development of solid, semisolid, and liquid dosage forms, and IND-based and intellectual property-driven late-phase development or bench-to-bedside translational research. She has mentored over 15 Ph.D. and M.S candidates.
She has 5 patents, 55 peer-reviewed manuscripts, book chapters and books, and more than 140 scientific presentations.
Mojisola Adeyeye is the founder of Drugs for AIDS and AIDS patients, a non-profit organization in Nigeria.
She is also the founder of Sarah Extended Family Homes for Children, a home that caters to children from kindergarten up to university level. It is located in Osogbo, Osun State, and Ogbomoso, Oyo State.
- Ada Osakwe
Ada is one of Africa’s leading entrepreneurs, an angel investor, and a passionate African development advocate. After many years building an international career across development finance, rld, and then public service, she founded NULI, Nigeria’s fastest-growing farm-to-table beverage brand and restaurant chain that uses only locally grown agricultural produce.
Nothing compares to the experiences she has gained in the years building and running her own business. Adaosakwe.com is her way of sharing these experiences with others seeking to make their way in Nigeria’s difficult yet fascinating entrepreneurship jungle.
In December 2014, Ada Osakwe was named among the “Twenty Youngest Power Women in Africa 2014”, by Forbes Magazine. In March 2021, Ada Osakwe was awarded the Business Woman Award by Forbes Magazine.
- Nkemdilim Uwaje Begho
Nkemdilim Uwaje Begho is a seasoned Information Technology professional with over 15 years of cross-sector industry experience in Africa’s largest emerging economy, Nkemdilim combines strategic, operational and digital technology experience with a solid understanding of business transformation, change leadership and risk oversight.
She has designed and led strategy and implementation of digital marketing & digital transformation projects across Africa, resulting in enhanced customer experiences, customer acquisition & bottom-line growth, optimised and more cost effective operations and a more digitally skilled labour force within the organisations she has worked with.
Her entrepreneurial background, in-depth understanding of the global and pan-African Technology landscape with a focus on building the Nigerian Technology ecosystem through policy development, investing and mentoring, affords her a deep understanding of cutting edge innovation, emerging & disruptive technologies, as well as access to a large network of technology leaders, policy makers and investors across the continent and the world.
Nkemdilim is recognized as an Obama African Leader, Forbes’s Top Ten Female Tech Founders in Africa, Global Digital Women Top 10 Most Inspiring Women in Africa, Lionesses of Africa Top 100 Women and Ventures Africa 42 Most Innovative Africans.
- Elohor Thomas
Elohor Thomas is a Tech Entrepreneur with a mission of growing global businesses. She has a Masters in Systems Engineering (Artificial Intelligence Major), she has taken roles across software engineering, tech recruitment, education, and sales.
She is now focused on helping companies hire their ideal programmers and, helping programmers find their dream jobs. As the CEO of CodeLn, she works as the vision driver, sales engineer, and business advocate.
Elohor has also championed programs that teach young girls coding across local governments in Lagos. She is also a public speaker with TEDx.
- Funke Opeke
Funke Opeke is an electrical engineer, founder of Main Street Technologies, and CEO of Main One Cable Company, a communications services company in Lagos, Nigeria. Main One is a leading communications and network solutions provider in West Africa that built the region’s first privately owned submarine. The project cost $240-million-dollar that was completed on time and within budget in 2010. Main One is also responsible for the construction of West Africa’s largest Tier III Data Center, MDX-i’s Lekki Data Center, a $40 million investment with 600 racks capacity.⠀
As a qualified telecommunications executive, Opeke returned to Nigeria in 2005 to resume as the Chief Technical Officer of MTN after having a very successful career in the United States. Before her return, she served as the Executive Director of Verizon Communications Wholesale Division. After MTN, Opeke briefly served as an interim Chief Operating Officer of NITEL.
- Kavita Chellaram
Kavita Chellaram is the CEO, Arthouse Contemporary Limited.
In 2007, Indian-born, London-educated art collector Kavita Chellaram founded Arthouse Contemporary, an auction house based in Lagos that focuses on modern and contemporary art from West Africa. Being an avid collector, her meticulous research in art auction houses has led to the global recognition of numerous modern African masters, including Ben Enwonwu, Kolade Oshinowo, Bruce Onobrakpeya, Ablade Glover, Yusuf Grillo and Uche Okeke. She is also a trustee of the Prince’s School of Traditional Arts and a member of the African Acquisition Art Fund of Tate Modern in the United Kingdom.
Her collection covers both modern and contemporary works of art. She is interested in both emerging artists at the beginning of their careers, as well as modern masters who have influenced a new generation. In that sense, the collection is a comprehensive survey of modern African art, from works in the 1950s and 1960s to works made today.
Over the years, transmuted her passion for collecting Nigerian art into projects that have significantly impacted the local art scene.