Board Chairman
Ogechi Adeola is a Professor of Marketing and a Deputy Vice-Chancellor at the University of Kigali, Rwanda. She also serves as an Adjunct Professor at Torrens University, Australia. She is the immediate past Head of the Department of Operations, Marketing, and Information Systems at Lagos Business School, Pan-Atlantic University, Nigeria. Adeola holds a Doctorate in Business Administration and a Master of Business Administration from Alliance Manchester Business School, United Kingdom. She also earned a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Nigeria and obtained a Barrister-at-Law certificate from the Nigerian Law School, after which she was called to the Nigerian Bar. She serves as an Independent Non-Executive Director of Cornerstone Insurance Plc, Nigeria, and as a Business Administration Advisory Board member of the University of the People, California, USA. She also served as a member of the Board of Directors at the University of Kigali until her appointment as Deputy Vice-Chancellor in January 2024. Prior to her academic career, she spent over 14 years in Nigeria’s financial sector, notably starting her journey at Citibank Nigeria.
A prolific researcher, writer, and teacher with extensive interdisciplinary interests in Strategic Marketing, Digital Marketing, Tourism and Hospitality, Entrepreneurship, and Gender in Africa, Adeola is ranked No. 1 scientist in Nigeria (Marketing), No. 6 in Nigeria (Business & Management), and among the top 12 scientists in Africa (Marketing) by the global Alpher-Doger (AD) Scientific Index as of January 2024. Additionally, she is listed by SciVal (Elsevier) among the top 100 authors in Nigeria by scholarly output across all subjects from 2020 to 2023. Her co-authored papers have won Best Paper Awards at international conferences (2016–2019) and the prestigious Emerald Literati Award for Outstanding Paper in 2022.
Beyond her academic achievements, Adeola has garnered international marketing consultancy experience across Africa, Asia, the UK, and the USA. She is a Consultant for Afreximbank, focusing on the African Sub-Sovereign Governments Network (AfSNET) Initiative, and provided consulting services to the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS) on the 2022 Building Africa Report, which focused on women’s inclusion in the cement, concrete, and construction industry. In 2022, she served as the National Consultant for an International Labour Organization project promoting women’s economic empowerment in Nigeria. Additionally, she is the founder of the Digital Business Tutelage for Women Empowerment in Africa Initiative (DBTWEAi), a non-profit platform designed to enable young African women to unlock their potential. Her contributions to women’s empowerment were recognised with the prestigious Female Achievers Recognition Award in March 2022, co-hosted by American Corner in Lagos. In June 2023, she was honoured with The Peak Performing Woman of the Year 2023 Award in the Super Achievers category for Executive Education by The Peak Performer. In 2024, she was recognised as one of the 50 Most Influential Educators in Global Hospitality by the International Hospitality Institute (IHI)