Abimbola Adebakin

Abimbola Abass Jimi-Adebakin (born 1971) is a Nigerian business executive. She is the CEO of Advantage Health Africa ^[1], following her tenure as the Chief Operating Officer of the Tony Elumelu Foundation^[2] supporting its $100m Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme.^[3][4][5][6] A strong advocate for African development and empowerment through entrepreneurship, she has spoken on the subject at various fora across Africa.^{[7][8][9][10][11][12]}

Early life and education

Born in 1971, she had her early education in Nigeria. She has a degree in Pharmacy and a Masters in Business Administration from the University of Lagos and is currently pursuing her executive Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) from Cranfield University, UK.^[13]

A Certified Performance Technologist (CPT) of the International Society for Performance Improvement (ISPI), USA,^[14] she is also an accredited Master Trainer for the Global Forum/IFC Board Training programme for Board Directors and a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management (CIPM) of Nigeria.

Career

She is responsible driving collaboration and capacity development initiatives in the health sector via Advantage Health Africa. Abimbola was responsible for setting up the African Agribusiness Incubation Fund, a fund promoted by the African Agribusiness Incubation Network (AAIN) www.africaain.org. Prior to this, she was the Chief Operating Officer of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, where she demonstrated her organisational design expertise and programme management skills to help drive the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme successfully. Abimbola grew her consulting expertise, leading the consulting arm of the Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC)^[15] and previously at Accenture. She has worked on various projects across public, private and not-for-profit institutions including Financial, Healthcare, Power distribution, Regulatory and Governance Services.

As an entrepreneur, she had run and sold her own pharmaceutical start-up Caraale Pharmacy.^[16]

Tony Elumelu Foundation

Abimbola Adebakin was the Chief Operating Officer (2015 - 2016) of the Tony Elumelu Foundation where she led the operations of the Foundation’s programmes. She played a critical role in the implementation of the Foundation’s flagship project, the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme.

Personal life

She is married with a son, and lives in Lagos. She enjoys walking ^[17], small team events and fine dining.

References