After over eight years of working across investment banking, private equity and hedge funds at several of various Wall Street firms, I made the decision to move back to Nigeria in 2017.  

I had left Nigeria in 2004 on a scholarship to study Accounting at Howard University and upon graduating from Howard University, I joined Merrill Lynch as an investment banking analyst after spending two summers with the bank as an intern. From there, I moved on to Goldman Sachs where I worked with the portfolio analytics team within the Private Equity Group under the Goldman Sachs Asset Management Division.  Following this, I spent 5 years as an investment professional in the Alternative Investment Partners Hedge Fund team within Morgan Stanley Investment Management, focused on opportunistic, relative value, mortgage and secondary strategies. My passion for investing in and nurturing African startups saw me co-found two early-stage investment clubs (Kernel Fund and Rana Capital) which have made investments in several African startups.

The decision to move back to Nigeria was driven by my need to make an impact in my homeland and to use the experiences I have gained over the years on Wall Street to drive positive change back home.  While I had great experiences working on Wall Street, I felt Nigeria would be where I will make more of an impact.  Upon moving back, I joined TalentBase Nigeria Limited as Chief Operating Officer. I spent eight months with TalentBase before transiting to Itanna, a member of the Honeywell Group.

I joined Honeywell Group in January 2018 to help build Nigeria’s first corporate venture capital platform. Itanna is a platform which serves to facilitate the growth of innovative startups and transform them into strategic enterprises that will further propel economic growth across Africa and the world. It has been a great experience for me so far at Honeywell Group. The environment, culture, and professionalism at the organisation are world-class. 

Building any business from the scratch can be overwhelming and complicated without adequate abutment and proper backing. That said, it’s been a wonderful journey at Itanna, as the support from the Executive Management of the Honeywell Group has been amazing. The firm has thrown its full weight behind the Itanna initiative, providing the long-term funding and human capital resources needed to make it a success. I am excited for what is to come, as Itanna looks forward to continuing to ignite businesses, ignite passion and ignite change across Nigeria, Africa and the World. Working with Honeywell Group, I’m living my passion of investing and nurturing Nigerian startups.