Mr. Maurice Ekpong

Executive Director and Editor-in-Chief at African Journal for Sustainable Development (AJSD)

Chair

Maurice is a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants (IMC-Nigeria) and a Certified Management Consultant (CMC®). He currently serves as Global Executive Director and Editor-In-Chief at the African Journal for Sustainable Development (AJSD), a Pan-African think-and-do tank promoting Afrocentric Development across Africa.

He is an inspiring, multidisciplinary and results-oriented business leader with over 22 years’ experience providing best-in-class business development, research, market intelligence and projects planning and development services across a wide array of sectors spanning agriculture, finance, healthcare, media, education and infrastructure development.

He has extensive experience building Business to Business (B2B), Business to Government (B2G), and Business to Customer (B2C) relationships with multinational and multilateral institutions from Europe, Asia and across Africa with meticulous and successful business execution.

Between 2016 and 2019, Maurice was appointed by Government to the Board of the Cross River State Agriculture and Food Technology Agency. He is also a Founding Board Member at Maurana and between 2012 and 2019 conceptualized and ‘project-managed’ the organizations multidisciplinary $200 million “Niger Greenfield Project”, proposed to develop sugar, ethanol and electricity co-generation on 16,000 hectares of land in Niger State Nigeria; bringing together an array of stakeholders including the Federal Government of Nigeria through the National Sugar Development Council (NSDC), the Niger State Government, 13 land lord communities and technical and financial partners from Israel, Brazil and Nigeria.

Maurice is a sought-after thought leader and a regular guest analyst on TV and other media platforms, proffering solution to important development challenges in Africa. He was Chair of the 11^th Africa Sugar Conference in Nairobi in April 2024. He also presented a thought-provoking poster of his study titled “Can Food Waste be Weaponized Against Hunger in Africa?” at the 12^th International Conference on Sustainable Development (ICSD) which held virtually and in-person in New York City from September 19-21, 2024.

Maurice is an author, a policy and development expert, a certified international mediator and an African Research Councilor with the Wheeler Institute for Business and Development of the London Business School.

His latest book titled "Management Consulting for Rookies", was recently recognized by the Governing Council of IMC-Nigeria, Nigeria’s premier regulatory institute for the management consulting profession, and has been adopted as mandatory reading for new and established members of the institute.