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Agra Innovate Lagos

Folusho Olaniyan OON F.IOD
Programme Director at Agrainnovate West Africa
Speaker

Profile

Folusho started her career in the food industry as a management trainee with A.G.Leventis Nigeria. Plc. in 1988. She rose through the management cadre to become Head, Sales & Marketing in 2005. She joined UTC Nig Plc in 2005 as Head, sales & marketing to later become Managing Director/CEO in 2007 till 2013, when she stepped aside to become an entrepreneur. She set up Contact Consulting Nig. Ltd; a Market Research, Business advisory and advocacy, organization, focused on Agricultural value chain development and investments in 2014. She has served as consultant/ market analyst to Partnerships In Niger Delta PIND project, CAVA Cassava Adding Value for Africa and as expert advisor to Dalberg Global advisors on the IDH Market study on commercial opportunities in agricultural value chains in Nigeria. Folusho also served as Business Development and Marketing Adviser to MADE (Market For Development in The Niger Delta), funded by DFID through DAI UK. She also served as a consultant to Palladium Group United Kingdom, on the West Africa Food Markets Pilot Programme in 2016. Folusho served on the judging panel of the Rockefeller foundation Cassava Yield wise $1million dollars Challenge in 2016, to promote innovation in cassava post-harvest practices. She served as a consultant to the World economic forum Grow Africa project, on data assessment of maize, soya bean, and coffee sectors in Tanzania, Ghana, and Ethiopia in 2017. Folusho also served as a member of the project advisory council of BASICS-a 4 year project cassava seeds system economic project funded by Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.

In January 2020 Folusho was appointed Chairman, Board of Directors Psaltry International, the first company in Africa to produce cassava based Sorbitol, and a leading producer of food grade cassava starch, and High quality cassava flour, with an out grower scheme of over 3500 farmers. In June 2020, Folusho is an Independent Non-executive Director of Odua Investment Company Ltd. Odua investment group is the investment hub of south western Nigeria. OICL is a strategic investment and asset management firm founded in 1976 to hold and manage the industrial and commercial assets of companies owned by the governments of the 6 South Western states in She is the 2nd Vice Chairman, board of trustees, Youth in commercial agriculture development program, Ekiti state Nigeria. Folusho also served as a consultant to Giz, the German cooperation, SEDIN, & NICOP, on the 4 year Nigerian competitiveness programme co-financed by the European Union and BMZ to conduct the identification and mapping of crowd funding platforms, and facilitation of MSMEs and Farmers in selected value chains in Nigeria.

Folusho is a fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing UK, and a fellow of the Institute of Directors. She is currently the Chairman, Agriculture and Agro allied committee of the Institute of Directors of Nigeria; and a member of the executive committee of the Institute of Directors Nigeria. Folusho holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the University of Lagos, Nigeria, and a professional postgraduate Diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Cookham, United Kingdom. She attended a certificate programme in organizational leadership in 2009 at the Johnston institute for responsible leadership at the University of Pittsburgh Pennsylvania. Folusho has also attended two fellowship programs of the United States Department of Agriculture USDA, on Women in Agriculture, and snack food development at the Iowa state University USA between 2015 and 2017. Folusho is a Cochran fellow of the United States Department of Agriculture USDA. In recognition of her contribution to the Nigerian food industry, Folusho was awarded National honours of Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON) in September 2014 by the President and Commander in Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.