The earnings of United Africa Company of Nigeria (UACN) Plc, a company operating in the food and beverage, real estate, paint, and logistics sectors in Nigeria, jumped by 675.6 percent in the first half of 2024, according to its latest financial statement.
The group’s after-tax profit increased to N9.5 billion in 2024 compared to N1.2 billion in the same period of 2023, aided by a foreign exchange gain of N9.4 billion in its finance income.
Further information about the company’s management team
Folasope Aiyesimoju, group managing director sits on the boards of Chemical and Allied Products (CAP) Plc. He is the managing director of Logistics Limited, Grand Cereals Limited, UAC Foods Limited and also UPDC.
Aiyesimoju is a finance professional with experience spanning corporate finance, principal investing, and private equity. Throughout his career, he has lived and worked in Sub-Saharan Africa’s most important economies gaining knowledge of the operating landscape in the region.
He holds a B.Sc (Hons) degree in Estate Management from the University of Lagos, where he was awarded a Certificate of Excellence in Real Estate Development and Finance, and earned the right to use the CFA designation in 2006.
Funke Ijaiya-Oladipo, group finance director has over 17 years of operational finance, corporate finance, and capital markets experience. She was appointed as Group Finance Director at UAC in 2021.
Before this appointment, Ijaiya-Oladipo was UAC’s Group Chief Financial Officer for the company’s finance function. Her previous roles with UAC include serving as Head of Investor Relations and being responsible for strategic stakeholder management.
She holds a B.Sc. degree in Economics and an M.Sc. degree in Project & Enterprise Management, both from University College London (UCL). She is a CFA charter holder and a member of the advisory board of Sponsors for Educational Opportunity Africa (SEO Africa), a non-profit leadership organisation.
Debola Badejo, group investment director is an operations and finance executive with over 16 years of experience spanning business management, principal investing, and, investment banking across North America, Europe, and Africa.
As the group investment director of UACN, he is responsible for driving value creation and growth across UAC’s portfolio companies and seeking new investment opportunities for the group.
He spent over 10 years as a Corporate Finance professional in various leading investment banks, including Standard Bank in Lagos, London, and Johannesburg and Morgan Stanley in New York, where he worked on multi-billion-dollar transactions for large corporations across North America.
Badejo graduated with a B.Sc in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia in May 2008 and holds MBA degrees from both Columbia Business School and London Business School through the schools’ Joint Global Executive MBA program.
Queenette Durosinmi-Etti, chief operating officer is a seasoned operations executive with a diverse background in the legal sector and financial services.
As the CFO of UACN, she is responsible for boosting efficiency through strategic planning, human resources management, process optimisation, risk management, and technology governance.
Before joining UAC, Durosimi-Etti was an executive director at Goldman Sachs Inc. in London where she led cost-cutting initiatives and ‘new market entry’ projects in the Global Markets Division.
She has over a decade of professional experience in Nigeria and the UK and holds a Law Degree from King’s College London and an MBA from London Business School.
Oluyemi Oloyede, MD/chief operating officer of UAC Foods is a people and business expert with over 16 years of supporting and leading multi-national teams with excellent results.
He has attributed tremendous results in companies such as Procter & Gamble, Kellogg, and most recently Kerry Group as General Manager, West Africa where he led a team of commercial, finance, research, development and applications, supply chain, and operations colleagues to support Kerry’s customers in West Africa.
Oloyede graduated from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile Ife, Nigeria with a First Class Honours degree in Mathematics and a Master in Business Administration (MBA).
He started his career at Procter & Gamble West Africa as Key Accounts Manager, covering territories across Nigeria including Ibadan, Abuja, Kaduna, Zaria, Jos, Port Harcourt, and Lagos.
He later became the National Sales Operations Manager covering all of Procter & Gamble’s sub-distributors in Nigeria and then as Regional Sales Manager responsible for Lagos, Ogun, Edo, and Delta States.
He also worked at L’Oréal Central West Africa as National Sales Manager for Nigeria and Ghana before leading Kellogg’s business in West Africa during which the $450M joint venture between Tolaram Group and Kellogg was consummated.
Temitope Omodele, chief financial officer of UAC Foods is an experienced accountant with over 16 years in audit and assurance, technical accounting, group reporting, budgeting, business planning, corporate finance, and finance operations.
She is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) and the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) and has a BSc in Accounting from the University of Lagos and an MBA from Lagos Business School.
She started off her career at KPMG, and joined UAC in September 2020 as a Technical Accountant and Reporting lead, she served as Senior Vice President of Finance, overseeing finance operations at the Holdco and group reporting.
Temitope is currently a non-executive director on the board of Livestock Feeds Plc.
