• Thursday, November 07, 2024
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Kemi Irinoye, Founder/Executive Director of the KEA Group

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Kemi Irinoye is gifted in entrepreneurial expressions in media production, culinary services and corporate hospitality. She is also a management consultant, conference speaker, humanitarian, trained facilitator, volunteer and excellence advocate.

Irinoye is the founder and executive director of the KEA Group, being the lead chef at KEA Caterings Limited, executive director at KEA Media Limited, and managing director at KEA Corporate Hospitality Limited, having served organisations including the Oyo state government, royal palace of the Ooni of Ife, Guaranty Trust Bank, Vitafoam, MNet, and UAC Foods.

As a chef, she founded KEA caterings at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife over 10 years ago as a sit-in restaurant before pivoting into event catering, curating bespoke dishes and recipes, and producing healthy food options including snacks and smoothies. KEA Caterings has since then garnered an extensive portfolio working with local and international brands as well as government agencies and institutions. She has also served as consultant to other food businesses and partnered with other restaurants to enhance structure and improve profitability.

As a multimedia executive, Kemi ventured into media production in 2017, joining Libra Multimedia Limited as administrator and rising to become general manager in 2018. She assumed responsibility for coordinating the production crew and teams, growing the viewer subscription of the company’s LibraTV channels from 50,000 to 485,000 subscribers, introducing cinema distribution to the company’s productions and successfully managing the release of two movies via cinemas among other channels.

She was appointed to the board of JCI Nigeria consecutively in 2021 where she led a team to partner with the Oyo state government to deliver the largest gathering of youths in the city for the international youth day, an event that honoured ten outstanding young persons in Nigeria. She was conferred with the JCI senatorship, the highest honour of life membership awarded to a member of the Junior Chamber International globally.

As an excellence advocate, her penchant for capacity development and knowledge transfer inspired her to establish the Kemi Irinoye Foundation in 2024 with a focus on equipping young people for entrepreneurial success, providing educational opportunities for young adults, guiding and empowering young women through capacity developing initiatives, and promoting the Christian faith.

Testimonials from her debut initiatives under the foundation, the ‘Christian Entrepreneur Conference’ held in April 2024 as well as the ‘Extraordinary Woman Conference’ in August 2024 are testament to her commitment to development and her excellent spirit. As a volunteer, from 2020 to 2021, she was deputy leader of the Young African Women Congress Network for Nigeria, a non-governmental organisation that addresses women in leadership, politics, entrepreneurship, corporate life, education, gender violence and reproduction. She also routinely volunteers as a facilitator for several youth based organisations and institutions across Nigeria.

ASSOCIATE EDITOR, BUSINESSDAY MEDIA LIMITED.

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