Olaedo Osoka is an exemplary leader and board member that has demonstrated a track-record of executive leadership, raising and deploying capital targeted at socio-economic impact and execution.
For the last two years, she has been the Chief Executive Officer (West Africa) of Daystar Power Group, a company providing renewable energy solutions to businesses and industries in Africa.
Before her West Africa-wide role, she was the CEO of the group in Ghana, a role she rose to after leading business development in Nigeria. She was a pioneer member of the Daystar team, holding board positions and leading the company’s expansion in West Africa from Nigeria into Ghana, Togo, Cote d’Ivoire and Senegal culminating in an acquisition by Shell.
During her tenure, she co-led the raising of over $60million from investors such as Shell, Verod, Morgan Stanley, STOA and development financing institutions (DFIs) such as IFU (the Danish DFI), DEG (the German DFI) and Proparco (the French DFI).
Under her leadership, these funds were deployed to finance, install and operate solar power plants across more than 300 locations including some of the largest installations at industrial plants in West Africa.
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Beyond the positive impact on the environment, her work has helped clients like the Coca-Cola bottler, the United Nations, Ecobank’s Pan-African headquarters among other blue-chip companies to reduce their power and operational costs, whilst delivering superior financial returns to shareholders.
As part of her role, she also worked with the International Finance Corporation towards increasing female participation and diversity in the renewable energy industry, and also structured mentoring and training programmes to equip women to lead in the industry.
Olaedo is passionate about scaling businesses which provide socio-economic impact and make life better. The resonating feedback about her style of leadership includes being authentic, values-driven, impactful, energising and the right mix of people and process orientation.
Her work was recognised by the Africa Solar Industry Association in 2020 which named her “Woman of the Year in Solar”, and she has been recorded as the youngest female CEO in the industry at the forefront of the transition to clean energy in West Africa.
She previously led business development and governance at Sunray Ventures – a venture builder that establishes high-growth businesses in Africa. Prior to this, she worked as a Lawyer at Udo Udoma and Belo Osagie.
Olaedo graduated with a first-class degree in Law from the University of Essex and holds a Master of Law with a distinction from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She is currently undergoing an Executive MBA at INSEAD.
