Women in business: Mojolaoluwa Aderemi-Makinde

Mojolaoluwa is the Head of Brand and Reputation for Google in sub-Saharan Africa. She is passionate about technology and its ability to unlock human potential and improve the general good. At Google, she has led business development of various products and initiatives, as well as led sales across Africa, managing Google’s largest clients and growing industries from scratch. More recently, she is focused with her team on delivering Google’s commitments in Africa to drive economic opportunity on the continent, by supporting small business development / entrepreneurship, job creation, education and gender equality through Google’s flagship program ‘Grow With Google’.

At Google, they believe technology is an enabler, and can help drive inclusive economic growth and development, therefore supporting small businesses to have access to the resources they need to expand, grow, and thrive in the digital economy. This is at the heart of Google’s work in Africa.

“Nigeria is a focus market for us. We recently launched an initiative, Google Hustle Academy, a boot camp style training programme designed to help small business owners position their businesses for investment opportunities, and build viable business models for the future. Our goal for 2022, is to support 5,000 small businesses via the Google Hustle Academy. We are well on our way, and the feedback from our participants so far has been very encouraging.” She said.

Gender equality is a topic Mojolaoluwa is deeply passionate about. She is deliberate about driving gender representation in their programs at Google “Examples include our Grow With Google program where up to 49% of the people we have trained are women. In addition, we have also run several programs and initiatives specially for women. “Aderemi-Makinde said.

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As part of Google’s philanthropic arm, Google.org is committing $1m in charitable funding to support programs helping women entrepreneurs to grow their businesses. They have also dedicated their March cohorts for ‘Hustle Academy’ to women owned small businesses, alongside other capacity building initiatives.

Furthermore, Mojolaoluwa advocates and champions meaningful representation of women in business, and contributes to thought leadership and research on gender diversity both locally and internationally, in range areas including Artificial Intelligence.

She has a wealth of experience spanning multiple industries and geographies, having also worked as a strategy consultant with Accenture amongst others. She is a strong diversity and inclusion champion and advocates for representation of girls and women in technology.

Mojolaoluwa is a mentor and advises on various programmes and boards. She has been recognised as one of the 40 Leading Ladies driving the Sustainable Development Goals in Nigeria. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Lagos, and a Masters in Management and Strategic Information Systems from the University of Bath.