Zainab Olisamah is the Director, Financial Planning and Analysis at IHS Nigeria. She is a results-driven professional with proven expertise in financial planning, business management and decision support/analysis. She is a highly accomplished and conscientious chartered accountant with outstanding success in building and leading high-performing teams. She has a flair for influencing across all levels in the finance and non-finance community to support overall business objectives and deliver excellent and superior business results.
As the Director, Financial Planning and Analysis of IHS Nigeria, she is continuously reviewing and evaluating business performance. This process requires adequate time management to meet daily demands. Zainab joined the company because she wanted to transform her career but didn’t realise how much transformation she would get. She says the two words that best sums up her career are learning and evolving. According to her, the principles she has learnt from IHS have gone beyond her career and impacted her life. Before joining the company, she was content with just working to earn a salary, but she developed a passion for her job when she realised she was playing a crucial role in an organisation providing telecommunication network infrastructure that benefits millions of subscribers.
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Olisamah believes that gender concerns should be considered in corporate policy development and implementation because organisational policies need to reflect gender parity. “As humans, it may be easy to focus on policies that you can relate to; hence formal policy will not promote gender equality if institutions do not include women in decision making. Policy development relating to gender parity should remain an ongoing process for every organisation.” She said.
Zainab holds a master’s degree in Business and Financial Analysis from Manchester Business School, a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and Accounting from Covenant University, and an Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) qualified accountant. In 2021, she was awarded a full scholarship to attend the Women in Leadership Programme at London Business School. The programme is designed for outstanding female leaders at a significant inflexion point in their careers.
She has also been actively involved in IHS’ broader business initiatives, including being a business Coach at the Sustainable Solutions Africa Conference and a mentor for the Women in IHS Network (WIIN).
Outside of work, Zainab is also a published author, an Associate member and mentor at the Women in Management, Business and Public Service (WIMBIZ), a founding member of the Children of Haggai Foundation and Country Lead for the Beibei Haven Fertility Foundation.
