Women in business – Adenike Adeyemi

Adenike Adeyemi is a development sector professional with over 17 years of experience in non-profit management, enterprise development, education and youth enablement strategies. She currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer FATE Foundation, Nigeria’s foremost non-profit organisation focused on enabling aspiring and emerging Nigerian entrepreneurs to start, grow and scale their businesses.

The vision of Fate Foundation is to harness the strong entrepreneurial culture of Nigerians by providing the business incubation, growth and accelerator support required to fully explore their innovative potential.

Their goal is to enable aspiring and emerging Nigerian entrepreneurs start, grow and scale their businesses while also facilitating the development of an enabling business environment and thriving ecosystem.

Their sustainability model is driven by funding and technical support from local and international partners and enabled by a strong volunteerism strategy.

Since joining the FATE in 2015, Adenike has deepened the organisation’s strategic footprint in the Nigerian entrepreneurship ecosystem through business incubation programmes; sector programs for startups; growth and sector focused accelerator programs for high potential businesses; funding and technical linkages; entrepreneurship ecosystem research, policy dialogue and advocacy.

Under her leadership, FATE has expanded digital technology to support her entrepreneurs through programmes like the Aspiring Entrepreneurs: Digital for startups across the country; the msmehub.org free resource platform; and Sky’s The Limit which connects aspiring entrepreneurs with mentors and advisors.

FATE has also published five (5) major research studies on the Nigerian entrepreneurship ecosystem and the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise space. She has also led the development of key multi-year funding and partnerships valued at over $1.5million with key local and international organisations including Youth Business International (YBI), Facebook, Citi Foundation, the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Netherlands, Accenture, Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, Ford Foundation and Mitsubishi Corporation. FATE

Foundation is now an accredited member of the YBI, a member of the Orange Corners Network and a Program Member of the Global Entrepreneurship Research Network.

Not long ago, FATE Foundation collaborated with Facebook and announced the implementation of the second Series of the Aspiring Entrepreneurs Digital Programme (Aep-digital) in seven cities across Nigeria. The program, through the collaboration, sought to provide entrepreneurial awareness for participants and it ran for four weeks in Lagos, Ilorin, Port Harcourt, Benin, Abeokuta, Kaduna and Aba.

On reasons for the collaboration, she says “The advent of social media and its effect on digital marketing, customer service, people management, market and competitor research, as well as other digital solutions for accounting and payment management, have added to the relevance of a digital component to the training which has only resulted in enhancing and deepening the richness and impact of the program which is one of the reasons for the partnership with Facebook.”

Adenike’s previous experience includes Manager, Public & Development Sector Services, KPMG Nigeria; pioneer Executive Director, Nigeria Leadership Initiative; and Learning Support Programme Management at the New Jersey Educational Opportunity Program.

She started her career in 2001 with the West African NGO Network and has Interned at the New York based Africa America Institute. It was while working at WANGONET that she got accepted into the Junior Achievement Nigeria, Venture in Management Programme (VIMP) 2002 class. She credits the programme as the main pivot for expanding her horizons and career perspective in the non-profit and development space.

Adenike has a Masters of Public Administration and a Masters of Arts in Diplomacy and International Relations from Seton Hall University, New Jersey, USA (2005) and a Bachelor of Arts in Linguistics from the University of Ibadan (2001).

In 2018, Adenike served as the Chair on the National MSME Council Committee on Improving the Business Environment. She is currently a Director on the Boards of Budgit; Afritickets, Oxbridge Tutorial College Foundation, the Nigerian Association of Franchise Business Owners and also serves as the African Member on the YBI INSIST Group.