Toyin Umesiri is an entrepreneur and the convener of the Trade with Africa Business Summit. After over a decade working in corporate America; at Fortune 1 (Walmart) and Fortune 150 (Whirlpool Corporation), she made the big leap to full-time entrepreneurship to follow her passion for Africa. Toyin is the Founder/CEO of Nazaru.
Nazaru LLC. is a U.S. based company focused on driving increased trade with Africa. They have grown out of the desire to see Africa emerge as a global economic force. Nazaru is positioned to support and help grow exports, particularly to the United States under the African Growth & Opportunity Act (AGOA).
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Umesiri is passionate about empowering women and she has had the opportunity to serve on various leadership committees that advanced women’s agenda. In 2016, she was published in a book called ‘Leading Women’ and was also featured as a leading and inspirational woman in technology on the platform.
For over a decade, Toyin has led multiple multi-year, multi-million dollar projects across the supply chain, manufacturing, procurement, global sourcing and merchandising and this has allowed her to know what it takes to run a large business end to end.
She also led the team responsible for designing the global sourcing and supplier management solutions at Walmart.
Toyin is ever inspired by the story of Sam Walton, founder of Walmart, who she describes as a visionary leader that focused on serving the needs of rural America over 50 years ago. “The company he founded, on strong business principles, then grew to become the number 1 company in the world. My experience at Walmart has taught me what vision, hard work, humility and teamwork can accomplish.” She said.
As CEO of Nazaru, she leads a U.S. based company that drives increased U.S. commercial interest in Africa by not only fostering Business to Business (B2B) dialogue that leads to mutually beneficial arrangements but also showcasing Africa’s exporters and brands.
On starting Nazaru, Toyin made an emergency trip to Nigeria in 2015 after her father passed on. She recalls that that decision to come back home at that time changed her life completely. She says so because while in Nigeria, she wrote a mini biography of her father which gave her deeper enlightenment on how he lived his life and selflessly served his community in various impactful ways.
After the trip, she made up her mind “to be of greater service to my generation” Umesiri said. She had no idea how this great passion to effect positive changes in Africa will happen, but after 2 years of research, it became clear and she knew exactly what to do.
Returning to Arkansas, she made a commitment to be a blessing to Africa. “Being naturally situated in the global headquarters of Walmart, it was there that I first ignited my dialogue on Africa”. Umesiri disclosed.
In conversations with various stakeholders and business executives around the world, it was evident to Toyin, that there was a huge gap in information available about Africa. This knowledge dissemination is now informing the type of work she does through Nazaru LLC and the event ‘Trade with Africa Business Summit”.
She calls her organisation Nazaru because, according to her, she needed a deep symbolism that resonated with her findings, and Nazaru has its roots in the scriptures (John 1:46) and is short for Nazareth. The question raised in that scripture “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” and Philip answered, “Come and see”, was indeed a prompter for Toyin, who understands that in regards to Africa, “There are many who still do not think much of Africa, but we can prove them wrong. Africa is filled with hard-working men and women, young and old, focused on positioning themselves for a better future.” Toyin stated.
