Yemi Lawal - Nigeria 🇳🇬

Yemi Lawal is a strategy and marketing specialist with many years of experience across different sectors and countries in Europe and Africa (mainly Uganda, Ghana, Zambia, Cameroon and Nigeria).

She has exclusively worked in the Agriculture for over 2 years, with a focus on the cocoa sector in Nigeria where Yemi is planting cocoa and also processing cocoa inspired confectionary products.

Yemi is a graduate of the Lagos Business School Agribusiness Management Program, she holds an MBA from University of Westminster Business School, UK. She is also a chartered member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM), UK.

Yemi specialises in supporting businesses particularly in the early stage of business growth. She is the co-founder of yoede, a brand that offers seafood finger food. She also mentors entrepreneurs on the Tonu Elumelu Foundation and the Cherie Blair foundation for women.

"Developing the agriculture sector in Africa will be key to ending hunger and to food security in Africa. Beyond this, in Nigeria (and most of Africa), Value addition in Agro-Allied produce will be a key solution to economic growth.

The Champion programme would enable me to develop relevant knowledge and transfer that knowledge to other agri-business specialists in Africa and together we can facilitate the paradigm shift within the sector. My vision is to get to a place where we retain more value from agricultural produce locally - not just for cocoa but to eventually have a model that works across various sectors."

Agribusiness Academy says: "Yemi has a vast experience across a number of countries and a clear understanding of what is needed to progress the sector. We're delighted to be a part of her continuing impact"