Our Team
Ike Ilegbune
Managing Partner
Ike is a seasoned consultant and has been in senior corporate and consulting roles for the past 15 years, with core areas of expertise in development financing and programme management, funding strategy, operational excellence, risk management and corporate governance. Until mid-2019, Ike served as Director of Operations for the Business Innovation Facility (BIF), a 7-year DFID-funded programme aimed at innovative collaborations with commercial and state actors towards enhancing economic opportunities for the poor using agribusiness value chains. Prior to that, he had roles on other donor-funded programmes in advocacy and improving the Nigerian business environment, especially for rural enterprise. He also served on the Board of the Convention on Business Integrity (CBi) and was had a major role, in partnership with the Nigeria Stock Exchange, in the development and implementation of the Corporate Governance Rating System (CGRS) funded by the Siemens Integrity Initiative/World Bank.
In his role as founder & senior partner at iGate Consulting, he supports a number of boards on strategic growth initiatives, governance, risk management and financing. He is also a partner with the law firm, Prof Charles U. Ilegbune & Co (SAN), and has been a qualified legal practitioner for over a quarter century. Prior to his international development career, Ike worked and lived in the UK until 2012, working first as a senior civil servant and eventually in management consulting, specializing in infrastructure project management (defence, education, transport), and strategy development and implementation. Ike held leadership positions in the delivery of the London Cycle Hire Scheme (a.k.a. Boris’ Bikes), from bid delivery, user modelling and simulation, and lean improvements that impacted positively on client expectations and customer perceptions.
Ike holds degrees in Law from University of Nigeria (LLB Hons) and the London School of Economics (LLM International Business), and also holds a business degree from the University of Warwick Business School (Masters’ in Public Administration). He is a certified project manager (Prince II Professional) and also holds a diploma in Lean Systems from the University of Cardiff. He serves on the boards of a number of companies in the agribusiness space including FarmZone Ltd and NourishingAfrica, and is an active member of the Agriculture & Food Security Policy Commission of the Nigerian Economic Summit Group (NESG) to which he was appointed in 2015.
Jide Adedeji, PhD
Lead Consultant (Food & Agribusiness Value Chains)
Dr Adedeji is a dynamic visionary, entrepreneurial academic and business owner with expertise and interest in using advanced technology to create value in every sector of the global agricultural value chain in which he has 30 years’ experience from 3 continents spanning product development and trademarks of over 30 new foods, beverages, confectionery, flavour and fragrance products. He has numerous publications, presentations and US patents in his field.
As the pioneer Chief Executive Officer of Teragro, the agribusiness subsidiary of The Transnational Corporation of Nigeria (Transcorp), he set-up the first commercial juice concentrate factory and business in Nigeria that supplies concentrates to the Coca-Cola company in Nigeria. He is an agribusiness turnaround expert and strategist with world class technical know-how and skills.
Dr Adedeji is an entrepreneur, scientist, innovator and business owner with strong interest in value added agro-industrial business enterprises in Africa and the USA, he is founder and Chief Executive Officer of Easysauces Nigeria Limited, manufacturers of Obe SauceTM a processed tomato-based sauce, which operates a state-of-the-art manufacturing plant located in Ibeju Lekki, Lagos.
Dr Adedeji has a Ph.D. and Master’s degree in Food Science from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey. He has a Master of Science degree and postgraduate Diploma in Food Science and Technology from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria and a bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Biochemistry and Nutrition from the same institution. He has various research affiliations with The Centre for Advanced Food Technology (CAFT)
in New Brunswick New Jersey. He is a professional member of the Institute of Food Technologists, Chicago, Illinois and The American Chemical Society (ACS), Washington DC and an active member of the Agricultural and Foods Division of the ACS. He is Chair of the symposium “Flavours in Non-Carbonated beverages” AGFD, Agriculture and foods division of the American Chemical Society 100th Anniversary in Philadelphia, PA. USA.
Femi Ojo
Value Chain Analyst and Agribusiness Expert
Femi is an expert in agribusiness/agriculture value chains with particular application to increasing productivity of agriculture-based commodities via sustainable agricultural production, modern agro-processing & marketing. He comes with a good knowledge of application these skills to development project scenarios, especially with reference to rural economy development & poverty reduction strategies. He has deep experience of community development issues and logistical problems of delivering community capacity development with special consideration, including on youth an on gender related issues.
Femi has worked on several agricultural development projects with special focus on agricultural value chain development & agro-based enterprise promotion, farm establishment & management, agricultural input supply and farm products/output marketing. He has delivered training consultancy on contemporary issues that focus on agricultural value chain & agro-based enterprise development, gender and youth
mainstreaming, project management etc.
He has strong expertise in Market Systems Development approaches – working in partnership with business and other market participants that improves the livelihoods and wellbeing of poor people.
Nnenna Sam-Obioha
Lead Consultant (Customer Experience & Growth)
Nnenna Sam-Obioha has spent a decade developing experience and a range of skills across various areas of financial services and telecoms operations, mainly around building and enhancing the customer experience, generating business growth and asset productivity. Her operational roles have also included the design and delivery of front and back-end customer initiatives, staff and service line management, direct marketing, customer support and branch operations management with a holistic outlook on efficiency and effectiveness. She is now focussed on supporting clients through the development of systemic customer-orientation, an area in which she is acknowledged as an expert.
Nnenna works closely with our clients to develop tailored solutions that are effective, demonstrate value and serve to embed appropriate cultures through mentoring, coaching and leadership. She holds a second upper degree in psychology from the University of Ibadan, and has a passion for healthy food and nutrition.
Kitan Babalola
Lead Consultant (Business Development, Projects & Programmes)
Kitan manages our portfolio of programmes and projects, and also leads our efforts at business development, managing client relations. She spent several years implementing and monitoring the roll out and review phases of the Corporate Governance Rating System for listed companies on Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), and as an implementation team member of the Maritime Anti-Corruption Network Africa Expansion project – a collective action program in collaboration with the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA) aimed at effective service delivery at Nigerian ports with intent for scale up across West and Central Africa. She also executed the Regulatory Conversations Series, a quarterly public-private dialogue between Nigerian regulators & key stakeholders on resolving regulatory bottlenecks.
Following the completion of her Biochemistry degree at the University of Ibadan, where she received the Most Intelligent Female Award – from the National Association of Biochemistry Students Press Organization (NABSPO), she joined Stephen Adams SRF, undertaking social research, monitoring and evaluation. She then went on to become a creative and confident professional with nine years of experience working with non-profit organizations on policy analysis, education and social/economic development projects. Kitan is highly skilled in project development/support, research, content creation (reports, proposals, grant/bid applications) and monitoring of quality service delivery.
Princess Odiakosa
Lead, People Development & Client Engagement
Over the course of her 15-year career, Princess has gained deep experience in varying roles, including human resource development, strategy consulting, sales & marketing, and strategic communications. She has overseen the successful delivery of assignments also successfully secured opportunities that have driven growth in a niche international development/agribusiness advisory and programmes delivery firm by over 70% to become one of the top-5 providers in Nigeria. She thrives in creativity and in building and nurturing business relationships.
She joined iGate from dbrownconsulting where she served in several roles, leaving as Director of Sales & Marketing. She has responsibility for creating revenue new streams by structuring training content, identifying alternate training delivery channels, expanding target markets, identifying new trends in digital marketing, evaluating new technologies and ensuring our brand remains at the forefront of industry development.
A graduate of the Lagos State University, Princess completed her degree in Marketing and has since gone on to participate in extensive training and development sessions of the course of her career, including the Harvard Business School’s Mentorship Program.
Ibrahim O. Abu
Ibrahim is iGate’s first staff member, and has served with distinction as the Operations
Manager since inception. He has excellent pedigree in the delivery of operational solutions,
and extends this as required to client engagements.
He holds an honours degree in accounting from the University of Abuja, Nigeria.
