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 a Director 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 had a major role, in partnership with the Nigeria Stock Exchange (NSE), 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 and senior partner at iGate Consulting, he supports a number of boards on strategic growth initiatives, governance, risk management and financing. Ike holds degrees in law from University of Nigeria and the London School of Economics, and also holds a business degree from the University of Warwick Business School. 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 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, 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.
Jide is an entrepreneur, scientist, innovator and business owner with a strong interest in value-added agro-industrial business enterprises in Africa and the US, he is founder and Chief Executive Officer of Easysauces Nigeria Limited, manufacturers of Obe Sauce™ a processed tomato-based sauce, which operates a state-of-the-art manufacturing plant located in Ibeju Lekki, Lagos.
Jide holds a Ph.D. and masters degree in Food Science from Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey. He has a masters 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.
Manish Shankar
Lead, Sustainable & Climate Smart Development
Manish is an expert in developmental entrepreneurship, with a special interest in agriculture and social enterprise. He was with PricewaterhouseCoopers (India) until 2022, and prior to that led Intellecap Advisory Services’ Agriculture practice for nearly a decade. He has almost three decades of experience in the development sector of which the last 11 years have been spent providing advisory support to corporations, social enterprises, private foundations, DFIs, and International development organisations. Manish specialises in designing evidence-based and economically sustainable livelihood programs. His areas of expertise also encompass strategy consulting, landscape studies, go-to-market studies, technical support to FPOs, and implementation support to economic development programs in the agribusiness space. He is committed to transforming the way in which agriculture is practiced in the global south through the promotion of Climate Smart agriculture and circularity in the food and beverages sectors, and is a firm advocate for schemes that deploy appropriate agricultural technologies that enhance the incomes and food security of smallholder farmers sustainably.
Manish holds a post-graduate degree in Forestry Management from the Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM), Bhopal. He has worked extensively with clients across Asia and Africa.
Pat Ekpo
Pro-Poor Development & MERL Expert
Patricia is a seasoned MERL professional with over a decade of experience in international development, specializing in private-sector development and governance projects. She excels in designing and implementing context-specific MERL systems, ensuring data quality, and translating analysis into actionable insights for continuous improvement. With expertise spanning fieldwork and international collaborations, Patricia engages effectively with diverse stakeholders across cultural contexts, and has experience of using data outputs to lead behaviour change programmes that address gender, youth and entrepreneurship challenges.
Her strong leadership, communication, and strategic decision-making skills, enhanced by an Executive MBA, enable her to coordinate teams and resources efficiently, delivering impactful results within budget and timelines while driving sustainable development
Nnenna Olike
Sustainability & Strategic Communications Specialist
Nnenna is a versatile project manager, researcher and communications specialist, with expertise in sustainability communications, project management for traceability and organic certification projects, and EUDR validation exercises. Passionate about change-influencing information, she excels at sourcing, distilling and designing communication strategies that enhance clients’ access to target audiences.
She has completed assignments in the public, private and development sectors, latterly delivering services on projects funded by the BMGF, IFC, World Bank Group, UNDP, UK FCDO and several state and regional government actors.
Nnenna blends technical precision with creative storytelling in crafting reports, articles and other publications on sustainability, the environment and corporate governance. She holds a degree in law and qualified as a legal practitioner in 2011.
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 and marketing. He comes with a good knowledge of applying these skills to development project scenarios, especially with reference to rural economy development and poverty reduction strategies. He has extensive experience of community development issues and logistical problems of delivering community capacity development, with special consideration to youth and gender- related issues.
Femi has worked on several agricultural development projects with special focus on agricultural value chain development and agro-based enterprise promotion, farm establishment and management, agricultural input supply and farm products/output marketing. He has delivered training on contemporary issues that focus on agricultural value chain and 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 low income earners.
Nnenna Sam-Obioha
Customer Experience & Growth Lead
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
Business Development, Projects & Programmes Lead
Kitan manages our portfolio of programmes and projects, and also leads our 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 and 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
People Development & Technology Lead
Over the course of her 15-year career, Princess has gained extensive experience in varying roles, including human resource development, strategy consulting, sales & marketing and strategic communications. She has also overseen the successful delivery of technology-led assignments and 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-five 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 is responsible 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.
