Mrs. Folusho Olaniyan, OON

Mrs. Folusho Olaniyan, OON, is an Independent Director on the Board of Odu’a Investment Company Limited. She chairs the Board Investment Committee and also a member of the Board Governance and Nominations Committee. She is also a Director of Odu’a Investment Foundation. She is the current Chairman, Psaltry International Company Ltd, an agro-allied Company in Oyo State, Nigeria, with giant strides in the production of various cassava-based industrial products (i.e. starch, flour, sorbitol, and glucose).

Mrs Olaniyan is an Independent Expert/Member, Technical Committee on the British American Tobacco Nigeria Foundation providing technical support and guidance on the Foundation’s programmes and strategies

A former Managing Director of UTC Nigeria Plc, Mrs. Olaniyan, started her career at A.G. Leventis Nigeria Plc in 1988 as a Trainee Manager, and she rose to become the pioneer Head of Sales and Marketing, Leventis Foods Nigeria plc in 2000, a post she held till 2005 when she joined UTC Nig Plc as Head, Sales and Marketing. She was appointed Managing Director/CEO UTC Nig Plc in 2007; a post she held till 2013, when she stepped aside to become an Independent agribusiness consultant. Mrs. Olaniyan is the founder of Contact Consulting Nigeria, a market research business advisory services organization that is facilitating agribusiness investment promotion and bridging gaps between investment hypothesis and impactful results.

Folusho served on the judging panel of the Rockefeller Foundation Cassava Yield Wise $1million USD Challenge Fund in 2016, for the promotion of innovation in cassava post-harvest practices.

She has served as a Consultant and Advisor to many international organizations on interventions in the agricultural sector. These include among many others : the World Economic Forum Grow Africa Project on data assessment of maize, soya bean, and coffee sectors in Tanzania, Ghana, and Ethiopia in 2017; Palladium Group UK on the West Africa Food Markets WAFM 1MGBP Fund launched in 2016; Dalberg Global Advisors on the Rockefeller Cassava Yield Wise Innovation Challenge 2016; Business Development and Marketing Adviser to Market for the development of the Niger Delta MADE – a DFID funded project managed by DAI; CAVA 11 Project funded by Bill and Belinda Gates Foundation; etc.

She is a Consultant to the Industrial Cassava Stakeholders’ Association of Nigeria.

Folusho served as a member of the Project Advisory Council of BASICS; a 4-year cassava seeds system economic project funded by Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation from 2017-2020.

Folusho was the Program Director of Agra Innovate West Africa, (2016-2022), an annual agribusiness trade show conference funded by the Informa Connect Group United Arab Emirates. Informa is the world’s largest publicly quoted exhibition company with over 6000 plus attendees.

Folusho led the advocacy team on the AGRA $240,000USD funded policy reform project titled: Advocacy for the passage of the fertilizer control bill, the Nigerian independent warehouse regulatory agency bill, and the Presidential assent to the Nigerian Seed Council Bill from 2018 to 2020.

Folusho is the Chairperson of the Agriculture and Agro-allied Committee of the Institute of Directors Nigeria.

She is a member of the Governing Council of Ekiti State University, and the Chairman of the Public Private Partnerships Committee of the Council. She is also a member of the Tenders Committee of Ekiti State University College of Medicine.

She holds a Certificate (Executive Education) from Harvard Business School. She is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Marketing U.K. and a Fellow of the Institute of Directors. She holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the University of Lagos and a Professional Postgraduate Diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Cookham, United Kingdom.

Folusho is an expert member on the technical committee of British American Tobacco Nigeria Foundation.

In recognition of her contribution to the Nigeria Agricultural sector, she was awarded the National honours of Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON) in September 2014 by the President and Commander in Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.