Meet Adenike Fajemirokun, the first female executive director of Dangote Group

Since it started operations in 1978, Dangote Industries Limited, has not had a female occupying a high position in the company.

Adenike Fajemirokun becomes the first female to be appointed Group Executive Director, President’s office for the company. Her appointment was announced by Aliko Dangote, President/Chief Executive of the Dangote Group, who was very excited to see a female occupying such a high position.

This move, according to a statement is meant to “strengthen the group’s Executive management team and sustain its strategic business growth trajectory,” Business insider reported.

Dr Fajemirokun was the Risk Officer of the Dangote Group before her appointment as a Group Executive Director. Her experience as a consummate Risk Management and Insurance specialist spans over 18 years. During that period, she has had a wealth of experience developing and implementing risk management strategies in Engineering, Financial Manufacturing and other industries.

Her appointment as Chief Risk Officer of Dangote Group was in 2013 and she led the Risk Management Functions for the Group and its other Businesses and supervised the company’s governance model and enterprise risk program.

A part of her roles, she developed and oversaw the processes to identify, assess, monitor and reduce risks that could inhibit the achievement of the company’s goals and objectives. She was also responsible for managing the Group’s Insurance, Procurement Portfolio and Logistics.

Fajemirokun also has a knack of an entrepreneur. In 2010 she established and headed her own risk management consultancy firm. The company, AFRisk Management Consultants Limited “developed the enterprise risk management frameworks for some of the country’s major institutions including Central Bank of Nigeria, First Bank Nigeria and First Bank Capital Plc.”

The first female Group Executive Director has a rich education portfolio under her belt as well. She holds B.Eng. in Civil, Structural and Fire Engineering and a PhD in Risk-Informed Engineering both from the University of Manchester, UK.

She is also a Fellow of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and Specialist member (SIRM) of the Global Institute of Risk Management.

Her repertoire of expertise doesn’t end there, Dr Fajemirokun is also a visiting professor at the University of Manchester, UK.

She has been credited internationally for her work with the Operational Riskdata Exchange Association (ORX), Institute of Risk Management, UK and she is a member of the Lagos State Research and Innovation Council.

She started her career with Ove Arup and Partners as a Fire Engineer and was in charge of carrying out a qualitative and quantitative risk assessment of various assets and creating risk assessment structures for quantifying identified risks.

She later joined Deutsche Bank AG, UK, and served in senior leadership roles such as Director and Global Head Operational Risk, Head of Transaction Management Group for leverage finance at the Corporate and Investment Bank.

Before she narrowed in on the Risk Management field, she held positions in finance as a front office quantitative analyst at Goldman Sachs London and New York.

In addition, Dr Fajemirokun worked with First Bank of Nigeria where she created the operational risk management framework for the bank as well as its Business Continuity Certification by the British Standard Institute. She also managed and tracked the firm’s risks across all directorates, transaction services and alternative investments.

Speaking to her appointment, Aliko Dangote, President/Chief Executive, Dangote Group said, “it is exciting seeing a female occupy such a high position. We are gender sensitive and create equal opportunities for both male and female to get to the top.”