By Modupe Gbadeyanka
The board of VFD Group Plc has been strengthened with the appointment of four new directors, who are expected to use their wealth of experience to move the company forward.
The Chairman of VFD Group, Mr Olatunde Busari, said he was excited with the “diversity of complementing competencies and functional experience has contributed immensely to our success and with the new directors, we believe they would continue to reiterate this and build our achievements in the years to come.”
On his part, the GMD/CEO of the firm, Mr Nonso Okpala, said the new directors, who have a combined experience of over 50 years across several fields including telecommunications, engineering, risk, and financial services, “have made remarkable careers and run successful businesses and the addition of such combination of experience to an already robust board will have an even more profound immediate effect on our deliberations and businesses.”
Business Post gathered that appointed were Folajimi Adeleye as Executive Director in charge of Finance, John Okonkwo as Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer, while the duo of Kelvin Orogun and Femi Akinware joined the board as non-executive directors.
Folajimi Adeleye joined VFD Group in 2018 as Group Financial Controller before his appointment as Executive Director. He is an Economics major and has experience spanning over 12 years across banks, primary mortgage institutions, asset management, pension fund administrators and not-for-profit organizations. Prior to joining VFD Group Plc, Folajimi had worked at One Finance and Investments Limited (now Carbon) and KPMG.
Before the new appointment, John Okonkwo was the Chief Financial Officer at Heirs Holdings Limited and was previously the Head of Business Assurance & Compliance in the same company. Prior to joining Heirs Holdings Limited in June 2012, he was a Manager in the Internal Audit, Risk & Compliance Services division of KPMG. John is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) and has many years of experience in Finance, Audit, Risk Management, Sustainability Services and Corporate Governance Services.
Kelvin Orogun runs Cashpot, a money remittance company in London and Lagos, which he set up after a career in banking and other financial services in Nigeria. He is a Computer Science graduate with an MBA from Cass Business School – City University London and is also a Non-Executive Director at Anchoria Asset Management limited.
Femi Akinware brings on board 24 years of accomplished leadership in telecoms. He holds an MBA and BSC in Electronics and Computer Engineering and has spent 15 years working on mergers and acquisitions, asset building, corporate development, business re-engineering, IT Consultancy, and business start-ups. Mr Akinwale is currently the CEO of COMENERGY.