Former director of partnerships and evaluation, Tony Elumelu Foundation, Ifeyinwa Ugochukwu, has assumed her new role as the foundation’s CEO.
Mrs Ugochukwu assumed the position on Monday. She becomes the third CEO and first African to take the position.
In December 2018, the foundation announced Ugochukwu’s appointment as CEO and the transition of her predecessor, Parminder Vir, to the advisory board of the foundation.
In her role, Ugochukwu will focus on scaling the impact of the 10-year $100million Tony Elumelu entrepreneurship programme and strengthening relationships between African and global entrepreneurship ecosystem, to empower African entrepreneurs to create jobs and wealth on the continent.
She will also take responsibility for positioning TEFConnect – the digital networking platform for African entrepreneurs – as the go-to hub for forging business relationships, sharing experiences and distributing knowledge across Africa.
Ugochukwu brings almost two decades of corporate experience, including her most recent role as the director of partnerships and evaluation, to her new position.
She is a proven leader with business vision, emotional intelligence and the ability to bring people together. Her ability to shape how the foundation should position, partner and engage with the wider development ecosystem is what the foundation needs as it enters its next stage of scale, expanded impact, monitoring, evaluation, and intelligent mining of its proprietary data on African entrepreneurship.
Speaking on behalf of the Board of Trustees, Tony Elumelu, founder of Tony Elumelu Foundation said: “We are confident that Ifeyinwa is the right person to launch the foundation into its new growth phase. Her appointment as CEO strengthens our resolve to scale the impact of our commitment and unlock opportunities in the entrepreneurship ecosystem across the continent. I have always said that no one but us will develop the African continent, and this is a further demonstration of this resolve.”
