Following the need to strengthen its group’s executive management team and sustain its strategic business growth trajectory, Africa’s indigenous conglomerate, Dangote Industries Limited, has made a new organisational reshuffle.
In the rejig, while the erstwhile Chief Operating Officer, Mr. Olakunle Alake, is now the Group Managing Director, the Group Chief Risk Officer, Dr. Adenike Fajemirokun, has been elevated to the office of Group Executive Director, President’s Office, where she will take on new roles in addition to her schedule as the Risk Officer. Mr. Austine Ometoruwa was elevated as Group Executive Director, Corporate Finance and Treasury.
Earlier, the Board of Dangote Cement Plc, Global, had announced the appointment of Cherie Blair, wife of former British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and Mick Davies, as Independent Non-Executive Directors.
The President, Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, 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.
“The new appointments are to strengthen the Group’s executive management team and consolidate on its strategic business growth trajectory.”
Alake had been the Chief Operating Officer of Dangote Industries Limited since 2007. He served on the board of Dangote Sugar Refinery Plc, NASCON Allied Industries Plc, Dangote Cement Plc and Dangote Flour Mills Plc. His experience spans 34 years, which covers banking, management consultancy and manufacturing industries.
Fajemirokun, a consummate Risk Management and Insurance specialist, has over 18 years diverse experience in developing and implementing risk management strategies in financial, engineering, manufacturing and other industries.
Ometoruwa is an accomplished international investment banker. Prior to joining the Dangote Group as the Group Executive Director, Corporate Finance and Treasury, he provided advisory services to the Dangote Group over the past 25 years in his capacity as the Executive Chairman of his firm, Boston Trico Capital LLC.
Blair is a leading barrister with over 35 years’ experience in arbitration, mediation, public international law, human rights, employment law and European Community Law. She studied Law at the London School of Economics and graduated with a First Class Degree in 1975.
In 2000, shortly before the implementation of the Human Rights Act, Cherie and 21 other prominent Barristers set up a ground-breaking legal practice, Matrix Chambers. She has also argued cases in the House of Lords, one of the most well-known being the Begum case. She is an accredited Advanced Mediator under the ADR Chambers/Harvard Law Project and an Elite Mediator with Clerksroom.
Sir Davies is currently, Chairman of Macsteel, a global trading shipping company, and Chief Executive of the Conservative Party of the United Kingdom.
Davies has occupied several directorship positions. From 2001 to 2003, he was Chief Executive of Xstrata Plc, one of the world’s largest global diversified mining and metal companies; Executive Director and Chief Financial Officer of Billiton Plc; Chairman of Billiton Coal and Executive Director of South Africa’s state-owned Eskom.
