- Former CEO, Parminder Vir, OBE joins the Foundation’s Advisory Board
Ifeyinwa Ugochukwu, former
Director of Partnerships and Evaluation, Tony Elumelu Foundation has assumed
her new role as the Foundation’s CEO on April 1. [Ifeyinwa
becomes the third CEO and the first African to become the Chief Executive
Officer of the Tony Elumelu Foundation.]
In December 2018, the Foundation,
the leading African philanthropy committed to empowering African entrepreneurs,
announced Mrs. Ugochukwu’s new appointment as CEO and the transition of her
predecessor, Parminder Vir, OBE to the Advisory Board of the Foundation.
In her role, Mrs. Ugochukwu will focus on scaling
the impact of the 10-year $100million Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme
and strengthening relationships between the African and the global
entrepreneurship ecosystem, to empower African entrepreneurs with the result of
creating 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.
Mrs. 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 and
evaluation, and intelligent mining of its proprietary data on African
entrepreneurship.
Speaking on behalf of the Board of Trustees, Tony
O. Elumelu, CON, Founder of the 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,” he
said.
