Akin Fadeyi Foundation (AFF), conveners of the Corruption Not In My Country project and the FlagIt Report Corruption App, have announced the appointments of Oluwatomi Okeowo and Sinmi Akinsanmi as Programme Manager, and Vice President, Strategy and Growth, respectively.
Okeowo brings on board a rich and hefty tank of experience in the development sector ranging from the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality, Centre for Human Rights, Pretoria, South Africa; and the Empowerment of Women (UN Women). Okeowo also worked with the Pan-African Center for the Study and Support of Family.
The appointments were announced in a release issued by a member of AFF Board of Trustees, Professor Sola Akinrinade, who said: “We are excited to have Okeowo in our team, as she possesses a depth of experience, core competence and the mental energy that will complement AFF’s team of seasoned professionals to consolidate on its gained traction in the fight against corruption and the strengthening of institutional capacities.”
The Okeowo Brief
Okeowo holds a B.Sc. in International Relations from Covenant University, Nigeria; an M.A in International Development: Development Management from the University of Manchester, United Kingdom, and an M.Phil. in Sexual and Reproductive Rights in Africa from the University of Pretoria, South Africa.
Before joining the Akin Fadeyi Foundation, trail-blazing Okeowo had pushed for the ratification and implementation of the Maputo Protocol (African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa) across the continent and successfully advocated for Mauritius to ratify the Maputo Protocol.
Her appointment, which takes effect from May 1, 2021, “will be part of the imperative impetus for galvanizing of the Foundation’s vision to deepen its work in the anticorruption space,” Akinrinade continued in the release, adding:
“Okeowo will be tasked with coordinating and managing the foundation’s strategic initiatives and goals, including cementing our relationship with strategic partners and managing AFF’s various project cycles.”
Akinsanmi, the new boy on the block
Like Okeowo, Akinrinade described Sinmi Akinsanmi as “a highly accomplished strategic thinker with sterling accomplishments. His experience spans over a decade during which he has built expertise around project management, product management, operations management, strategy, and business development. He is passionate about impact and nation building; which he regularly exhibits as an entrepreneur and mentor to young professionals. Akinsanmi straightens mentees’ capacity across professional endeavors like Marketing, Growth, Innovation Productivity and Leadership.”
Akinsanmi’s professional career trajectory, the released further stated, has taken him across multiple sectors such as Fintech, Energy, Power, Retail and most recently Renewable Energy where he led many projects of national impact. He has built an inclusive collaborative leadership style that helps him retain very high performing teams that achieve exceptional results.
“As an execution expert, he has taught, mentored, and led multicultural geographical distributed teams to achieve strategic objectives and key results. He embraces opportunities – as he approaches life with faith, confidence, and optimism. He enjoys weighing ideas, analyzing systems and businesses to produce the best of decisions.
“Akinsanmi is a member of the The Association of International Product Marketing & Management (USA), a certified project manager and most recently completed a training on Sustainable Business Strategy from the Harvard Business School.”
Professor Akinrinade concluded the release, saying that: “Sinmi will bring his innovative expertise to bear in our organization’s scale-up strategy for sustainable growth plans. He will be saddled with the task of unlocking our organization’s potentials to transform opportunities into actionable projects and incubated ideas into filling social enterprise gaps. We are particularly excited to have Akinsanmi in the Team as he has committed to offering his services in social responsibility capacity. This is most commendable as the development sector grapples with the post Covid-19 era and requiring all hands-on deck to heal and reposition the world.”
