Billed to speak at this year’s edition of the Women in Marketing and Communications Conference and Awards (WIMCA) as a Keynote Speaker is Mrs. Adeboye Oyeyimika.
Adeboye Oyeyimika is the Managing Director of Cadbury Nigeria /Mondelez International West Africa. Appointed in April 2019, she became the first female MD of the company in its over 50 years of existence in Nigeria.
After consciously building a career in finance, strategy, and business administration, both in Nigeria and the United Kingdom for over two decades, Oyeyimika had spent all the years preparing for the top. Her appointment was a testament to the company’s commitment to promoting gender equality, diversity, and inclusion, as well as its sharp eye for fine talent.
After her basic and secondary education, she proceeded to the University College Cardiff, Wales, where she bagged a Bachelor of Science honours degree in Economics & Accountancy in 1986. She also got executive management education certification in Finance and Business Administration from the Institute of Management Development (IMD), Lausanne, Switzerland between 2000 and 2007.
After graduation, Oyeyimika started her career as an articled clerk with a United Kingdom accounting practice, Midgley Snelling & Co., Chartered Accountants and was on this job while she qualified as a Chartered Accountant. She became a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, and a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Nigeria.
She returned to Nigeria in the 90s and took up a job with the erstwhile Nigerian Accounting and Tax Practice of Arthur Andersen & Co for a couple of years. From there, she moved to Nigerian Bottling Company Plc in 1994 as the Director of Finance and Chief Financial Officer for about 13 years.
In November 2008, Oyeyimika was headhunted to join the board of Cadbury West Africa as Finance and Strategy Director, West Africa; and a director on the board of Cadbury Ghana Ltd. She was also a member of the audit committee of the company until October 19, 2016. She is a member of the executive management committee, and a member of the risk assessment committee of Cadbury Nigeria.
She spent a total of 10 years and seven months with Cadbury Nigeria Plc before she was appointed as MD of the company in April 2019. Her LinkedIn profile confirms that she also became MD, Mondelez (Cadbury) West Africa, two months later. Mondelēz International is the parent company of Cadbury Nigeria Plc.
Outside work, she sits on the Board of Trustees of the Timothy Adeola Odutola Foundation, named after her father. The foundation targets its philanthropic activities towards providing educational, industrial, and technological development for Nigerian youths that may be unable to gain admission into tertiary institutions for their higher education.
Oyeyimika Adeboye also serves as the chairperson of the advisory board of Genesis House, a home for disadvantaged young women, which was set up by the Freedom Foundation. She is also a member of the board of The Parity in Income and Education Foundation.