Ndbowale Odumade Adeoye

Senior Investment Professional, Africa Finance Corporation

BOWALE Adeoye is a senior development finance and investment executive with 18+ years of global experience spanning multiple sectors across 3 continents (Africa, North America, and South America).

In her current role at the Africa Finance Corporation (an investment grade multilateral finance institution with an US$10 billion balance sheet size), she has led the development, financing, and operations of 20+ projects valued at over $10 billion. Her investment experience spans diverse sectors, including transportation, infrastructure and supply chain, power, and natural resources. She has worked across the investment value chain including business development, project development, investment appraisal and structuring, portfolio operations and value creation. Prior to joining the Africa Finance Corporation, she worked in technology consulting, business strategy, and commercial credit for industry leaders such as Accenture, Chevron, and GE Capital.

Bowale holds several board positions with companies and non-profit organisations. She has an MBA from Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and a Bachelor of Science in Management Information Systems from the University of Minnesota. She is a fellow of the Archbishop Tutu Leadership Programme and has completed Executive Education at Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. She has also completed board training from the Institute of Directors UK / Theboardroom Africa and obtained a certificate in Company Direction from the Institute of Directors UK.

Bowale believes that SEZ (Special Economic Zone/s), which is an area in a country that is established with the goal of attracting foreign direct investment, promoting industrialisation, diversifying economies, and creating jobs, have been instrumental in transforming economies across the globe, especially those that have in-built regulatory and operational advantages for the businesses that function within them.

According to Adeoye, unfortunately, the performance of many of the SEZS established in Africa have not met expectations due to various factors. She says it may be more instructive, however, to analyse the successes of African SEZS and learn from the strategies employed in their setup. For her, incentives established by regulating authority, partnerships with the private sector, accessibility to infrastructure network and services, and also industry clusters, are points which highlight the critical reasons behind the optimal performance of a select number of SEZS that have been able to achieve successes over the last few decades.

According to her, leveraging lessons learnt from a select number of successful SEZS, stakeholders can increase their chances of success and, where feasible, consider changes that can be made to effect turnaround and contribute to the industrialisation and growth of their economies.