Leadership

Advisory Board

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Mr. Kola Karim

Chairman

Kola Karim is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Shoreline Natural Resources Ltd. He has a proven ability to start companies from scratch and nurture them to success, an aptitude for spotting new business and creating new opportunities and is also adept at building and nurturing business partnerships with leading international companies. His current portfolio consists of businesses in the Construction, Commodity Trading, Oil and Gas, Engineering and Power sectors.

Kola Karim is also the current Chairman of the Board of Directors of Costain (West Africa) plc, Nigerian Ropes plc, and serves as director in seven other companies including Shoreline Power Company Ltd, Shoreline Energy International Ltd, Ecobank Nigeria plc, Schlumberger Testing & Production Services Nigeria Ltd, Trans Amadi Facilities Ltd, grange Education Ltd and African Eagles plc.

Meet Our Team

Bankole Eniola

Chief Engagement Officer

Bankole leads DFS Africa’s client engagements and also the head of the Strategic Implementation business unit. He has over 15 years experience in investment banking and project financing in leading financial services organisations such as HSBC, UBS, Deutsche Bank, Lloyds Banking Group and Royal Bank of Scotland.

Bankole's ﬁelds of expertise include Deal Origination and Structuring, Strategic Planning, Risk Analysis, Financial Modelling, Transaction Structuring and Deal Execution. Bankole’s core deliverables over the last decade include setting up several public‐private partnerships, design of public procurement processes in infrastructure financing, pricing and regulation of infrastructure services; public and private sector performance monitoring and macroeconomic and ﬁscal performance evaluation.

Bankole is one of the experts on the African Economic Platform (AEP) working on the region's 10-year strategic plan for infrastructural development. He also consults for the African Development Bank (AfDB) and he is a regular contributor to infrastructure financing dialogues on the continent. Bankole has a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Ado-Ekiti, Nigeria, a Master’s degree in Infrastructure Financing from University College London and an MBA from Birmingham University.

Olakunle Olaniyi-Edwards

Chief Strategy Officer

Olakunle Olaniyi-Edwards leads Strategy for DFS Africa and also head the transaction advisory unit. His experience cuts across the ﬁnancial sector, extractive industries and Public Sector ﬁnancing. His ﬁeld of expertise hinges on core understandings of Financial theories (Risk, Returns (Expected and Actual), Capital Allocation, Capital Structure, Pricing and Valuation), Financial Markets (Cash/Money, Equity, Debt and Derivatives markets), and Financial products (Cash, Equity, Debt and Derivatives).

His core skills are creating ﬁnancial models on well researched assumptions and data, analyzing core ﬁnancial statements, create pro‐forma artifacts, core valuation of companies, transaction origination, stakeholder management and corporate governance advisory.

He’s particularly keen on the social developmental effect of a well-functioning market with good price discovery, transparency and deep liquidity pools, and the dent it makes on poverty. He has worked on numerous projects within leading Investment Banks such as HSBC, Barclays Capital and Lloyds Banking Group. Kunle has a bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from the University of Ibadan and attended executive courses in Investments and Capital Markets at Harvard University, USA.

Olukayode Yemi Afolabi

Chief Operating Officer

Olukayode leads operations for DFS Africa and he is also head of Research and Funding business units. Kayode’s expertise is in Deal Structuring, Raising Capital, Board Governance and Operational Management to ensure strategic imperatives are successful. Prior to co-founding DFS Africa, Kayode worked with leading Investment Banks and FTSE 100 multinationals such as UBS, HSBC, Columbia-Threadneedle and British Telecom’s leading large scale revenue-generating and regulatory programs.

Kayode has a bachelor’s degree in industrial chemistry from the University of Ilorin Nigeria and has attended several executive level courses at Harvard University and SAID Business School (University of Oxford) covering subjects such as Project Financing, Investments & Portfolio Analysis and Entrepreneurship. Kayode’s professional mission is to make a significant and sustainable contribution to socio-economic development in Africa.

Zacharia Cassim

Senior Financial & Transaction Analyst

Based in Dar es Salaam, Zacharia is responsible for delivering DFS Africa’s offerings across the project life cycle, He is also the founder of ZA Advisory. Prior to DFS Africa, Zacharia worked as a financial advisor in the Deal Advisory practice at KPMG East Africa. He has country working experience in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. Zacharia's core expertise lies in financial modelling and project structuring, with a special focus on capital and infrastructure projects. He brings a fresh perspective on private investment in infrastructure.

Zacharia has worked with clients operating in a range of industries, including real estate, financial services, telecommunications, agribusiness, pharmaceuticals and consumer goods.

Zacharia graduated from the University of Nottingham with a BA Honors in Economics and Finance. He obtained MSc in Infrastructure Investment and Finance as a Chevening Scholar at the Bartlett School of Construction and Project Management, University College London. He is an associate member of the Association of Certified Chartered Accountants (UK).

Oluwasegun Meduoye

Chief Technology Officer

Segun leads the Technology team at DFS Africa. As the CTO of DFS Technology, his role is to define and execute the DFS Technology road map and ensure the success of our Africa CDI digital platform while growing the technology delivery organisation.

Segun is an experienced technical leadership professional with more than a decade of experience leading teams of all sizes, delivering enterprise-level projects within Financial Services. He has delivered multiple high profile regulatory projects under challenging circumstances and to aggressive timelines, proving his ability to grasp and deliver the customer goals under pressure.

With experience spanning industries such as Banking, Insurance & Formula One, he has deep and varied knowledge of both technology & delivery, and a passion for excellence in software engineering and brings this wealth of knowledge with him as he builds the culture and direction of the team.

He has an Honours Degree in Computing Science and is currently intent on pursuing his MBA.