Ayodeji Balogun is the Country Manager for AFEX Commodities Exchange Limited (AFEX Nigeria) and the Business Lead for Africa Exchange Holdings Limited in West Africa, where he is pioneering the development of a private sector led commodities exchange and warehouse receipt system.
Prior to joining AFEX, Ayodeji played a key role in private sector enabling policy initiatives at the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) including designing the Nigerian National Competitiveness Council and drafting a bill to regulate the non-profit sector in Nigeria. Ayodeji led TEFs effort to catalyze the business start-up ecosystem in Lagos. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Lagos Angel Network – a members only early stage investment club.
He worked as an analyst with Unilever Nigeria Plc and an associate at Doreo Partners where he contributed to the development of Nigeria’s Agriculture Transformation Plan in 2011. He was a visiting consultant to DFID (GEMS3) and the Ministry of Agriculture on value chain development and coordinator of the West African chapter of Aspen Network of Developing Entrepreneurs (ANDE).
Ayodeji is an MBA from the Lagos Business School and has a degree in Mechanical Engineering and a diploma in Heavy Equipment Engineering from Penn Foster University, Scranton, US.