The global oil and gas sector has been a male-dominated industry for many years. According to a study conducted by McKinsey in 2020, women make up just 15% percent of the world’s oil and gas workforce; 17% of the power and utilities sector and 32% of the renewable energy workforce. In Africa and the Middle East, says the study, women make up just 9% of senior management positions in the energy sector, with gender diversity decreasing with seniority. Women make up less than 8% of technical jobs in the oil and gas sector, and just 9% of management positions in the utility sector.
However, many African women are making their mark in this field through exceptional skills, hard work and unwavering determination. They are considered role models for young women who wish to enter this industry. Africanshapers has selected 100 African women in the oil and gas industry who are significantly contributing to the development of the sector on the African continent. The personalities on this list were placed randomly and the ranking is not synonymous of the importance of one personality over another.
Proscovia Nabbanja (Uganda)
Proscovia Nabbanja, 43, is the CEO of Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC), effective August 12, 2019. Prior to her appointment, she was the director of upstream operations at UNOC. She has over 21 years of experience in the oil and gas industry. UNOC’s role is to manage the Ugandan government’s commercial interests in the petroleum sector and ensure that the resource is developed in a sustainable manner. The company also aims to increase the participation of Ugandans in the oil and gas sector through employment and the provision of goods and services.
Prior to joining UNOC, Proscovia Nabbanja was a senior geologist in the Petroleum Exploration and Production Department of Uganda’s Ministry of Energy and Mineral Development, the first woman to hold that position. She joined the ministry in 2000, after graduating from Makerere University, Uganda’s largest university. Over the years, she was promoted and, as of May 2013, held the rank of senior geologist. In this capacity, she supervised a team of professionals who reviewed technical proposals from oil companies on all matters related to oil wells. The data collected by her team is used to estimate the amount of underground oil and gas in the country. She has led the estimation and reporting of oil resources and reserves in Uganda, monitoring field operations and managing oil data.
In addition, Proscovia Nabbanja has served on a number of inter-ministerial committees and has also worked on a number of donor funded programs such as Oil for Development and USAID.
Proscovia Nabbanja holds a B.Sc. in Chemistry and Geology from Makerere University (Uganda) and an M.Sc. in Petroleum Geoscience from Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine in London. She also holds an MBA from Imperial College Business School and a Certificate in International Oil and Gas Management from the Institute for Petroleum Management Inc. in Austin, Texas, USA.
Mariam Kane-Garcia
Since September 2019, Mariam Kane-Garcia has been the Managing Director and CEO of Total South Africa and Executive Vice President for Marketing and Services in Southern Africa. She is the first woman to hold this position at Total South Africa. She has been with the company for nearly 20 years.
Mariam Kane-Garcia grew up in Mauritania and Côte d’Ivoire. She attended ESCP Business School in Paris and joined Total shortly after graduating from ESCP in 2001. Since then, she has held various positions in finance, strategy and business development in Total’s offices in France, the UK, Singapore and Vietnam. Thus, she was Manager Operations and Business Development / IS Projects at Total Asia Pacific, based in Singapore; Director of Finance and Corporate Affairs at Total Vietnam; Vice President Strategy – Africa Middle East at Total Marketing and Services, based in France as well as Director of Business Development at Total Exploration and Production, based in London.
In 2019, Mariam Kane-Garcia moved to South Africa to serve as executive vice president for marketing and services in Southern Africa, and also as CEO and managing director of Total South Africa.
Mekwe Lindiwe (South Africa)
Since November 2020, Mekwe Lindiwe has been the CEO of Republic of Mozambique Pipeline Investments Company, a joint venture established in 2004 to transport natural gas from Mozambique to markets in Mozambique and South Africa for the economic benefit of the region. Prior to this, Mekwe Lindiwe was the Chief Executive Officer of Petroleum Agency South Africa, the South African regulatory authority for upstream oil and gas activities. In this position, she provided strategic direction to Petroleum Agency SA by promoting, facilitating and regulating the upstream petroleum industry and representing the Agency on these issues in various forums. In addition, as General Manager of the Regulatory Division of Petroleum Agency SA, she was responsible for the regulation of oil and gas exploration and production. Prior to joining Petroleum Agency SA, Mekwe Lindiwe served as Director General, Mineral and Mining Policy, at the South African Department of Minerals and Energy, where she was responsible for managing the minerals and mining legislative process for the South African Department of Minerals and Energy.
Mekwe Lindiwe holds a Master of Laws degree in Corporate Governance from the University of the Western Cape, South Africa.
Elohor Aiboni (Nigeria)
Appointed in March 2021 and taking office on Sunday, August 1, Eloho Aiboni is the first woman to be named CEO of Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company Limited (SNEPCo), a company that has been operating in Nigeria since 1937. Prior to her appointment, she was, since 2018, in charge of asset operations for “Bonga,” a deepwater floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vesselx operated by Shell in Nigeria, located 120 km southwest of the Niger Delta. “Bonga has produced over 900 million barrels of oil since it began operations in 2005.
A chemical and environmental management engineer, Elohor Aiboni joined Shell 20 years ago and has worked on asset transfer and oil and gas facility operations projects. She has progressed from field engineer to senior management positions in production operations; project and asset management; and operations preparation and assurance. Most notably, she served as commercial advisor to Shell’s executive vice president for sub-Saharan Africa from January 2009 to September 2011. From October 2011 to March 2014, she also served as Senior PTA (Productio Technology) Engineer on the Kachagan oil field (AGIP KCO) in Kazakhstan, including managing relationships with other oil companies in the North Caspian Operating Company (NCOC) consortium. With estimated reserves of 13 billion barrels of oil, Kachagan is one of the largest offshore oil fields in the world.
Prior to his role as Bonga’s Asset Manager, Elohor Aibohi led production for the shallow offshore as Asset Manager for the Sea Eagle FPSO in the Niger Delta of Nigeria.
Elohor Aiboni holds a Master’s degree in Integrated Environmental Management from the University of Bath, UK, and a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Benin, Nigeria.
During her tenure as Bonga Director, the asset has received numerous awards, including the CEO HSSE Awards, Upstream Impact Award and the 2019 Shell Group Asset of the Year Runner.
Andrée Akoumany (Togo)
Since April 2017, Adrée Akoumany has been the CEO of Togo Oil Company, a group of companies three major oil companies: Complexe pétrolier de Lomé (COMPEL), one of the largest oil depots in Africa; Société togolaise de stockage de Lomé (STSL) as well as T-Oil Togo Oil Company whose distribution network is one of the largest in Togo.
In addition, Adrée Akoumany is the current president of the Togo Oil Industry Professionals Group (GPP).
Long before being appointed General Manager of Togo Oil Company, Adrée Akoumany worked in multinational oil companies such as Shell, Chevron and Texaco, where she climbed the ladder. She has served as Sales and Marketing Manager and Human Resources Manager for Shell in Togo; Human Resources, Real Estate and Legal Manager for Shell in Cameroon; Human Resources Manager for Chevron in Togo and Benin; and Assistant Manager for Administration, Personnel and Marketing for Texaco in Togo and Benin. At Shell, in addition to her duties, she was an evaluator and coach for the general managers and senior executives of the group’s French-speaking subsidiaries.
Phindile Masangane (South Africa)
Since July 2020, Phindile Masangane has been the Chief Executive Officer of Petroleum Agency South Africa (PASA) the South African regulatory authority for upstream oil and gas activities. Previously, Phindile Masangane was the Managing Director of South Africa’s state-owned energy company, CEF (SOC) Ltd, which is the holding company for PASA. In this position, she was responsible for clean, renewable and alternative energy projects. In partnership with private companies, Phindile Masangane led the development of energy projects, including deal structuring, project economic modeling and financing on behalf of the CEF group of companies. She also worked with the national government in developing energy policy and regulations to diversify the country’s energy mix.
Between 2008 and 2010, Phindile Masangane was Head of Strategy for the CEF Group of Companies, where she led the development of the group’s long-term strategic plan, Vision 2040+, as well as the group’s gas strategy.
Between 2010 and 2013, Phindile Masangane was a partner and director at KPMG, responsible for the energy advisory practice. In this capacity, she led a successful $2 billion capital raising for the Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority’s (ZESA/ZPC) hydro and coal plant expansion programs.
Phindile Masangane holds a PhD in Chemistry from Imperial College London and a Master of Business Administration (MBA), specializing in Finance, Marketing and Human Resources, from the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa.
Atty. Saifuah-Mai Gray (Liberia)
Since August 2018, Atty. Saifuah-Mai Gray is the president and CEO of the National Oil Company of Liberia (NOCAL). Described as a savvy advocate, Atty. Saifuah-Mai Gray is considered a skilled contract negotiator in both the natural resources and traditional sectors. An expert in negotiation and litigation, she is known to have brought to NOCAL a thorough understanding and application of domestic and international regulatory requirements and legal framework, coupled with international best practices to enhance transparency and accountability, competitiveness and sustainability.
Long before joining NOCAL, Atty. Saifuah-Mai Gray worked at the International Law Group (IGL), an international law firm with a focus on oil and gas. There she held the position of General Counsel and then Managing Director. According to the firm, she demonstrated exceptional leadership and strategic direction, which contributed significantly to IGL’s overall success.
Atty. Saifuah-Mai Gray holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from the Louis Arthur Grimes School of Law, Liberia, and a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics from the University of Liberia. She is a member of the Liberian National Bar Association, the Liberian Women Lawyers Association, and the JSGB Legal Services, an association of several prominent women lawyers in Liberia committed to ensuring the human rights of women and children in Liberia.
Amina Benkhadra (Morocco)
Amina Benkhadra is the Director General of the Office National des Hydrocarbures et des Mines (ONHYM) of Morocco. She began her career in 1982 at the Office de la Recherche Minière et de la Participation (OMRP), first as head of the mining studies department, then as head of the mining research department, and finally as head of the investment division. In 1994, she was appointed Director of Mines at the Ministry of Energy and Mines. She is a member of the board of directors of several mining companies, subsidiaries or partners of ONHYM.
Amina Benkhadra is also an executive member of the Board of Directors of the National Office of Oil Research and Exploitation (ONAREP) since August 2000. She is president of the Federation of the Mining Industry (FDIM) and served as Morocco’s Minister of Energy, Mines, Water and the Environment between 2007 and 2012. She was also Secretary of State in charge of the development of the mining sector (1997-1998).
Amina Benkhadra holds a degree in civil engineering and mining from the Ecole des Mines de Nancy, France, and a PhD in engineering sciences and mining technologies. She also holds a double degree in management from Columbia University.
Eghosa Oriaikhi Mabhena (Nigeria-UK)
Eghosa Oriaikhi Mabhena is the CEO in Africa of the multinational oil company Puma Energy, a leading energy company that supplies, stores and distributes petroleum products in 48 countries on six continents. Eghosa Oriaikhi Mabhena has worked in the energy sector for over 20 years and her expertise includes corporate and business strategy, business development, operational and financial leadership, operations management, contract management, engineering and technology, supply chain and manufacturing.
She was an executive director at Baker Hughes, a subsidiary of General Electric, and a Houston-based U.S. oil and gas company specializing in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing chemicals, among other things. There, Eghosa Oriaikhi Mabhena managed business units in Europe, Africa, Russia-Caspian, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region. She also spent 9 years with Schlumberger, a multinational oilfield services and equipment company.
Eghosa Oriaikhi Mabhena holds a Master’s and Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from University College London and an MBA from the Instituto de Estudios Superiores de la Empresa (Institute of Advanced Business Studies), better known as IESE, located in Barcelona, Spain. She spent 17 years in the energy sector and is the founder of AWEinEnergy, which aims to bring more women into CEO and management positions in the sector.
Véronique Moampea Mbio (Cameroon)
Véronique Moampea Mbio is the general manager of the Cameroonian oil depot company (SCDP), the first and only company to ensure the storage and distribution of petroleum products throughout Cameroon. Véronique Moampea Mbio is the first woman in Cameroon to head a hydrocarbon company. She holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Douala, Cameroon and a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the same university. Prior to her appointment as General Manager of SCDP, she was Deputy General Manager of the Hydrocarbon Price Stabilization Fund (CSPH) in Cameroon.
Taelo Mojapelo (South Africa)
Since June 2020, Taelo Mojapelo has been the CEO and Vice President of British Petroleum (BP) Southern Africa, a company that owns more than 500 service stations across South Africa and owns 50% of the largest refinery in Southern Africa, called Sapref, located in Durban, South Africa. Taelo Mojapelo joined British Petroleum (BP) Southern Africa in April 2020 as head of commercial optimization and procurement for Southern Africa. She previously held the same position at Mondelez, a U.S. multinational food company.
Prior to her appointment at Mondelez South Africa, Taelo Mojapelo was head of planning and logistics at the South African subsidiary of US multinational food company Kellogg. Taelo Mojapelo was the director of integrated business planning, logistics and customer service for sub-Saharan Africa, with a focus on revenue growth management. Prior to joining Kellogg, she spent nine years with South Africa Breweries as a supply chain development consultant and leadership and capability development coach. Mojapelo also spent two years as Managing Director of DHL Exel in South Africa.
Taelo Mojapelo holds an MBA (Master of Business Administration) from the University of Pretoria; a Masters in Environmental Engineering from Cambridge University, UK and a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Technology from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.
Cyrine Draif (Tunisia)
Cyrine Draif is currently the General Manager of Ola Energy Cameroon, the CEO of the Cameroonian Equatorial Lubricant Manufacturing Company (SCEFEL) and the Managing Director of LOSEC (Libya Oil Services – Export of Oil and Gas Products).
Cyrine DRAIF has more than 18 years of experience in the marketing and distribution of petroleum products as well as a professional knowledge of oil distribution in Africa (North and West Africa). She has built most of her career within the French oil group Total, which she joined in January 2003. Before leaving Total, she was responsible for business development at the company’s B2B Holding. Prior to that, she held various positions in the distribution and support function sector, mainly as a senior corporate auditor.
In Sierra Leone, Cyrine Draif was Secretary General of the French Business Club (Council of Foreign Affairs) and advisor to the French Embassy in Guinea Conakry for new French companies established in Sierra Leone. She is an active member of various non-profit associations, including Rotary, IWC.
Cyrine Draif holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA), specializing in marketing, from Laval University, Canada. She is fluent in 5 languages: Italian, French, Spanish, English and Arabic.
Mercedes Eworo Milam (Equatorial Guinea)
Since December 2019, Mercedes Eworo Milam is the Managing Director of GEPsing, a joint venture between SBM Offshore and GEPetrol, the national oil company of Equatorial Guinea. SBM Offshore N.V. is a holding company of several international companies, working as subcontractors to the oil and gas industry.
Prior to this, Mercedes Eworo Milam was Director General of Hydrocarbons and Petroleum Economics at the Ministry of Mines, Industry and Energy of Equatorial Guinea.
She holds a degree in Mining Engineering, specializing in mineral surveys and exploration from the University of Salamanca, Spain.
Mercedes Eworo Milam joined the Ministry of Mines and Hydrocarbons in 2004 as head of the technical office and quickly rose through the ranks. She served as head of the national content branch between 2007 and 2009, secretary general of the ministry between 2009 and 2011 and head of the ministry of mines and hydrocarbons between 2011 and 2013. Subsequently, she secured the coveted position of Director General of Hydrocarbons in the Ministry of Mines, Industry and Energy of Equatorial Guinea.
Recognized for her achievements in 2014, she received the Woman of the Year Award at the Oil and Gas Awards. The award was given for her work in ensuring the sustainable development of the oil and gas sector in Equatorial Guinea, including ensuring that women are recruited and considered for jobs, training and promotions.
Khady Dior Ndiaye (Senegal)
Appointed vice president and general manager in Côte d’Ivoire for Kosmos Energy in February 2019, Khady Dior Ndiaye was named vice president and West Africa manager on Tuesday, Jan. 7, in charge of Kosmos Energy’s operations in Senegal, in addition to Côte d’Ivoire. Kosmos Energy is an independent deepwater oil and gas exploration and production company currently active offshore Ghana, Equatorial Guinea, and the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, as well as in Mauritania, Senegal. Suriname, Namibia, Sao Tome and Principe, and South Africa. Kosmos is listed on the New York and London stock exchanges.
In Senegal, Khady Dior Ndiaye is responsible for operations related to three major offshore natural gas discoveries – Guembeul, Teranga and Yakaar, as well as the Grand Tortue/Ahmeyim liquefied natural gas project being developed in partnership with BP, Petrosen and the Mauritanian Hydrocarbons and Mining Heritage Company. In Côte d’Ivoire, where she has headed Kosmos Energy since January of 2019, Khady Dior Ndiaye is overseeing operations related to the search for five contiguous offshore blocks, which cover approximately 17,000 square kilometers.
With a Bachelor’s degree from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, Washington D.C. and an Executive MBA from HEC Paris, Kady Dior Ndiaye joined Kosmos Energy in February 2019 from Citibank, where she was president and CEO for the West and Central Africa regions in charge of Citi’s operations in 14 countries. During her 20 years at Citi, she held a variety of leadership positions, accumulating extensive experience in corporate and government banking, capital markets, foreign exchange, international trade, and regulatory matters.
Khady Dior Ndiaye started her career at Citi Côte d’Ivoire in 1997 as a trader in the trading room. Thereafter, she held various management positions at Citi, including Head of Bank and Regional Treasurer. In 2008, she was appointed Chief Operating Officer, responsible for Citi Côte d’Ivoire’s portfolio management and client relations. In 2011, she moved to Senegal, where she took over the management of the transactional services department, as head of treasury management for Senegal and head of trading for West and Central Africa.
Priscillah Mabelane (South Africa)
Effective September 1, 2020, Priscillah Mabelane assumed her role as deputy chairman of South Africa’s SASOL Group, in charge of energy operations, where she is also a member of the company’s Group Executive Committee. SASOL is a South African exploration, production and refining company. It is the second largest company in South Africa behind Old Mutual and the third largest company in Africa.
Priscillah Mabelane made history in 2017, when she was appointed CEO of BP, becoming the first woman in the history of the South African oil industry to lead a multinational company. Prior to that, she was Director of Retail Operations for BP in the UK for just over two years, where she is credited with achieving record levels of financial performance and progress on key strategic milestones. In this role, Priscillah Mabelane was responsible for the development and implementation of the UK retail strategy and was also responsible for retail operations across Europe. Prior to that, she was CFO of BP Southern Africa for four years. She was responsible for the development and implementation of the company’s business and financial strategies. She also contributed to the repositioning of the company.
Prior to joining BP, Priscillah Mabelane, a qualified chartered accountant, was Chief Financial Officer (CFO) at Airports Company of South Africa and Tax Manager at Ernst & Young. She has also held various finance, tax and general management positions at Eskom Holdings Limited.
Priscillah Mabelane is a non-executive director of Standard Bank Group Limited, and was previously a non-executive director of Vodacom (Pty) Ltd. She is also Chair of the Board Committee of the South African Petroleum Industry Association (SAPIA).
Nantenaina Rasolonirina (Madagascar)
Nantenaina Rsaolonirina is the Director General of the Office des Mines Nationales et des Industries Stratégiques, a public institution in charge of petroleum (upstream) and mining promotion in Madagascar. Since its creation in 1976, this state organization has been working for the economic development of Madagascar, particularly through the petroleum (upstream) and mining sectors.
Magdaleena “Maggy” Shino (Namibia)
Maggy Shino is the Petroleum Commissioner in the Ministry of Mines and Energy of Namibia. She is responsible for the Exploration, Production and Promotion Division in the Ministry’s Petroleum Directorate. In this position, Maggy Shino leads the negotiation of Namibia’s petroleum agreements, the promotion of the country’s oil and gas investments and the licensing of open blocks. She is also responsible for maintaining and administering the Namibian Petroleum Exploration and Production Act.
Maggy Shino holds a Master’s degree in Petroleum Geochemistry from Newcastle University and a Bachelor’s degree in Biology and Chemistry. She also holds a Diploma in Upstream Petroleum Development and Operations Management from PETRAD, an institution that offers courses and other programs to build skills in the petroleum sector.
In addition, since 2012, Maggy Shino has been a board member of the Petroleum Training and Education Fund (Petrofund) of Namibia. In 2019, she was the recipient of the Frontier Big Five Award for Achievement in African Leadership.
Cany Jobe (Gambia)
Cany Jobe is the Exploration and Production Manager of the Gambia National Petroleum Corporation (GNPC). She holds a Master’s degree in Oil and Gas Engineering, with distinction, from The University of Western Australia, a Bachelor’s degree in Materials and Mineral Resources Engineering, with distinction, National Taipei University of Technology, China, and a Master’s degree in International Project Management in Construction, Energy, Oil and Gas from Glasgow Caledonian University, Scotland.
Cany Jobe has over 13 years of experience in energy projects in West Africa, South America and Australia. She advises the Gambian government on oil and gas exploration projects, structures, negotiates and oversees the implementation of high value exploration activities by the country’s national oil company in partnership with international oil companies.
Cany Jobe describes herself as an expert in project management in the energy, oil and gas and construction sectors. She is skilled in policy formulation, corporate restructuring, strategic planning, governance and administration.
Catherine Uju Ifejika (Nigeria)
Catherine Uju Ifejika is the first and, to date, only woman to be President and CEO of an upstream exploration and production company in Nigeria. She is currently the Chief Executive Officer of Brittania-U Nigeria Limited, a pioneering global Nigerian energy company specializing in exploration and production, drilling, oil services and engineering consultancy.
A graduate of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Catherine Uju Ifejika obtained a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1985 and was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1986. She is a member of the Nigerian Bar Association, a member of the Institute of Arbitration and Conciliation, and the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators of Nigeria.
Her career in the oil industry began when she joined the legal department of Texaco as a junior counsel in 1987. She quickly rose through the ranks to become Corporate Secretary in 1997. In 2003, her government and public affairs responsibilities were extended to Cameroon, Togo, Benin, Côte d’Ivoire and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In 2007, Catherine Uju Ifejika joined Brittania-U Nigeria Limited as Chief Executive Officer and has since led the oil company to its current position as market leader. In this position, Catherine Uju Ifejika has achieved a number of important “firsts”. The company’s wholly owned and operated Ajapa floating production storage unit produced its first oil from drilling in 17 months; a feat that has yet to be matched by any other company of its kind in Nigeria. In addition, Catherine Uju Ifejika has established six subsidiaries in seven years and has received numerous awards for good governance and management in Nigeria, the US, China and Europe.
Safiya Wane Ndour (Senegal)
Safiya Wane Ndour is the founder and CEO of Equinoxe Consulting, a consulting firm specializing in oil and gas. The company advises both exploration and production (E&P) companies and governments on evolving industry best practices for hydrocarbon exploration.
Since February 2017, Safiya Wane Ndour has also been responsible for government relations in Senegal and The Gambia for Petronor, a Spanish company specializing in the refining as well as the sale of oil and petroleum products. Safiya Wane Ndour is also, since October 2014, Country Manager (Senegal) of A-Z Petroleum, a Nigerian company specializing in the research, development, production and marketing of gasoline, diesel and lubricants.
After working in the United Kingdom, Safiya Wane Ndour returned to Senegal, where she began her career in the country in 2011 as Office Manager for Petronor. Subsequently, she was country representative of “T5 Oil and Gas”, an oil and gas exploration company, founded by a group of former Tullow Oil.
In 2013, Safiwa Wane Ndour launched her own consulting firm, GSS Consulting, which has since become Equinoxe Consulting. The goal is to enhance Senegal’s natural resources and add value to the Senegalese economy through the appropriate and prudent development of an indispensable commodity.
Safiya Wane Ndour is a graduate of McGill University, certification/strategy and corporate social responsibility management. She is also a Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP), a professional certification from Microsoft indicating a level of proficiency and knowledge. She speaks Fulani, Wolof, French, English and Spanish.
Michelle Boit (Kenya)
An experienced petroleum engineer, Michelle Boit is Kenya’s first female petroleum engineer. She is currently the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Society of Petroleum Engineers International, Kenya Chapter.
With a Master of Business Administration – Executive MBA, focusing on business administration, management and operations from the University of Texas at Dallas, Michelle Boit is passionate about mentoring girls interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). To that end, since 2010, she has been the founder of the Michelle Boit Mentorship Program. Previously, she worked for the oil company Tullow, based in Nairobi, Kenya. Prior to joining Tullow, Michelle Boit worked for BP Oil and Gas Company in the United States for 7 years at various locations: Amarillo, Texas; Wamsutter, Wyoming; and Farmington, New Mexico. In addition to being an engineer, Michelle Boit has a passion for mentoring students and early career professionals. She began her mentoring journey 15 years ago when she was in college. She used to go to the less advantaged elementary schools during their lunch breaks and encourage students to work hard. After graduating from college, her employer was kind enough to support her passion for mentoring. So, she began visiting universities in Texas, encouraging students to join petroleum engineering.
In 2014, Michelle Boit decided to return to Kenya and bring her rich experience in the oil and gas field to the country. In addition, she decided to expand her mentoring program to all students and young professionals in Kenya. Michelle Boit’s mentoring program is designed to provide opportunities and empower students, graduates and young professionals in leadership development, career development, peer mentoring and networking opportunities. Michelle Boit quotes the Bible on this topic, “Proverbs 27:17 “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.”
Iman Hill (Egypt)
Since December 2020, Iman Hill has been the Director of the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers (IOGP), the voice of the global upstream oil industry, whose members produce 40% of the world’s oil and gas. Prior to joining IOGP, Iman Hill was Chief Operating Officer of Energean, an international oil and gas exploration and production company, specializing in natural gas, listed on the London Stock Exchange and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and part of the FTSE 250 index.
Iman Hill is a petroleum engineer with 30 years of experience in the oil and gas industry. She has extensive global expertise in the technical and commercial aspects of the oil business, particularly oilfield development, capital projects and production operations. Iman Hill has worked in the Middle East, North and West Africa, South America, the Far East and the North Sea in a wide range of settings from onshore to ultra-deepwater.
Iman Hill began her career with British Petroleum (BP), where she held various technical positions before becoming a senior reservoir engineer. In 1995, she joined Shell International, where she held positions such as Senior Regional Advisor for Africa to the CEO of Exploration and Production (E&P) and the President of Shell.
Iman Hill also served as General Manager of Shell Egypt and President of Shell companies in Egypt. As Senior Vice President for Brazil, Iman Hill also led BG’s first ultra-deepwater development in the supergiant pre-salt fields of the Santos Basin. BG is an energy generation and distribution company based in Reading near London, England. In addition, at BG, as Senior Vice President of Development and Operations, she was responsible for driving performance in well engineering and operations. Iman Hill also held the positions of Vice President Africa at Sasol and Technical Director, Managing Director UAE and President Egypt for Dana Gas in the UAE, where she also led one of the Egyptian joint ventures as Managing Director and Board Member of The Egyptian Bahraini Gas Derivatives Company, a joint venture between Dana Gas, the Egyptian Government and ApiCorp, producing propane for export to European markets. Iman Hill is also a member of the Board of Directors of United Oil and Gas.
A mother of five, Iman Hill has excellent language skills, including fluent Arabic and English, business French and basic Russian.
Mireille Aka Niango (Ivory Coast)
Mireille Aka Niango is the Head of the Promotion Department at La Société nationale d’opérations pétrolières de Côte d’Ivoire, commonly known as PETROCI, the national oil company of Côte d’Ivoire. Mireille Aka coordinates and supervises the promotion activities of the Ivorian sedimentary basin to attract investors.
A geologist by training, Mireille Aka Niango has more than 18 years of experience in oil and gas exploration in several sedimentary basins: Ivory Coast, Oman, Nigeria, Chad, Mississippi (USA).
Mireille Aka holds an engineering degree in geology, obtained in 2002 at the National School of Mineral Industry in Rabat, Morocco. In addition, she obtained a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in 2020 from the prestigious Canadian University of Arts, Sciences and Management in Abidjan, Ivory Coast.
Selma Usiku (Namibia)
Since October 2021, Selma Usiku has been an exploration geologist with Debmarine Namibia, a marine diamond mining company in Namibia. Prior to that, in April 2021, Selma Usiku was appointed Senior Geologist at Eco Atlantic Oil & Gas, a Canadian oil and gas exploration company with licenses in the Guyana oil province and in the high potential basins of Namibia,
Selma Usiku is a highly experienced geoscientist with a strong background in the oil and gas industry in sub-Saharan Africa. As an exploration geologist, she focuses on regional geological and geophysical interpretation.
After graduation, Selma Usiku worked as an exploration geologist for 6 years at Azinam, a major independent oil and gas exploration company exploring for untapped hydrocarbons offshore Namibia and South Africa. Selma Usiku was the company’s only female geoscientist. Her main contribution to the company has been geotechnical work on various hydrocarbon exploration, appraisal and lead generation projects. She has also promoted Namibia’s hydrocarbon potential through technical presentations and panel discussions at various seminars and conferences.
In addition, Selma Usiku has served on the steering committee of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists Technology Workshops in Namibia.
Selma Usiku holds a Master of Science (MSc) with a focus on petroleum geosciences from Royal Holloway, University of London. In 2018, she received the Global Women Petroleum & Energy Club’s Africa Excellence Award. The Global Women Petroleum & Energy Club is part of the Frontier Communications World Upstream Clubs & Networks and serves to connect women in oil, gas and energy.
Hadiza Moumouni Ibra (Niger)
Hadiza Moumouni Ibra, 31, is an oil and gas reservoir engineer. She is the first woman in the Republic of Niger to specialize in oil and gas reservoir engineering.
Hadiza Moumouni Ibra works in Nigeria as a reservoir engineer at Integrated Data Service Limited, a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Nigeria’s national oil company and a major player in the Nigerian oil industry. “Integrated Data Service Limited provides hydrocarbon exploration services to the Nigerian and international oil and gas industry.
Hadiza Moumouni Ibra graduated in Petroleum Engineering from the China University of Geoscience in Wuhan, China. During her five years of university studies, she had benefited from a one-year training in Chinese language (Mandarin), a language she speaks fluently today, and four years of general training in Petroleum Engineering. Hadiza Moumouni Ibra also studied in France for two years, where she obtained a Master’s degree in Petroleum Reservoir Engineering from the University of Pau and Pays de l’Adour, making her the first Nigerian woman to specialize in Petroleum Reservoir Engineering. Training in petroleum reservoir engineering provides solid operational and technical skills to analyze and evaluate underground oil reserves, design and implement their production and participate in the management of production wells during production. As part of her graduation project, Hadiza Moumouni Ibra completed an internship at the Reservoir and Production Department of the Nigeria Petroleum Development Company Limited (NPDC), a subsidiary of NNPC and located in Benin City, Edo State. There she conducted a 6-month research on the Niger Delta, located in Nigeria. Her study was entitled “Development concept selection for a retrograde condensate reservoir in Niger Delta”.
After her stay in Nigeria, Hadiza Moumouni Ibra worked for a few months for the Nigerien subsidiary of the China National Petroleum Corporation, where she was able to discover the different aspects of oil exploitation in Niger and to notice the absence of women in this field. This is why she created and is the president of the Niger Oil and Gas Women’s Association which sets up training programs for young girls in the fields of science, technology and innovation, in general and in the field of petroleum engineering in particular.
Victoria Sibeya (Namibia)
Victoria Sibeya is the Upstream Exploration Manager at the National Petroleum Corporation of Namibia (NAMCOR), Namibia’s national oil company. Her role is to lead the upstream exploration team to grow NAMCOR’s hydrocarbon exploration portfolio by developing commercial opportunities in line with the company’s strategy.
Prior to joining NAMCOR, Victoria Sibeya worked for the Namibian Ministry of Mines and Energy as a geoscientist in the Mining Department. She later joined NAMCOR’s exploration and production department and became an asset manager in the same department. She was then promoted to head of the exploration and production department. She has a broad range of knowledge, experience and skills in the field of geosciences and has worked in this field for the past 18 years.
A geologist by profession, Victoria Sibeya holds a Master’s degree in Geology from the University of Namibia. Her thesis was entitled “Petroleum System Analysis and Seismic Study of the Orange Basin, Offshore Namibia”. Victoria Sibeya also holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology from the University of Port Elizabeth (Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University), South Africa, and a Bachelor of Science degree in Geology and Chemistry from the University of Namibia.
In addition, Victoria Sibeya is currently the Africa Regional Secretary of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG). She is also a member of the Board of Directors of Petrofund, Namibia and Chair of the Namibia Training Authority (NTA) Mining and Quarrying, Construction, Power, Gas, Water Supply and Sewerage Industry Skills Committee. She was previously vice-chair of the Geological Survey of Namibia (GCN).
Pam Indurjeeth (South Africa)
Since August 2019, Pam Indurjeeth has been the Managing Director of Oryx Energies, South Africa, the South African subsidiary of the multinational oil trading company “The Addax and Oryx Group Limited”, which operates in 16 countries in Africa. Oryx Energies has been present in South Africa since 2002. After operating in the supply and procurement of fuels for licensed importers in South Africa, the company expanded its operations to liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) distribution in the country in 2013, when it acquired the LPG distribution business of British Petroleum South Africa (BPSA).
Pam Indurjeeth holds a postgraduate degree in business management from Wits Business School, South Africa. She is also a graduate of ML S Technikon and KZN Business School in Marketing, Sales and Supply Chain Management. She started her career as a sales consultant. In the oil industry, Pam Indurjeeth held several positions with British Petroleum South Africa (BP SA) in the Durban area. She was later promoted to the position of Procurement and Logistics Manager, which led to her relocation to Johannesburg. In August 2013, following BP’s decision to withdraw from its LPG business, Pam Indurjeeth’s position as Director of Procurement and Logistics at BP SA was automatically transferred to Oryx Energies and reported directly to the Managing Director of ‘Oryx Energies SA. In February 2018, Pam Indurjeeth was appointed deputy general manager of Oryx Energies SA, a member and chair of the company’s board of directors, before being promoted to general manager.
Teresa Goma (Republic of Congo/Brazzaville)
From March 2018 to August 2021, Teresa Goma was the General Manager of Hydrocarbons in Congo. She has 18 years of experience in the oil and gas industry with service companies as well as oil and gas companies (operators), Prior to her appointment as Congo’s Hydrocarbons Director, Teresa Goma was, from September 2016 to March 2018, Central Africa Sales Director for General Electric, overseeing the Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Cameroon and Chad. Her primary objectives were to grow GE’s oil and gas business in Central Africa and leverage local content capabilities. Long before that, from September 2011 to May 2016, Teresa Goma served as General Manager in Congo for the multinational Oryx Petroleum.
Teresa Goma began her career with Baker Hughes, a Houston-based U.S. oil and gas company specializing in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing chemicals. She was the Business Development Manager for Sub-Saharan Africa with the objective of developing the Artificial Lift & Completion business in Sub-Saharan Africa in countries such as Gabon, DRC, Botswana, Ivory Coast, Benin, Uganda, Nigeria, etc…
Teresa Goma holds a Master 2 in Finance, Strategy and Management from the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Pau, France. She also holds a technical diploma (Bachelor’s degree) in electronics and information technology from the GTS Higher Professional Institute.
Olajumoke Ajayi (Nigeria)
Olajumoke Ajayi is the Managing Director of Asharami Energy, the upstream arm of the Sahara Group, an oil and gas group with operations in over 38 countries in Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Asia. Olajumoke Ajayi leads Asharami Energy’s operations in Nigeria, Ghana and Côte d’Ivoire. She led the exploration team that successfully drilled and delivered Asharami Energy’s first three wells.
With over 20 years of experience in the oil and gas industry, Olajumoke Ajayi has risen through the ranks to become one of the first female Managing Directors in the Nigerian upstream oil industry.
With a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Applied Geophysics, Olajumoke Ajayi began her career with Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited (ExxonMobil). Prior to joining Sahara Group, she also worked at Degeconek Consulting, Peak Petroleum Limited, and Centrica Resources Nig. Ltd (British Gas).
Olajumoke Ajayi is a member of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) and the Nigerian Association of Petroleum Explorationists (NAPE). She is also a former vice president of NAPE, the first woman to hold that position in 40 years.
Yvette Ayele Selormey (Ghana)
Yvette Ayele Selormey is the Downstream General Manager of Sahara Energy Group. She manages three (3) group companies in Ghana: PWSL, SO Energy, and SO Aviation. She has extensive experience in marketing and business development with over 13 years of hands-on experience in marketing, purchasing and trading of crude oil and petroleum products in the Upstream and Downstream sectors.
Yvette Ayele Selormey is a member of the Board of Directors of the Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors (CBOD) of Ghana, the advocacy, lobbying and representation body for bulk import, distribution and export companies (BIDEC), storage depots and other affiliated petroleum service providers (PSPs) in the downstream oil industry.
Oghogho Effiom (Nigeria)
Oghogho Effiom is the Africa Director of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE). Since August 2021, she has been Domestic Gas Business Opportunity Lead at Shell Nigeria, having previously served as a senior production geologist, feasibility and 4D seismic interpretation expert, leading deepwater and shallow water projects.
Oghogho Effiom has about 20 years of technical experience in the upstream oil and gas sector, with assignments in Nigeria and the US covering offshore drilling operations, reserve estimation, oilfield development and execution. She specializes in risk management, technical integration and stakeholder management.
Oghogho Effiom holds a Master’s degree in Asset Integrity Management from Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, Scotland.
She is currently the President of the Lagos Chapter of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE). She is married and has two teenage children.
Natalia Magaia Camba (Mozambique)
Natalia Camba is currently the Director of Local Content at the National Institute of Petroleum, Angola’s upstream oil and gas regulatory agency. She was previously the Director of Supervision and Safety.
A chemical engineer, Natalia Camba holds a Master’s degree in Project Management in the oil and gas industries, with a specialization in oil, gas and energy economics. She has participated in the elaboration of documents related to gas development in Mozambique, such as the gas master plan, the local market development strategy, the HSE (Health, Safety and Environment) regulations, etc.
In addition, Natalia Camba gained experience on an LNG project, where she held various positions such as technical assistant in engineering, as well as monitoring communications and liaising with government regulatory groups in Mozambique. She then served as an advisor to the Environmental Impact Assessment team for the LNG project in Mozambique, handling issues related to the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), the Resettlement Action Plan, and guiding the team with the information needed to meet the needs of the Government of Mozambique and the local communities.
Currently, Natalia Camba is involved in the implementation of strategies and policies related to local content development in Mozambique. She is also a member of the Local Content Task Force, an inter-ministerial group that coordinates the implementation of local content in Mozambique.
Natalia Camba is also a lecturer in geopolitics and petroleum ethics in the MBA Oil & Gas Business program at the Instituto Superior de Ciências e Tecnologia de Moçambique.
Estelle Florence Gbénou (Benin/Ukraine)
Born to a Beninese father and a Ukrainian mother, Estelle Florence Gbénou, who grew up in Benin, is the West African representative of Okapi Supply Trading Advisory, one of the largest independent suppliers of oil and gas products and services in Africa. The company supplies, stores and distributes oil and gas products throughout the African continent.
Long before, Estelle Florence Gbénou was an oil trader at African Tradin Oil (ATOL). Before that, at the age of 24, she worked for the Mission of the Central African Republic to the United Nations in New York, before becoming a consultant to the African Union. In parallel to her professional activities, Estelle Florence Gbénou is preparing a doctorate at the University of Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne, with a thesis entitled “Petroleum law and the challenges of oil exploitation in Central Africa”.
Estelle Florence Gbénou holds a Master’s degree in International Relations and Sustainable Development from the University of Paris X Ouest Nanterre and a Master’s degree in Law from the same university. She is the author of two books on oil. The first is entitled “The Practical Guide to Hydrocarbons in the Gulf of Guinea”, a book intended for legal professionals with the essentials to know about the fundamental interests of investors and States in oil contracts. The second, “Introduction to Energy”, is a small, fun book for students aged 13 to 17 in French-speaking African public schools to raise awareness on energy issues in general and renewable energy in particular.
Estelle Florence Gbénou is also the founder of the association “le droit à l’énergie”, which has electrified an elementary school in Tori Bossito, Benin, along with two maternity wards.
In January 2020, Estelle Florence Gbénou wrote, produced and directed the documentary “Energy 2020” on the issue of electrification in Africa. In the course of making this documentary, she traveled to Benin, Ethiopia, Tanzania, France and Congo.
Estelle Florence Gbénou also organized the “Conversations on Energy in Africa” (CEA) at the United Nations, at the CSW2019 (Compound Semiconductor Week 2019) and at the African Union Summit in Niamey, in 2019.
Ogutu Okudo (Kenya)
Since October 2021, Ogutu Okudo, 31, has been a member of the Board of Directors of the National Oil Corporation of Kenya, a fully integrated state-owned company involved in all aspects of the oil supply chain, covering upstream oil and gas exploration, midstream oil infrastructure development, and downstream petroleum product marketing.
A recipient of the “Woman of the Year” award at the 2019 Upstream Oil and Gas Awards in Kenya for her contribution to the development of the oil sector in Kenya, Ogutu Okudo is also the Country Manager in Kenya for SpringRock Energy and Business Development Manager in Africa. SpringRock is an integrated upstream oilfield management services company specializing in oilfield exploration and production. Ogutu Okudo designs the best operational strategies for expansion and penetration of new markets and manages projects in several commercial areas. She has worked on numerous projects in East and West Africa, including well construction project management, field development planning and first oil project management.
Also an energy entrepreneur, at the age of 20, in 2012, Ogutu Okudo founded Women in Energy and Extractives Africa (WEX Africa), a company that designs solutions for its clients by mapping the stakeholders that interact with their businesses. The company partners with and advises clients and governments on creating shared value in their social goals, ensuring that their activities and programs are sustainable, impactful, and inclusive. WEX Africa has 15 staff in five countries and over 75 volunteers in 10 countries.
Ogutu Okudo holds a Master’s degree in Oil and Gas Business Management from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland and a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations and Affairs from the American International University, based in Kenya.
Ogutu Okudo serves on a number of boards, advising them on their strategic operations in East Africa. She has received numerous international awards and was recognized by President Uhuru Kenyatta in 2018 as one of Kenya’s pioneering young women. She received the Under 30 Women in Energy East Africa award in 2018 and in 2019, the “Woman of the Year” award at the Upstream Oil and Gas Awards for her contribution to the development of the oil sector in Kenya. In 2019, she addressed the Economic and Social Council at the United Nations headquarters in New York, accompanying President Uhuru Kenyatta as part of the Kenyan delegation to the United Nations General Assembly.
Audrey Joe-Ezigbo (Nigeria)
Audrey Joe-Ezigbo is co-founder and Deputy Managing Director of Falcon Corporation Limited, a company she co-founded with her husband in 1994. Falcon Corporation is a leading, all-Nigerian, privately-held company and a member of the Falcon conglomerate, which today holds a diversified portfolio of blue-chip investments in the oil and gas, power and infrastructure, real estate and construction sectors.
Falcon Corporation began operations in 1994 under the trade name Falcon Petroleum Limited. The company’s name was changed in 2014 following a rebranding on the company’s 20th anniversary, in part to reflect its current multiple areas of business. Falcon Corporation provides engineering, procurement and construction services (particularly pipeline construction, fabrication and structural work, and technical procurement services to the oil and gas industry. The company is one of the 3 local distribution companies operating in the Nigerian domestic gas industry. Falcon Corporation is the operator of the Ikorodu natural gas distribution franchise in Lagos State, Nigeria. Through its extensive pipeline network, the company supplies natural gas to industries in and around the region as an alternative fuel for their various industrial processes and equipment. In addition, Falcon Corporation has extensive investments in the real estate space – from engineering facilities to assets, real estate and development.
Falcon Corporation Limited has received several honors and awards over the years for its role in facilitating the commercial and industrial exploitation of Nigeria’s abundant natural gas reserves.
Audrey Joe-Ezigbo holds several Masters Degrees in Finance, Marketing and Business Administration from Lagos Business School, University of Nigeria and Nnamdi Azikiwe University, as well as Executive Certifications in Management, Leadership and Governance from Harvard Business School, Instituto de Empresa Business Schoo (IE Business School), a Spanish business school, and an advanced management certification program underway with the Instituto de Estudios Superiores de la Empresa (IESE Business School), a business school under the University of Navarra, Spain.
In addition, Audrey Joe-Ezigbo is President of the Nigerian Gas Association (NGA), the umbrella association representing companies and professionals in the Nigerian gas industry. She is the first female president of the NGA since the association was established more than 21 years ago. She is also an accredited member of the International Gas Union (IGU).
Audrey Joe-Ezigbo is a member of the Energy Institute (FEI), the accredited professional organization of global energy experts. She is a founding member of the Women in Energy Network (WiEN), a member and global role model of the Nigerian chapter of Women in LPG (WiNLPG). She is also a member of the NCCF Diversity Sector Working Group and the Nigeria Content Development & Monitoring Board (NCDMB).
Ivy Apea Owusu (Ghana)
Ivy Apea Owusu is the Managing Director of Cirrus Oil Services Limited, a Ghanaian company established in 2007. Its parent company is Woodfields Energy Resources Ltd, Ghana’s leading local oil and gas group. Cirrus is a licensed bulk oil distributor and one of the leading brands in the Ghanaian downstream oil and gas sector. In addition, Cirrus was one of the first companies in Ghana to build and operate state-of-the-art storage terminals in the cities of Tema and Takoradi for the distribution of Gasoil, ATK, Gasoline 95 and Gasoline 91. Cirrus imports refined petroleum products, stores and distributes them to accredited companies and other users. Cirrus’ parent company, Woodfields Energy Resources Ltd, is constructing an 85,000 cubic meter tank farm in Tema for use by the group in several phases. Phase 1 has been completed and commissioned. Phase 2 is expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of 2021.
As CEO of Cirrus Oil Services Limited, Ivy Apea Owusu was instrumental in the successful implementation of regulatory policies in the downstream sector and also spearheaded several community activities related to health and education. She has over 20 years of experience in the energy sector. Ivy Apea Owusu previously worked for GE Capital in the U.S. and U.K. in structured energy finance, specializing in debt and equity financing in the oil and gas, power generation, renewable energy and ancillary energy services sectors.
In addition, Ivy Apea Owusu is the Chairperson of the Board of Directors of the Chamber of Bulk Oil Distributors (CBOD) of Ghana, the advocacy, lobbying and representation body for bulk import, distribution and export companies (BIDECs), storage depots and other affiliated petroleum service providers (PSPs) in the downstream oil industry.
In addition, Ivy Apea Owusu also sits on the boards of Woodfields Energy Resources Ltd and Legacy Bonds Ltd. She is a member of the Executive Women’s Network and Senior Executive in Residence for the Department of Accounting at the University of Ghana Business School (UGBS).
Ivy Apea Owusu holds leadership certificates from Harvard and Stanford Business Schools in the United States, an MBA from Vanderbilt University in the United States, and a Bachelor of Business Administration (Accounting) from the University of Ghana, Legon. She has won numerous awards, including the 2018 Ghana Oil and Gas Person of the Year.
Masa Bah (Sierra Leone)
Masa Bah is a geoscience professional with over 15 years of experience in petroleum exploration and development with international oil companies and other geophysical service companies. She has expertise in petroleum exploration, mineral exploration, petrophysics and geology.
Since October 2012, Masa Bah has been a Senior Petroleum Geologist at the Sierra Leone Petroleum Directorate, an institution mandated to lead the process of unlocking and realizing the potential of Sierra Leone’s petroleum resources, as well as transforming its growth agenda through the sustainable development of the oil and gas sector.
Masa Bah holds a Master’s Degree in Oil and Gas Exploration and Production from Instituto De La Energia – Madrid and a Bachelor’s Degree in Geology from the University of Sierra Leone, Fourah Bay College.
Valerie Commelin (Chad)
Since February 2019, Valérie Commelin has been the deputy general manager of the N’Djamena Refining Company. Prior to her appointment, she was advisor for downstream activities to the general manager of the Chad Hydrocarbons Company (SHT). She is a member of the executive board of the African Petroleum Producers Organization (APPO) for Chad, where she is national representative. On the sidelines of the second edition of the Nigeria International Petroleum Summit, held from January 28 to 30 in Abuja, Valerie Commelin was distinguished by the Federal Republic of Nigeria, for her involvement and that of Chad in the various reform works of the APPO, initiated several years ago. The ceremony took place in front of guests from the 18 member countries of the APPO, foreign companies that came to participate in the conference as well as Nigerian officials.
Valerie Commelin is a graduate of the University of Picardie Jules Verne, Amiens, France.
Nouha Boussoffara (Tunisia)
Nouha Boussoffara is a senior reservoir geologist at Entreprise tunisienne d’activités pétrolières (ETAP), a Tunisian state-owned company whose mission is to prospect, explore and produce oil and natural gas in Tunisia and its territorial waters.
Nouha Boussoffara has over 10 years of experience in the oil and gas industry. She worked for 3 years at Georex, a service company, as a geoscientific engineer. She joined ETAP in October 2008 as a reservoir geologist, in charge of the petrophysical evaluation of sandstone/carbonate reservoirs and the construction of the static reservoir model. Nouha Boussoffara participated in the development plan of the Bir Ben Tartar structure, an oil complex in Tunisia. She was seconded for 5 years in STORM and MEDCO companies to contribute to the development of Bir Ben Tartar field. Since May 2017, she has returned to ETAP’s reservoir department.
Nouha Boussoffara holds a Master’s degree in geology from the Faculty of Sciences, Mathematics, Physics and Natural of Tunis and a diploma of geo-scientific engineer, oil option, from the same faculty. She is a member and president of “Tunisian Woman In Energy” (TWIE), an association that promotes Tunisian and international women experts in the energy sector.
Suzy Nsimundele (Democratic Republic of Congo)
Suzy Nsimundele has a degree in applied geology, in the petroleum field. She has held several positions from upstream to downstream petroleum, in public and private companies and has conducted several field missions in the DRC and abroad.
Since 2017, Suzy Nsimundele has been the technical assistant to the CEO of Fuels Transport and Logistic Pipeline (FTL-Pipeline) and MEDEA DRC, downstream oil companies. From 2002 to 2009, she worked for the national oil company of Congo Sonahydroc SA (formerly Cohydro). She successively held the positions of exploration geologist; petroleum technical assistant to the general management; and division manager and head of the participations department.
Thereafter, from 2009 to 2015, Suzy Nsimundele moved to the Congolese subsidiary of SOCO, a British oil extraction and brokerage company. She worked as an exploration geologist and head of the geosciences department in Kinshasa for the Nganzi Block exploration permits in the Central Kongo province and the Block V of the Lac Edouard Graben. During these years, she contributed to the revision of the petroleum considerations (Block VII) by SOCO DRC of the central basin of the DRC, an intra-cratonic basin, by bringing new hypotheses with regard to the analogies made on very old petroleum basins.
Yvonne Chioma Ofodile (Nigeria)
Yvonne Chioma Ofodile has years of combined experience in areas such as human resources, business development and strategy, sales and marketing/transportation, leadership and personal development within the oil and gas industry and the social enterprise sector. She is the Managing Director of Zetile Oil and Gas, a Nigerian company that operates in the downstream oil sector: transportation, commercial and retail sales of Automotive Gas Oil (AGO), Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) and Dual Use Kerosene (DPK). Zetile Oil and Gas also provides energy services through exploration and production, which involves the exploration, production and processing of oil and natural gas.
Yvonne Chioma Ofodile is also CEO of Zetile Stores Limited, a fast-growing supermarket chain based in Lekki, Lagos, Nigeria, and founder of 360 Woman Africa, a non-profit leadership and business development organization for women in Africa. As part of this, she established the Women’s Skills Development Program, a platform to encourage women to live their best lives, while actively increasing the number of women-owned or managed businesses or women in leadership positions or on boards of directors.
A prolific speaker and mentor at the U.S. Consulate’s Academy of Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) as part of the White House’s Global Women’s Development and Prosperity Initiative, Yvonne Ofodile is also a personal development coach in Africa.
Yvonne Chioma Ofodile holds a degree in Business and Management from the University of Derby, UK, and is a Chartered Associate of the Chartered Management Institute in the UK. She is a member of the Institute of Management Consultant, a certified life coach in the UK, with over 10 years of experience and an associate member of Women in Business, Management and Public service (WIMBIZ), a non-profit organization in Nigeria.
Amma Serwah Boateng (Ghana)
Amma Boateng, 31, is the founder and managing director of Destra Energy, a Ghanaian start-up company that provides ancillary services to key players in the oil and gas industry and also offers energy solutions through the application of renewable energy technology. Destra Energy, although a young company, has in a short time established itself in the Ghanaian oil and gas industry in terms of providing quality services. Ambitious, Amma Boateng plans to own a vessel within the next five years to support her core business as an offshore support services company and expand to other African countries.
Amma Boateng co-founded Destra Energy Group with her partner in 2016. Since then, the company has worked with reputable and reliable international and local brands such as Maersk Drilling, Technip FMC, ION Geophysical, Geoex Limited, SVS Offshore, Petra Energy, Colebrook Offshore, Rederij Groen, DH Energy, Energem among others.
Amma Boateng holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Petroleum Engineering from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, Ghana. She also holds a triple Master’s degree in Strategic Project Management from Scotland, Italy and Sweden. Prior to establishing Destra Energy Group, she was a project manager with Shell and Hydrocol Ltd, an offshore support services company.
Godrey Ogbechie (Nigeria)
Godrey Ogbechie is the Group Managing Director of Rainoil Limited, an integrated downstream oil and gas company. A leading player in the Nigerian industry, the company’s activities span the entire downstream value chain, namely petroleum product storage, transportation, distribution and retail. The group’s main products are gasoline (PMS), diesel (AGO) and kerosene (DPK). Rainoil currently has 71 outlets, a tank farm in Calabar, one in Oghara, Delta State, and another in Ijegun, Lagos.
A 1988 graduate of the University of Calabar with a degree in Agricultural and Extension Economics, Godrey Ogbechie also holds a Master of Business Administration degree. She began her career in banking in 1988 when she was assigned to the former Universal Trust Bank for its National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), a program set up by the Nigerian government to involve Nigerian graduates in nation building and development. Godrey Ogbechie worked for about 12 years at Universal Trust Bank and held all positions including Operations Manager. She later joined Fidelity Bank in 2002, before leaving in 2009, when she was the head of human resources. This marked the end of her career in the banking industry. In the same year, she joined her husband at Rainoil Limited as an Executive Director.
Eugenia Langa (Mozambique)
Since 2016, Eugenia Langa is the founder and CEO of Nweba which provides world-class services in the highly specialized areas of procurement and logistics for the construction, oil and gas, mining and energy sectors. Nweba is a unique company in the country, with an experienced team that holds CIPP (Certified International Procurement Professional) qualifications and over 10 years of experience in providing solutions to the specific challenges of these sectors.
In 2019, Eugenia Langa won the Mozambique Oil and Gas Sector Excellence Award and in 2018 she won the Quality Leadership Award.
Eugenia Langa holds a degree in Civil Engineering and a degree in Business Administration and Management, both from Universidade Politecnica, Mozambique. She also holds a professional certificate in International Procurement, Acquisition and Contract Management from Leoron – Professional Development Institute.
Jessica Kyeyune (Uganda)
Jessica Kyeyune is the local content specialist at Uganda’s national oil company. A graduate of the Institute of Corporate Governance, she also holds a post-graduate degree in procurement and supply chain management. Jessica Kyeyune has been instrumental in the implementation of Uganda’s local content regulations for oil and gas, specifically its supplier development programs which have resulted in many Ugandan companies winning contracts in the oil and gas sector.
Jessica Kyeyune has participated in international oil and gas conferences, where she has distinguished herself with her in-depth knowledge of the oil and gas sector and the ease with which she dissects complex topics. In Uganda, she is highly regarded for her involvement in strategic studies, including the Uganda Oil and Gas Industry Baseline Survey, the identification of domestic content activities in oil and gas value chain EPC contracts, and her outstanding supplier development programs.
Jessica Kyeyune has just completed the Uganda national oil company’s (UNOC) national content strategy, which is being implemented and is said to be producing remarkable results, even in its infancy.
Natasha Massano (Angola)
Natasha Massano is the only female member of the Board of Directors of Angola’s National Agency for Oil, Gas and Biofuels (ANPG), an organization created in 2019 as a result of the program to reorganize the oil sector in Angola. Among the actions undertaken for the restructuring of the sector, the transfer of the concessionaire function, previously held by Sonangol EP, to the newly created Agency was approved, in order to ensure greater policy coordination, increase the efficiency of processes and create the conditions for investment activity in the Angolan oil industry.
Gifty Ashiley (Ghana)
Gifty Ashiley is a risk analyst with over twelve years of experience in oil and gas management. She currently holds the position of Risk and Compliance Manager at Juwel Energy Limited.
She holds an MBA in Finance from the University of Ghana Business School and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana.
During his career, Gifty Ashiley has held several positions in the upstream and downstream oil sector in Ghana and abroad with companies such as Schlumberger, Oando PLC and GECAD Inc, partners of General Electric, USA.
Aissatou Cissoko Niasse (Senegal)
Aissatou Cissoko Niasse is the president and founder of the Senegal Oil and Gas Academy (SOGA), the first academy in Senegal to train students and young professionals from Senegal, in particular, and from around the world, in general, at the DTS, BTS, License, Master or Certification level in the fields of energy and extractive industry.
Located in the heart of the district “Les Almadies” in Dakar, the academy, it is explained, offers a rich educational program that allows students a rapid integration into the workforce upon graduation as well as the possibility of continuing their studies internationally through partner universities in Canada, the USA, France, Belgium, Germany, Morocco, Cyprus and Singapore.
For Aissatou Cissoko Niasse, given that Senegal will begin its first oil and gas operations within 4 years, it is imperative today, for the local content, to put on the market a local and confirmed expertise of young Senegalese in the oil and gas business.
Aissatou Cissoko Niasse holds a degree in instrumentation for oil exploitation and exploration from the University of Rennes 1, in France and a Master in analytical chemistry, reaction, mobilization in environment, obtained at the University of Aix-en-Provence . She also holds a University Technological Diploma (DUT) in Industrial Engineering and Maintenance from the University Institute of Technology of Lannion, University of Rennes 1. She also has certifications in oil and gas market operations. In addition, Aissatou Cissoko Niasse is currently a PhD student in neuroscience.
Prior to creating the Senegalese Oil and Gas Academy, Aissatou Cissoko Niasse worked in France for Total, as part of the industrial CO2 capture pilot project in Europe.
Olga Sabalo (Angola)
Since 2011, Olga Lukocheka da Silva Sabalo Miranda has been the coordinator of the legal department of Sonangol Pesquisa e Produção (Sonangol Research and Production), S.A. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of Sonangol. She is responsible for coordinating the company’s legal activity, issuing legal opinions, drafting and negotiating contracts, analysing legislation, drafting rules and regulations and providing legal assistance to operational projects.
Olga Sabalo has been working at Sonangol since 2005, where she started as a lawyer. From August 2011 to August 2015, she was a lecturer at the Faculty of Law of Agostinho Neto University, Luanda. She was a lecturer in the Petroleum Exploration and Production Contracts module, in the Petroleum Law post-graduation course and later in the Master’s course in Oil and Gas Law and Commercial Management.
Olga Sabalo holds a Master’s degree in Petroleum Law from The Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law & Policy at the University of Dundee, Scotland. She also holds a Bachelor of Law degree in Legal and Economic Sciences from the Autonomous University of Lisbon, also known as Luís de Camões University, the oldest private university in Portugal.
Aziza Mariam al-Bashir (Chad)
From January 21 to 31, 2019, Aziza Mariam al-Bashir served briefly as Chad’s Minister of Petroleum and Energy. Prior to her appointment, she was the general manager of the private company United Hydrocarbon, an oil exploration company in Chad. Long before that, she was deputy general manager of the Chad Hydrocarbons Company, the state-owned company that oversees the production and marketing of Chadian crude oil.
Born in December 1978, Aziza Mariam Albachir holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration from Rice University in Houston, Texas (USA) and a Master’s degree in Finance from the Ecole Supérieure de Gestion et Finance in Paris (France). She began her career as an accounting supervisor at Exxon Mobil in Houston, USA, before working on oil sites in Algeria, Equatorial Guinea and Malaysia. In addition, from July 2011 to February 2015, she was the CFO in Chad for Glencore, an Anglo-Swiss multinational commodity trading, brokerage and extraction company. It was in December 2016 that she was appointed deputy general manager of the Société des hydrocarbures du Tchad (SHT).
Odette Katungu Banamuhere (Democratic Republic of Congo)
A geologist by profession, Odette Katungu Banamuhere holds a Bachelor of Science/Applied Geology from the University of Kinshasa (UNIKIN). She is currently in charge of the exploration/production department at the national hydrocarbon company of Congo “SONAHYDROC SA”, where she started her career in 2002 as an aspiring office manager. She was also responsible for the promotion of the local content of the African Petroleum Producers Organization “APPO” for the Democratic Republic of Congo. During these years, she conducted several training missions, internships and field trips in the various sedimentary basins of the DRC, including the coastal basins and the central basin and contributed to the drafting of the oil identity card of the DR Congo.
Odette Katungu Banamuhere is a member of the Congo Geologists Network (CGN), the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (A.A.P.G) as well as the Society of Exploration Geo physists (SEG), a learned society dedicated to the promotion of the science and education of exploration geophysics in particular and geophysics in general.
Funmi Ogbue (Nigeria)
Funmi Ogbue is the founder and managing director of the consulting firm, Jake Riley Oil and Gas services, founded in 2008 and Zigma Limited, founded in 2015 and provides EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) services to the Nigerian oil industry. The company is headquartered in Lagos, with offices in Port Harcourt and Abuja.
Since founding Jake Riley, Funmi Ogbue has successfully led the growth of the company and its portfolio of partner projects.
Funmi Ogbue established her companies after decades of working for multinational oil and gas companies, including Abacan, a Canadian oil company, as their first employee in Nigeria, as well as Nexen and Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company Limited (SNEPCO).
Funmi Ogbue is also the chairperson of the Women in Energy Network (WIEN), an association dedicated to closing the gender gap in the energy sector. She is also the founder of Support Our Troops, a foundation she created to promote citizen support for military members and their families. “I live a full life. I only have two things left to do: work for the United Nations in New York and get a PhD,” the entrepreneur says on her Linkedin page.
Beatrice Mensah Tayui (Ghana)
Beatrice Mensah Tayui is the founder and CEO of Cybele Energy Global and Cybele Energy Ghana Ltd. Cybele Energy is an oil and gas company specializing in the production and exploration of oil blocks in West Africa, primarily in the acquisition of marginal fields and early exploration opportunities.
Beatrice Mensah was educated at Roosevelt University in Chicago, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics and Business Administration and a Master of Business Administration (MBA).
She is described as an economist and investment strategist with a keen business sense and a keen eye for niche opportunities in the oil and gas sector. Her strengths include domestic and international corporate acquisitions and joint ventures, corporate turnarounds and business trend analysis as an investment tool. She specializes in corporate restructuring and is said to have excellent leadership, interpersonal and problem-solving skills. Her ability to assert herself and stand out in the business world, it is explained, is due to her personal commitment to excellence.
Prior to establishing her own global companies, Beatrice Mensah held senior positions in several Fortune 500 companies (Pfizer, Hoffman La Roche, Johnson, and Johnson).
Lamé Verre (Nigeria/UK)
Lamé Verre is a seasoned energy executive with over 20 years of experience in the energy industry value chain in several regions of the world. She is currently the European and African co-chair of Lean in network (Europe and Africa), a global non-profit organization dedicated to empowering women in the energy sector to achieve their goals and ambitions. Lamé Verre is also head of strategy and innovation for Energy Customer Solutions in London. Prior to that, she was senior regional treasury manager for Europe, Eurasia and Sub-Saharan Africa (EESSA) at Halliburton, an oilfield services company and the second largest provider of services to the oil and gas industry in the world.
Prior to joining Halliburton, Lamé Verre founded Alaric & Associates, an independent energy consulting firm focused on the upstream, midstream and renewable energy sectors. She also co-founded ScanTech International, a service company that provides low-carbon pipeline construction and rehabilitation solutions to the energy sector.
After spending more than a decade focusing on upstream, Lamé Verre moved into energy consulting when she joined Gaffney, Cline & Associates (a subsidiary of Baker Hughes) as a senior business consultant in London and then in the Houston office as head of oil economics for the Americas.
Lamé Verre began her career with ENI E&P as an oil economist in Italy and Nigeria, before moving to the UK, where she held several key positions for companies such as Sterling Energy Plc, E.ON E&P and Baker Hughes.
Lame Verre currently serves on the board of the Uganda Conservation Foundation, a charity established to support wildlife populations. She is also co-chair of Lean-in Energy, Europe, and governs NESCOT, a UK higher education institution.
Lamé Verre holds an MBA from Imperial College London, a postgraduate diploma in corporate finance from the London Business School, a Master’s degree in Energy and Environmental Management and Economics from Eni Business University, Italy, and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Statistics from the University of Benin, Nigeria. She also recently completed the Women in Leadership Executive Program at the Saïd Business School, Oxford University, England.
Amira El Mazri (Egypt)
Amira El-Mazni is a member of the Board of Directors of the Egyptian Gas Regulatory Authority, GasReg, a Certified Corporate Director (IFC) and has been ranked as one of the 50 most influential women in Egypt. She is the former Vice President for Gas Regulatory Affairs at the Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company, EGAS. Her responsibilities included planning and monitoring the development of the legal and regulatory framework necessary for the establishment of the gas regulatory authority in Egypt.
Amira El-Mazni led the Oil and Gas Center Strategy Team, which is the sixth program of the Egyptian Oil and Gas Sector Modernization Project. During her tenure at EGAS, Amira El-Mazni managed the joint working groups for the EU-funded Energy Sector Policy Support Program and represented the Egyptian oil sector in the beneficiaries’ technical steering committee. She was the secretary of the EGAS LNG Sales Committee and Egypt’s representative in the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF) Steering Committee. She also served as EGAS/EGPC representative on the Western Deepwater Delta Co-Sellers Committee, as well as co-secretary of the Damietta LNG Train 2 Project Steering Committee. His previous responsibilities in the EGAS Planning and Projects Division included planning and monitoring gas field, processing, liquefaction and LNG development projects and studies.
Prior to joining EGAS in 2005, Amira El-Mazni worked for Engineering for the Petroleum and Process Industries (ENPPI), a subsidiary of the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation, an international provider of integrated engineering, procurement, construction supervision and project management services for the petroleum, petrochemical, power and other industries.
Amira El-Mazni received her Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering from Cairo University in 1981. She is a certified quality auditor and holds a degree in human resources management.
Patricia Simon-Hart (Nigeria)
Patricia Simon-Hart has over 30 years of experience in the private, public and non-profit sectors. She began her career in the ICT sector and later in the oil and gas sector, where she established AFTRAC Limited and is its Managing Director. AFTRAC Limited is a company offering production related services including well testing, production optimization, process diagnostics, sand management and consulting. Using her experience in business development, project management and client relationship management, she has built a successful business.
In addition, Patricia Simon-Hart is currently Secretary of the Board of Directors of PETAN, an advocacy group that promotes local participation and technology in the oil and gas industry. She is a co-founder and vice president of the Women in Energy Network (WIEN), a nonprofit organization that works to increase women’s participation in the energy value chain. She is also a board member of WEConnect International – WBE Council in Nigeria, and NCDMB’s, NCCF Diversity.
Patricia Simon-Hart holds a Master of Public Administration (MPA) from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and a Bachelor of Science in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Port Harcourt. She has also completed the London Business School’s Executive Program and various other executive programs.
Benita Bageire (Uganda)
Benita Bageire is the Managing Director of Albertine Oil and Gas Services, a company that provides technical consultancy and business representation services to international companies wishing to operate in the East African market and to East African companies seeking sustainable and value-added solutions in the oil and gas sector. Albertine Oil and Gas Services’ consultancy services are primarily focused on oil and gas, but also on oil and gas related infrastructure projects. Albertine Oil and Gas Services is supported on its board of directors by Norwegian companies and Norwegian consultants with more than 25 years of experience in the oil and gas industry.
Benita Bageire is also the CEO of Trade Africa Logistics, Savannah Cement’s authorized distributor in Uganda, Southern Sudan and Eastern DRC.
Elisabeth Rogo (Kenya)
Elisabeth Rogo is the founder and CEO of Tsavoi Oilfiels, Chairperson of the African Energy Chamber as well as Chairperson, Strategy and Innovation of Kenya Power Lightning Company. She has over 19 years of international experience in engineering, operations, project management, consulting, business development and management in the oil services sector (onshore and offshore) for international companies such as BJ Services, Baker Hughes (Baker Oil Tools division) and Weatherford International. She has worked in Canada, the United States, Europe and Africa. In 2011, she worked for the East Africa division of US-based oil and gas parastatal Weatherford International as Director of Business Development, based in Kampala, Uganda, and in 2013 she was promoted to Senior Director of Business Development, based in Nairobi, Kenya.
Elisabeth Rogo was the first woman in Weatherford’s Sub-Saharan Africa division to hold national and regional leadership roles when she was appointed Country Manager (Kenya) and then Area Manager for East Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Mozambique, and Ethiopia) from 2015 to 2017, before establishing her own oilfield services business – another first for a woman in the region.
Elizabeth Rogo holds a Bachelor of Science degree, with a minor in Chemistry, from Mount Saint Vincent University and a Bachelor of Engineering degree from Dalhousie University, both in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.
Elizabeth Rogo is a past president of the Nairobi chapter of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE).
Josina Marília N M Baião (Angola)
As of May 2019, Josina Marília N M Baião has joined the Board of Directors of Sonangol, the state-owned company responsible for the exploitation and production of oil and natural gas in Angola. Sonangol is Angola’s largest company. Previously, Josina Marília N M Baião was the CEO of Sonangol Holdings, Sonangol’s subsidiary responsible for managing its non-core assets. Prior to that, she led and held several positions in the concessions economics division of Sonangol E.P. from 1999 to 2012.
Born in Luanda, Angola, Josina Marília Ngongo Mendes Baião earned an undergraduate degree in economics in 1998 and a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in the United States from Indiana University 1999.
During her time at Sonangol, Josina Marília N M Baião was Vice President of the General Assembly of Banco BAI and currently chairs the Boards of Directors of Sonils (Oil Refinery in Luanda); Sonangalp (owned by Galp (49%) and Sonangol (51%), and which is engaged in the distribution and marketing of liquid fuels and lubricants in the retail and wholesale segments. She also chairs the Boards of Directors of Sonamet, whose mission is to provide oil and gas companies with advanced and quality manufacturing and design services for shallow and deep water projects; Sonadiets (leader in operation and maintenance services for oil, gas, liquefied natural gas, and power plants as well as Sonatide Marine Ltd, InterContinental Luanda Miramar.
Josina Marília N M Baião is or was also chairperson or member of the boards of directors and shareholder representative of several other Sonangol joint ventures, including Puma Energy International, Banco Caixa Geral Angola, PT Ventures, BIOCOM, China Sonangol, Mota Engil Angola, Solo Properties Knightsbridge, Technip Angola, Angobetumes, Lobinave, Sonangol Congo and ACS.
Nkechi Obi (Nigeria)
Nkechi Obi is the founder and Managing Director of Techno Oil Limited, Nigeria’s leading local oil and gas company with a staff of over 500. A privately held, diversified, all-Nigerian company, Techno Oil Limited today holds a variety of blue chip oil and gas investment portfolios. Founded over a decade ago, Techno Oil Limited is today one of Nigeria’s leading business conglomerates. The company offers a wide range of petroleum products and is a major supplier of diesel, gasoline, gasoil, marine diesel, marine fuel oil, kerosene, propane, butane and fuel oil in Nigeria. In addition, Techno Oil operates a 10,000 ton state-of-the-art lubricant blending plant located in Lekki, southeast of Lagos. Techno lubricant is offered in a wide range of packaging sizes, from 800 ml to 250 liters. The plant also has a large warehouse that stores over 15,000 tons of packaged lubricants and an open storage of over 150 tons of drums. In addition, Techno Oil manages and operates an automatic digital bottling plant for liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) at several locations in Nigeria. In addition, Techno Oil built the first fully automated LPG cylinder manufacturing plant in Kajola, Nigeria. The plant has an annual production capacity of over 5 million pieces of high quality LPG cylinders.
In addition, Techno Oil has several distribution outlets in various locations in Nigeria and provides a range of ISO 9001:2008 certified products.
Nkechi Obi holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and attended prestigious business schools in Lagos and Harvard. She is an expert in strategy and business development with over 25 years of experience in the oil industry. She had a distinguished career with ExxonMobil, where she received numerous awards. She left ExxonMobil to enter the private sector, establishing Techno Oil and leading the company to remarkable success.
In addition, Nkechi Obi is an advocate for “clean cooking” through the Techno Oil Cooksafe initiative, which aims to save lives, improve health, empower women and preserve the environment.
Nkechi Obi has won several national and global awards, including the EY Entrepreneur of the Year award. In 2012, he was awarded the national honor of Member of the Order of the Niger (MON) by the President of Nigeria.
Moroti Adedoyin-Adeyinka (Nigeria)
Moroti Adedoyin-Adeyinka is the Managing Director of Sahara Energy Resource Limited, part of the Sahara Group, which specializes in petroleum products trading.
Sheena Owusu-Ansah (Ghana)
Sheena Owusu-Ansah has over 11 years of experience in the upstream petroleum industry (service and operating company) and has worked on various projects covering different geographical areas including Africa, deepwater, offshore and onshore HTHP wells. She is currently the Operations Geologist for the Ghanaian subsidiary of ENI, an Italian multinational oil and gas company, majority owned by the Italian government. In this capacity, Sheena Owusu-Ansah works on a daily basis with various teams (geosciences, drilling, wireline, sales, business development, etc.) from all over the world. She actively participates in map development, meetings and HSE (Health, Safety and Environment) training. “This HSE culture has become my way of life,” she explains on her Linkedin page.
Prior to joining ENI, Sheena Owusu-Ansah was a sales specialist – drill bits as well as a geo-scientist (Imaging Geology) at the Ghanaian subsidiary of US-based parapet company Bakers Hughes.
Sheena Owusu-Ansah is currently pursuing a Master of Science – MSc-Engineering and Management (Lean Management, Quality & Six Sigma, Sustainability, Project Management, Strategic Management, Financial Analysis, OB &HRM, Supply Chain Management) at Coventry University, England. She also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Geology from the University of Ghana.
Mireille Toulekima (Gabon)
Originally from Gabon, Mireille Toulekima is the founder and managing director of MT Energy Resources, an oil and gas consulting firm based in Perth, Australia. Since May 2021, Mireille Toukemia is also the Global Chair-Engineering of G100: Mission Million, an international group of women leaders and achievers in all fields, including Nobel Laureates, former heads of state, ministers, businesswomen, philanthropists, investors, entrepreneurs, business and community leaders, who want to give back.
With a degree in science from the Institut Supérieur de Recherche en Production Automée (ISERPA) in Angers, France and a post-graduate diploma in applied management from the Global School of Applied Management in Australia, Mireile Toulekima has worked in several countries around the world. She has had an international career spanning more than 20 years in the oil and gas sector in various technical and management assignments in Africa, Europe, Asia and Australia. She started her career in 1996 with Shell Gabon in Port Gentil, where she worked until 2000, before joining Shell exploration and production international, Santos Ltd in Rijswijk, Holland from 2000 to 2001. She then worked for Shell Malaysia exploration and production in Miri, Malaysia, from 2001 to 2006. Thereafter, she joined Woodside Energy Ltd in Adelaide, Australia and also worked for Sasol Exploration and Production International on various oil and gas projects around the world.
Mireille Toulekima is an expert on Local Content and also on the issue of emerging markets. One of her works on local content was carried out in Mozambique and Ghana under the direction of their respective governments and oil authorities.
A philanthropist, Mireille Toulekima founded the non-profit organization “Energy Angels Foundation” in December 2015, to enable disadvantaged girls in Africa to study oil and energy related subjects at top schools and institutions around the world. An international mentor and partner in several global mentoring companies, she advocates for a large presence of women working in non-traditional male-dominated industries. She contributes to a number of women’s and technical groups around the world and has been identified and recognized as one of the most influential women in the global energy sector.
Author, Mireille Toulekima has published three books, including two books on oil and gas namely “Local content: a key tool for oil and gas projects in emerging markets”, published in 2015 and “Natural gas strategies: the role of emerging and developing markets”, published in Australia.
In 2012, Mireille Toulekima was named a VIP member of “Worldwide Who’s Who for excellence in Petroleum”, which has over 500,000 members representing all major oil companies.
Polyglot, she speaks French, English, Spanish, Malay and Portuguese.
Mireille Toulekima is a member of several oil and gas organizations: the Petroleum Engineering Society (PES), the Oil and Gas Council, the Global Women Petroleum Club and several other women’s organizations around the world. In addition, Mireille Toulekima is an avid activist for diversity and the advancement of women in STEM industries. A technology specialist, in 2015 she was named a Global Tech Leader in the Global Tech Women initiative in South Africa.
Theodora Torto (Ghana)
Theodora Torto has extensive experience in the downstream oil industry. She is currently the Executive Office Manager of PETROSOL Ghana, a new privately owned Ghanaian company marketing quality petroleum products such as gasoline, diesel, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), kerosene, mining gas and lubricants. This marketing of petroleum products is done through forty-six (46) fuel and LPG stations spread in almost all regions of Ghana.
Prior to this, Theodora Torto was the personal assistant to the CEO, coordinating stakeholder meetings and engagements on behalf of the company. Theodora Torto was recently awarded PETROSOL Ghana’s Best Auditor Award for her contribution and dedication in helping PETROSOL Ghana achieve its triple ISO certification.
Theodora Torto holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and English from the University of Ghana.
Geena Malkani (Ghana)
Geena Malkani is the Chief Operating Officer and a member of the Board of Directors of the Springfield Group of Companies, the first independent Ghanaian company to be awarded an oil block in Ghana and a leading provider of upstream and downstream services to the oil industry in West Africa. In addition, for more than 5 years, Springfield has supplied about 12.5% of Ghana’s petroleum product requirements and has been a leading exporter of refined products to landlocked neighboring countries such as Mali and Burkina Faso.
Geena Malkani, the company explains, is an expert in business development and has varied experience in business sustainability, opportunity identification and customer retention management, business-to-business relations, construction and business performance management. As Chief Administrative Officer of the Springfield Group and all its subsidiaries, Geena Malkani oversees the management of human and financial resources. Her expertise spans oil and gas (upstream and downstream), real estate, manufacturing, transportation and logistics.
Over the past ten years, Geena Malkani has been instrumental in creating business development, marketing and sales strategies for the Springfield group of companies. In Nigeria, she has been instrumental in securing and executing major oil contracts for the group. In addition, she co-led the negotiation process for the acquisition of West Cape Three Points Oil Block 2 by Springfield Exploration and Production (E&P), currently the only independent, wholly Ghanaian company to be awarded an oil block.
Taciana Peao Lopes (Mozambique)
Taciana Peão Lopes is a Mozambican lawyer specializing in energy, oil and gas. She holds a Master’s degree in Energy Law from the LLM – North Sea Energy Law Program, Universities of Oslo, Aberdeen, Groningen and Copenhagen; a law degree from the University of Coimbra, Portugal and also studied law at the New York Law School, New York University School of Law.
Taciana Peão Lopes is the founding partner and director of Taciana Peão Lopes & Associados (TPLA), a law firm specializing in assisting the development of energy and infrastructure projects in Mozambique.
Taciana Peão Lopes has represented major upstream oil and gas companies based in Mozambique. She was also involved in the first liquefied natural gas (LNG) export project in Mozambique, one of the largest LNG projects in the world. Its LNG expertise includes drafting and negotiating with the Government of the Republic of Mozambique the legal instruments necessary to create a new legal framework for the implementation and financing of LNG in Mozambique.
Due to her expertise in local content, Taciana Peão Lopes was appointed CEO of Mozambique Enterprise Solutions, a Mozambican company that develops local content strategies and implements a business development center in the context of LNG in Rovuma, Mozambique.
In addition, since June 2020, Taciana Peão Lopes is also a member of the Africa section of the executive committee of the Association of International Petroleum Negotiators (AIPN).
Ivy Manly-Spain (Ghana)
Ivy Manly-Spain has successfully launched and managed three companies in the oil industry, namely Hills Oil Marketing, C.E.O Oil & Gas limited and Globex Energy Limited. Hills Oil Marketing Company Limited is a 100% Ghanaian owned oil marketing company operating in Ghana. Established in 2010, CEO OIL & GAS COMPANY LIMITED is a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) transportation company, while Globex Energy Limited is a crude oil distribution company, as well as a wholesale buyer and seller of petroleum products to oil and natural gas marketing companies in Africa.
Previously, Ivy Manly-Spain served for more than 17 years as General Manager of Parliament Travel and Tourism in New York City, USA. She is also the Managing Director of Servistar Minwax (West Africa) Limited, an import-export company with over 200 direct and indirect employees.
Ivy Manly Spain established her oil businesses after identifying the problems associated with perpetual shortages. To this end, she purchased 30 brand new MAN diesel trucks, believing that Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) should be delivered safely and securely and that gas outlets should be supplied regularly, consistently and quickly.
At the beginning of 2010, the idea of establishing a world-class oil and gas trading company, capable of regularly supplying LPG and oil to end-users in the West African sub-region, was only a project. Today, the CEO recalls, with a selfless and goal-oriented team, the company has made solid progress and achieved its objectives.
Mervin Ekpen Azeta (Nigeria)
Since October 2020, Mervin Ekpen Azeta, an award-winning energy professional, has been with Schlumberger as Business Line, Product and Service Delivery Manager (PSD Manager) for Surface and Midstream Production Systems,Nigeria and West Africa. Schlumberger is a multinational oilfield services and equipment company and the world’s leading provider of reservoir characterization, drilling, production and processing technologies to the oil and gas industry.
Previously, Mervin Ekpen Azeta was responsible for product and service delivery at Schlumberger in Congo (Brazzaville) and the Democratic Republic of Congo. She was responsible for improving the quality of delivery of oil and gas well completion projects, developing talent and promoting higher levels of internal commitment and alignment to maintain strong performance in an increasingly competitive and dynamic market.
Mervin Ekpen Azeta serves on numerous boards and advocates for a cleaner, healthier, safer and more sustainable energy future for all.
Mervin Ekpen Azeta holds a Bachelor of Engineering, First Class Honors, in Chemical Engineering from the University of Benin, Nigeria and a Master of Science, Honors, in Sustainable Energy Futures, Mechanical Engineering, from Imperial College London.
Nosizwe Nokwe (South Africa)
Nosizwe Nokwe is one of the first female petrochemical engineers in South Africa. She is currently the Chairman of the Board of FRIBURGE Oil & Gas, a pan-African oil, gas and mining services provider headquartered in Angola, with a support office in Cape Town, South Africa, and a growing presence in sub-Saharan Africa, with a particular focus on Ghana, Nigeria and Mozambique.
From December 1992 to June 2006, Nosizwe Nokwe held various management positions within Engen, including General Manager of Engen Namibia and Engen Mozambique. From June 2006 to March 2007, she worked as General Manager, Strategy and Planning at Total South Africa. Nosizwe Nokwe was also, from March 2012 to November 2015, Group Managing Director of PetroSA, an integrated upstream and downstream oil and gas company, which operates the world’s first gas-to-liquids refinery using the Fisher-Tropf process. Petro SA is also the only company in South Africa that has been actively involved in the exploration and production of oil and gas in the country. It has also been the sponsor of a complex offshore well drilling project and the potential multi-billion South African rand acquisition of a pan-African oil marketing company.
Nosizwe Nokwe holds a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering from the Russian Gubkin State Oil and Gas University (formerly the Moscow State Oil and Gas Academy). She also holds a degree in petrochemical engineering, specializing in oil and gas refining from Bakinski Nyeftanoi Teknikym (Baku Petroleum Technikom) in Azerbaijan.
A multilingual, Nosizwe Nokwe speaks Russian, French, English and Portuguese. She has been an executive and non-executive member of several boards of oil and gas companies and other corporations since 1999.
Nosizwe Nokwe has received several awards including “Excellence in Business” – Women in Energy in Africa and “Female Business Personality” in 2013. In 2009, she was a finalist for South Africa’s Most Influential Women in Business and Government Award in the government category. She also received the “Top Female Leader of Tomorrow” award in 2005.
Aisha Salisu (Nigeria)
Aisha Salisu has over 15 years of experience in the banking sector and international oil and gas trading. She is the CEO of March Energy Limited, an oil and gas company founded in 2010 whose core business is the importation, marketing and distribution of petroleum products across Nigeria, with offices located in the major Nigerian cities of Lagos and Abuja. According to Aisha Salisu, the company continues to break through all barriers with its multi-faceted structure that serves both the upstream and downstream sectors of the oil and gas industry.
Aisha Salisu was a former bank employee who sold cars to her colleagues, which brought her to the attention of her boss who introduced her to oil and gas transportation in Kano State, Nigeria. Her skills and resilience also won her the support of oil tycoons in the north, such as ADS Oil and Gas, with whom she began transporting petroleum products, which brought her into the industry.
She has a degree in public administration and a bachelor’s degree in political science. In an interview, Aisha Salisu explained that she was determined to learn on the job and made strategic alliances to take on more technical responsibilities that were outside her area of expertise.
Kristina Kasibayo (Uganda)
Since February 2020, Kristina Kasibayo has served as senior legal and compliance counsel at Uganda National Oil Company Limited (UNOC). An experienced oil and gas lawyer with more than a decade of experience in the petroleum sector, Kristina Kasibayo has extensive knowledge and experience in contract drafting and negotiation as well as a strong understanding of the oil and gas commercial, operational and regulatory regime, environmental impacts, and social and community issues related to resource development.
Prior to joining UNOC, Kristina Kasibayo spent 10 years as a legal and compliance advisor with Tullow Oil in Uganda.
Kristina Kasibayo holds a Master of Laws degree in Energy Law and Policy from the University of Dundee, Scotland; a Master Legal Practice Course (LPC) from The College of Law, Guildford, England; and a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Kent, England.
Nelia Daniel Dias (Angola)
Since July 2017, Nelia Dias has been Senior Legal Counsel in Angola and Senior Contracts and Commercial Counsel in Southern Africa (Angola, Mozambique, and South Africa) at Baker Hughes, a U.S. parapetroleum company specializing in horizontal drilling and the chemicals needed for hydraulic fracturing, among other things. Previously, Nelia Dias was Senior Counsel at General Electric Oil & Gas, the division of General Electric that held its oil industry investments. Nelia Dias started as joint venture counsel at GE Oil & Gas Angola Limitada until the merger with Baker Hughes. Prior to that, she spent more than 6 years as Senior Legal Counsel and Senior Contract Counsel at Chevron Oil Company in Cabinda, one of Angola’s eighteen provinces, located in the far north of the country.
Nelia Dias is also a professor of law at the Catholic University of Luanda. After having taught various subjects part-time in evening classes, from 2007 to 2009, she teaches, full-time, the Law of Civil Procedure (3rd year) until today.
In addition, from October 1997 to March 2017, Nelia Dias was a lawyer and professor of law at the Angolan and Portuguese Bars. From October 1997 to April 2007, she worked as a lawyer in Lisbon in different areas of law, including criminal law, administrative law, but especially civil law and commercial law, with individuals and companies as clients.
Nelia Dias holds a Master’s degree in Civil Law and a Bachelor’s degree in Civil Law from the Lusíada University of Lisbon, a private Portuguese university and one of the oldest private universities in Portugal. She also has a postgraduate degree in Oil and Gas from Agostinho Neto University, Luanda, Angola and a postgraduate degree in Communication Law from the University of Coimbra, Portugal. Nelia Dias also holds a Professional Certificate in Supply Chain Management from Arizona State University, USA and a Diploma in Global Business from Saïd Business School, Oxford University Business School, UK.
Adwoa Wiafe (Ghana)
Since June 2012, Adwoa Wiafe has been the General Counsel and Board Secretary of the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, Ghana’s national oil company. She is responsible for managing the legal team and advising the CEO and Board of Directors. She also negotiates oil and gas contracts, advises the company on petroleum policy and legislation, determines the company’s legal strategy in the event of a dispute, litigation or crisis.
Prior to joining the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, Adwoa Wiafe worked at the International Court of Justice as a legal assistant to the Judge of the Appellate Division, Akua Kuenyehia. Prior to that, she served as an assistant prosecutor at the Special Court for Sierra Leone.
Adwoa Wiafe holds a law degree from Harvard Law School, one of the schools of Harvard University. She also holds a Bachelor of Civil Law degree from St Hugh’s College, one of the constituent colleges of Oxford University, UK and a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Ghana.
Oluseun Solanke (Nigeria)
Oluseun Solanke is the Principal Reservoir Engineer at Oando Energy Resources, Nigeria’s leading independent E&P companies.
Oluseun Solanke has 17 years’ experience in the industry. She joined Oando in 2013 from Engie’s exploration/production (E&P) division, where she held several positions including Reserves Manager for their global E&P portfolio. While at Engie E&P UK, she was a key player in propelling the UK’s Cygnus Field from fledgling opportunity to field development. Prior to Engie, she worked as a Reservoir Engineer in Shell E&P UK, a tenure which involved contributions to the successful depressurisation of Brent Field.
Oluseun Solanke holds a MEng degree in Petroleum Engineering from Imperial College London. She is an active member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers.
Makhosi Mbokazi (South Africa)
Makhosi Mbokazi, a pilot and crew boat engineer, works on vessels in the offshore oil fields. She is currently Marine Superintendent/ ADPA at Denmarine CC, a marine services company, based in Cape Town, South Africa, but serving ports throughout West, South and East Africa, through its association with local survey companies. With a postgraduate degree in marine studies from Durban University of Technology, South Africa, Makhosi Mbokazi began her career on container ships in 2007, where she started her seafaring apprenticeship and then sailed as an officer. In 2013, she pursued a career ashore for a change, initially working for the same container company, but then received an offer from an offshore oil and gas survey company to become their ship coordinator. A little less than a year later, she and others were laid off due to falling oil prices. Makhosi Mbokazi then decided to revalidate her expired STCW (marine certificates of qualification)courses, before joining another company in 2016. Since then, she has been working on a drillship, an offshore patrol and on offshore research vessels.
Makhosi Mbokazi currently holds a master <500 COC (marine certificate of qualification) and is now an offshore oilfield crew boat pilot/engineer. “In 2018, I joined a drillship as chief officer. The vessel was at anchor in Walvis Bay, Namibia. The crew was informed that they were getting an officer, but I think the captain forgot to mention that it would be a female officer! When I arrived, the crew thought I was the captain’s wife, which was hilarious! Most of the crew had never sailed with a female officer before, but they were very open-minded and welcoming, and the trip was very enjoyable,” said Makhosi Mbokazi in an interview with worldwide-rs.com.
Lyoidah Kiconco (Uganda)
Since March 2018, Lyoidah Kiconco has been responsible for operations and new partnerships at Uganda National Oil Company Limited/UNOC. An experienced geologist in the oil and energy industry, she has expertise in mineral exploration, gas, oil, oilfield and crude oil.
Lyoidah Kiconco holds a Master of Business Administration (MBA) with a focus on oil and gas from the Eastern and Central African Management Institute (ESAMI); a Diploma in Oil and Gas Operations Management from the Norwegian International Petroleum Management and Administration Program (PETRAD); a Master’s degree in Geology-Hydrology from Makerere University, Uganda and a Master’s degree in Petroleum Geology, Sedimentology and Stratigraphy from the University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Prior to joining the UNOC, Lyoidah Kiconco served for over 5 years as Managing Director of Carlton Ltd, an oil and gas consulting firm. She developed the company’s activities in Uganda and East Africa. She also provided consulting services in the areas of petroleum geosciences, national/local content and petroleum management.
Prior to that, Lyoidah Kiconco worked for 9 years as a geologist at Schlumberger, a multinational oilfield services and equipment company. Prior to that, she was a geologist at the Petroleum Exploration and Development Department (PEPD) in Uganda, whose mission is to establish the country’s petroleum potential and promote it.
Dena Hegab (Egypt)
Dena Hegab was the first female well drilling engineer at British Petroleum in Egypt. Within five years of graduating from the American University in Cairo, Dena Hegab had become one of the first women to drill for BP in the Mediterranean. She was the only woman among 179 men. Dena Hegab, a drilling engineer, joined BP’s graduate program in Egypt, before working for an international team in Houston, USA, as a drilling engineer in the Gulf of Mexico from December 2018 to March 2021. Prior to that, she was a drilling engineer and change agent in modernization and transformation.
Dena Hegab holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Petroleum and Energy Engineering from the American University in Cairo, Egypt.
Patience Maseli (Nigeria)
Patience Maseli retired from the Nigerian Ministry of Petroleum Resources as the first female deputy director of the Upstream Division after 35 years of service. She is now a consultant in the oil and gas sector. The highlight of her career was the naming of a West Capella drillship in South Korea with her name on it.
Patience Maseli holds a Bachelor’s degree in Botany from the University of Benin, Nigeria, and a Master’s degree in Petroleum Geology from the University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria. After graduating from the University of Benin in 1982, Patience Maseli was deployed to Rivers State for the mandatory National Youth Service Corps program. She was posted to the Research and Development Division of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), where she worked in the Geology Laboratory. She was later assigned to the Petroleum Inspection Division (now the Petroleum Resources Department) as a petrophysicist. Patience Maseli was then promoted to Senior Geologist in 1992, Chief Geologist in 2003, Deputy Director in 2006 and finally to Deputy Director and Upstream Division Head in 2017. She retired in November 2018 when she reached the mandatory retirement age of 60.
Layla El Hares (Egypt)
Layla El Hares is the Managing Director of Developments – Eastern Mediterranean, and Head of Egypt Assets at the multinational oil company Shell. From July 2015 to February 2016, she served as vice president upstream in Egypt for BG Group, a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell plc, better known as Shell. Prior to that, Layla El Hares worked for Schlumberger in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, as a recruitment and university relations manager for Latin America. Prior to that, also in Rio de Janeiro, she worked as a business development manager for SubSea, an oilfield services company specializing in the design, fabrication and implementation of subsea infrastructure for offshore oil and gas fields. Prior to that, Layla El Hares served as a project manager in research and development.
Sara Mansour (Egypt)
Sara Mansour is an instrumentation and control engineer at the Egyptian Natural Gas Company (GASCO). She has 6 years of experience in the natural gas processing industry and works at the Western Desert Gas Complex in Alexandria, Egypt.
Sara Mansour holds a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Universiti Teknologi PETRONAS (UTP), a leading private university in Malaysia.
Adaku Ufere (Nigeria)
Adaku Ufere is an international energy lawyer and business consultant with over ten years of experience leading multicultural and multilingual teams in structuring, negotiating and implementing oil and gas, power, gender, mining, infrastructure and energy policy projects in Africa. Adaku Ufere has extensive experience working in sub-Saharan Africa. She has lived and worked in Nigeria, Ghana, Equatorial Guinea, and South Africa, and has advised governments, multinationals, and local energy companies in approximately 27 African countries, including Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Cameroon, Mauritius, South Sudan, Senegal, Nigeria, South Africa, Sao Tome and Principe, Cameroon, Uganda, Congo-Brazzaville, etc. She has worked with the governments of these countries to analyze national energy policies, address legal and regulatory constraints on energy investments and create legal and fiscal frameworks for major energy projects in Africa.
Adaku Ufere is currently the Deputy Chief of Party for the West Africa Energy Program in Accra, Ghana. This initiative coordinated by USAID and Power Africa helps West Africa expand the supply of and access to affordable, grid-connected electricity services through technical assistance, capacity building and transaction support.
Previously, Adaku Ufere founded “Dax Consult”, an energy, gender and infrastructure consulting firm, providing business strategy and operational support to clients throughout West Africa.
In addition, Adaku Ufere was head of the energy department of Centurion Law Group in Equatorial Guinea, as well as oil and gas legal counsel to General Electric in Nigeria.
Adaku Ufere holds a Masters degree in Law, Oil and Gas from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland. Her courses there included Oil and Gas Regulatory Law; Maritime and Coastal Law; State Control of Oil and Gas; and Oil and Gas Contracts. She was awarded a distinction for a postgraduate thesis entitled: “Petroleum Investment in Nigeria and the Local Content Regime” which was selected by the Energy Institute as one of the top 3 papers on energy related areas at the University of Aberdeen School of Law.
Adaku Ufere also holds a law degree from the University of Nigeria and the Nigerian Law School.
She is the recipient of several awards and honors
Cynthia Lumor (Ghana)
Since October 2021, Cynthia Lumor has been the Deputy Managing Director of Tullow Oil Ghana, the first person to hold this position in Ghana since Tullow started operations there in 2006. As Deputy Managing Director, Cynthia Lumor is responsible for integrating non-technical functions within the company and assisting the Managing Director, Wissam Al Monthiry, in driving Tullow’s plans to invest over $4 billion in Ghana over the next 10 years.
An experienced business executive with a proven track record in the telecommunications and oil and gas sectors, Cynthia Lumor was previously a member of Tullow Ghana’s senior management team and served as Director of Corporate Affairs, responsible for external affairs and social performance, overseeing human resources, information systems and facilities management. She also served as Director of Sustainability and Local Content.
Prior to joining Tullow Oil Ghana in 2017, Cynthia Lumor worked for telecommunications company MTN Ghana as director of corporate services. Long before that, she was senior legal counsel at the Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, where she helped draft the Petroleum Act, which created the structure and legal framework for an independent regulator and the oil and gas industry. She was also responsible for transactional advice, contract review and management, negotiation, drafting, planning and monitoring, risk assessment, dispute resolution, policy advice, compliance, and board secretarial support.
Cynthia Lumor holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from the University of Ghana and a Certificate of Practice from the Ghana School of Law, an educational institution in Ghana for the training of lawyers and the only institution in Ghana to offer training to law graduates from the Barrister at Law program.
Amy Jadesimi (Nigeria)
Amy Jadesimi is the General Manager of Lagos Deep Offshore Logistic Base (LADOL), a special economic zone built on a disused island in the port of Apapa, at the entrance to the port of Lagos, Nigeria, which began in 2000. The free zone provides a base for large industrial projects and was initially initiated to attract companies in the oil and gas sector.
In January 2019, LADOL celebrated a major milestone with the arrival of Egina, a massive floating production storage and offloading vessel (FPSO) owned by French oil giant Total. According to Amy Jadesimi, CEO of LADOL, this is the largest project of its kind in the world, and the first FPSO to be manufactured and integrated in Africa, as well as the largest vessel to ever dock in Nigeria, demonstrating that the most complex global industrial projects can be developed in Nigeria. LADOL reports that companies based in its territory have operating costs up to 50% lower than outside the area, which has been particularly attractive in recent years when oil prices were relatively low.
In 2019, Amy Jadesimi received the 2019 Petroleum Industry Award, organized by the Foreign Investment Network (FIN) and the Nigerian Ministry of Petroleum Resources, at the second edition of the Nigeria International Petroleum Summit, held in Abuja. According to the organizers, the award is a recognition of Amy Jadesimi’s outstanding work in the oil and gas sector and in the development of the maritime sector in Africa.
Amy Jadesimi, 45, holds a degree in physiological sciences from Oxford University and a doctorate in medicine from the same university. After graduation, she joined Goldman Sachs International in London in the investment banking division, specializing in corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions. She then moved to Stanford Business School, where she earned her MBA in Business Administration. While at Stanford, Jadesimi interned at Brait Private Equity in Johannesburg, South Africa, where she worked as a transaction officer in the private equity industry. After graduating from business school, she moved to Nigeria, where she established a financial advisory firm before joining the management team of LiLe (LADOL’s parent company) as Managing Director.
Amy Jadesimi is a member of the advisory board of the United Nations Development Program’s Africa Human Development Report. In 2013, she was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and an Emerging Talent by the Women’s Forum for Economy and Society.
In addition, Amy Jadesimi is a founding member of the Commission for Sustainable Development , announced in January 2016 at the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Khadijah A Ba (Senegal)
Since June 2017, Khadijah A Ba is the founder and CEO of Der Mond Oil and Gas, an Abu Dhabi (UAE) based company that specializes in the marketing and sale of crude oil, refined products and liquefied natural gas (LNG). Der Mond Oil and Gas, the company explains, wants to become one of the major players in the oil and gas industry with West Africa as a strategic destination.
Khadijah A BA has experience in multinational oil and gas companies such as BP Canada Energy Group, Technip Abu Dhabi and Schlumberger Middle East.
Khadijah A BA holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Social Sciences from the Collège International Marie de France in Montreal, Canada; a Bachelor’s degree in Economics and Management from Paris Sorbonne University in Abu Dhabi and a Master’s degree in Business Administration, Management, Finance and Banking, also from Paris Sorbonne University in Abu Dhabi.
Khadija A BA completed an internship at British Petrolum (BP) in Calgary, Canada, and a nine-month internship at Technip Abu Dhabi, one of the world’s leading technology, engineering and construction (EPC) companies, which has been operating in the Middle East for over 40 years. While working on her Master’s degree, Khadija A BA got a job at Schlumberger Middle East, where she worked for almost two and a half years, before starting her own company.
Khadija A BA is the youngest member of the Middle East Petroleum Club and advocates for young women and men in the energy sector.
Kadijah Amoah (Ghana)
Kadijah Amoah is the Managing Director of Aker Energy Ghana Limited, which aims to become the oil and gas operator of choice in Ghana. The company was established in 2018, with offices in Oslo, Norway, and Accra, Ghana.
Kadijah Amoah is a member of the Aker Energy AS management team and a member of the board of directors of affiliates AGM Petroleum Ghana and Aker Ghana Investment Company.
Prior to joining Aker Energy, Kadijah Amoah was a lawyer and member of the banking and capital markets team in the German office of Clifford Chance, an English-based international corporate law firm. Prior to that, she worked as an investment and business development officer in the office of the Vice President of the Republic of Ghana. She was the Ghanaian government official for the Millennium Challenge Corporation (a U.S. bilateral foreign aid agency) and the Ghanaian government official for the U.K. Ghana Business Council.
Kadijah Amoah holds a Bachelor’s degree (Honors) in Political Science and Sociology and a Bachelor’s degree (Honors) and Master’s degree in International Business from the University of Ghana. She also holds a Diploma in Legal Practice from the Institute of Legal Practice and Development in Rwanda, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Strategy and Innovation from the Saïd Business School at Oxford University. She is currently pursuing an Executive MBA at the Saïd Business School of Oxford University.
In addition, Kadijah Amoah is an alumnus of the International Leader’s Programme of the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office. She is a member of the Oriel Law Society, the University of Oxford, the Oxford Business Alumni Network, the Rwanda Bar Association and the East African Law Society.
Mary M’Mukindia (Kenya)
Mary M’Mukindia is a former ExxonMobil executive in Kenya and the United Kingdom, a founding member and the first Executive Director of the Petroleum Institute of East Africa (PIEA), and former CEO of the National Oil Corporation of Kenya.
Mary M’Mukindia is currently an executive leadership coach, business consultant and leadership trainer. She also worked at the United Nations Environment Program, Partnership for Clean Fuels and Vehicles from 2007 to 2012.
Mary M’Mukindia holds a Bachelor of Commerce (Honors) degree from the University of Nairobi. She is an Associate Certified Coach (ACC), a Certified Executive Leadership Coach (CELC) and a Certified Leadership Trainer.
Olu Maduka (Nigeria)
Olu Maduka, 80, is a pioneer in Nigeria’s oil and gas industry. She was the first female board member of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and was among the founding directors of the Nigerian Liquified Natural Gas Company (NLNG), where she played a major role in facilitating the take-off of the company’s operations in Nigeria. She is currently the Chairperson of the International Women in Energy, Oil and Gas (WEOG) Forum in Nigeria.
Olu Maduka was the first female member of the Council for the Regulation of Engineering in Nigeria (COREN) in 1974, and became the first Nigerian female member of the Institution of Electrical Engineers in the United Kingdom, the Nigerian Society of Engineers and the Nigerian Academy of Engineering, as well as the first female president of the latter.
In 1982, Olu Maduka founded the Association of Professional Women Engineers of Nigeria (APWEN), which has grown from six branches to 33. She was made an honorary fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Science Technology in 1987 and of Yaba College of Technology in 1988.
In 1993, Engr. Olu Maduka founded Friends of the Environment (FOTE), with initiatives in the areas of environment, renewable energy, waste management and women’s empowerment. She was a pioneer board member of the International Network of Women in Engineering and Science (INWES), and a board member of the Nigerian Extractive Industries Transparency International (NEITI). In addition, she was a member of the Board of Directors of the Nigerian National Merit Award (NNMA). She was honored as a member of the Order of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (MFR) in 2008. In 2014, she was appointed Chairperson of the Science and Technology Committee of the Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry. In 2016, she became the tenth president – and the first female president – of the Nigerian Academy of Engineering. In addition, Olu Maduka has served as president of the Ijesha Society and president of Osun Polytechnic.
Salma Okonkwo (Ghana)
Salma Okonkwo is the founder and CEO of the UBI Group, an oil and gas company established in 2006, which is the leading local oil company in Ghana and the West African sub-region, operating across the entire value chain of downstream oil operations, with each business line having a different growth cycle: trading, storage, tank farms, transport vessels and fuel stations across the country. Salma Okonkwo is at the head of a multi-million dollar group that she has patiently built over the past 12 years.
Born in Accra, where she also grew up and attended high school, Salma Okonkwo went to Los Angeles, USA, where she attended Loyola Marymount University and graduated in 1994. She worked briefly in California for a food brokerage company before returning to Accra in 2003 when Sahara Energy Group, an oil and gas company, hired her. While at Sahara Group, Okonkwo realized that the company could grow by opening gas stations. She presented the idea several times to her superiors, but each time her proposals were not accepted. In 2006 and at the age of 36, she decided to put the idea into practice herself, leaving Sahara Energy Group and starting her own company UBI. She began by supplying liquefied petroleum gas to remote areas of northern Ghana, her father’s home region, where many families still rely on firewood for energy. However, she encountered an obstacle she had not initially considered: the near absence of liquefied gas storage facilities in northern Ghana. This meant that it had to build the storage facilities itself, even though it was facing financial difficulties. Salma Okonkwo changed its focus and started selling diesel and oil in bulk. In 2007, she won a contract to supply fuel to Dallas-based Kosmos Energy and a subsequent contract with U.S. oil company Hess in 2008. She initially financed the operation by mortgaging some of the properties her family and husband had inherited, and in 2008 her company, UBI, opened its first gas station. She currently owns eight and operates another 20 through partnerships. The development of UBI attracted the attention of the multinational company Puma Energy, which acquired a 49% stake in two subsidiaries of the UBI group (service stations and wholesale fuel distribution) for about $150 million, with UBI distribution becoming Puma Energy distribution Ghana.
Folonrusho Alakija (Nigeria)
Folorunsho Alakija, Forbes reports, is vice president in charge of strategic planning and day-to-day administration of Famfa Oil, a Nigerian oil exploration company with an interest in the Agbami oil field, a prolific offshore asset. Famfa Oil’s partners include Chevron and Petrobras, Brazil’s state-owned oil exploration, extraction, refining, transportation and sales company.
The Agbami field has been in production since 2008 and Famfa Oil says it will probably be in production until 2024.
Ranked as one of Africa’s billionaires, Folorunsho Alakija is considered Nigeria’s first richest woman and Africa’s second richest woman, after Angola’s Isabel Dos Santos.
Folorunsho Alakija is also vice president of Dayspring Property Development Co. Ltd, a real estate company, and Digitalreality Print Ltd, a printing company. She was the first female Chancellor of an African public university and has written several books.
Folorunsho Alakija holds an MBA from the CWC School For Energy, a global institution based in London that provides certified training in contracting, taxation and management for the oil and gas industry.
Bimbola Kolawole (Nigeria/UK)
Bimbola Kolawole is Business Development Manager and Senior Client Analyst for Africa and Aberdeen (UK) at Rystad Energy, an independent energy research and business intelligence company that provides data, tools, analysis and consultancy services to energy clients worldwide. Bimbola Kolawole is also responsible for account management, training and client support in these regions. Her area of expertise includes business strategy, relationship management, business development, training and support, and project coordination.
Previously, Bimbola Kolawole worked at IHS Markit, a U.S.-based economic information company, where she was responsible for managing oil and gas clients in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
Bimbola Kolawole holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Ilorin, Nigeria; a Graduate Diploma in Data Science from the McCombs School of Business – Texas McCombs, USA; a Master’s degree in Energy Finance from the Centre for Energy Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy (CEPMLP), a graduate school at the University of Dundee, Scotland, UK; and an MBA from the University of Leicester, England.
Sally Udoma (Nigeria)
Sally Udoma is a member of the Board of Directors of Heirs Oil and Gas, part of Nigerian businessman Tony Elumelu’s Heirs Olding Group. Previously, Sally Udoma was General Counsel of Chevron Europe, Eurasia and Middle East, Exploration and Production. Prior to that, she was General Counsel of Sasol Chevron Consulting Limited and General Counsel of the London Legal Service Center for Chevron Global Upstream and Gas. She also served as General Counsel and Managing Director of Chevron Nigeria Limited.
Sally Udoma began her career in the oil industry nearly 30 years ago with Elf Petroleum Nigeria Ltd and Société Nationale Elf Aquitaine, Paris.
Sally Udoma holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from Kings College, University of London; a Law degree (post-graduate) in International Law from Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge and a Bachelor of Laws degree from the Nigerian Law School. She is a member of the inaugural class of the Africa Leadership Initiative-West Africa and a member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
Rym Loucif (Algeria)
Rym Loucif is a partner at LPA-CGR. Specialized in corporate and energy law, she develops the energy and oil and gas practice of the firm’s Algiers office. Rym Loucif, it is explained, has developed a particular expertise in the field of energy (oil and gas) and is involved in the transactional and regulatory aspects of a wide range of energy-related projects (M&A, financing).
In February 2018, Rym Loucif published an article in the renowned Oil & Gas Journal regarding the upcoming reform of the Algerian hydrocarbon law. Prior to joining LPA-CGR Avocats, Rym Loucif practiced at Gide Alger. She spent six years in leading American law firms (Willkie Farr and Gibson Dunn) in Paris, where she developed her experience in corporate law and mergers and acquisitions.
A member of the Paris Bar, Rym Loucif studied at the University of Paris II and obtained a Master’s degree in business and tax law in 2004. She also holds a degree in European Competition Law from King’s College London. The International Financial Law Review (IFLR) has recognized Rym Loucif as a leading figure in the categories of “Project (Oil & Gas)” and “Corporate M&A”.
Bessem Enonchong (Cameroon)
Since October 2021, Bessem Enonchong is the Country Manager of MPower, a start-up dedicated to financial inclusion and energy access in emerging markets. Prior to that, from 2006 to 2021, she was responsible for business development in Cameroon and sub-Saharan Africa for Kosan Crisplant, a provider of equipment, components and services for the liquefied petroleum gas industry and solutions for the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) business.
Bessem Enonchong studied at the University of Buea, Cameroon, where she obtained her degree and post-graduate certificates in education, political science and history. She joined Kosan Crisplant in 2006 as sales and marketing manager for Glocalgaz-LPG distribution, before being promoted to business development manager for equipment and solutions for Cameroon and sub-Saharan Africa in 2009. In just a few years, Bessem Enonchong says she has gained an understanding of the entire LPG value chain. “My experiences and contributions in the global LPG industry more than make up for the challenges of the position,” the Cameroonian explained in a Women in LPG publication.
Bessem Enonchong also served for four years as Country Director (Cameroon) of The Global LPG Partnership, a partnership of 35 governments, UN agencies, NGOs, development finance institutions, investors and leading international LPG companies. The goal: to help consumers switch to LPG through education, microfinance and other support; to help countries establish LPG distribution systems with international expertise and funding; and to help academic researchers conduct concrete research on the health and environmental effects of LPG.
Nnene-Anochie Chidube (Nigeria)
Nnene-Anochie Chidube is Vice President, Community Affairs, Safety, Health, Environment and Security (CASHES) of Heirs Oil and Gas, part of Nigerian businessman Tony Elumelu’s Heirs Olding Group. She has over 30 years of experience in the oil and gas industry. She has worked for the multinational Royal Dutch Shell (Shell) for 31 years in Nigeria, Malaysia and Oman and has held several positions within the Shell Group: General Manager Safety and Environment; General Manager Sarawak Assets (State in Malaysia) and General Manager and General Manager Production and Maintenance Services in Malaysia. She was also Senior Production Operations Engineer for Shell in Oman and Asset Manager for Shell in Nigeria. Her expertise covers oil and gas asset management, operational excellence for complex integrated hydrocarbon supply chains, health, safety and environment including asset integrity and process safety management, risk and compliance.
Tola Oloyede (Nigeria)
Tola Oloyede is the Head of of Human Resources (HR) in Europe for Halliburton, a multinational oil and gas company and the second largest provider of services to the oil and gas industry in the world. Previously, she was responsible for HR projects for Europe and sub-Saharan Africa at Halliburton.
Tola Oloyede holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering and a Master’s degree in Organizational Performance from Cranfield University. She has also completed leadership training at Stanford University in the US and has a Bachelor of Science degree in Chemical Engineering from Lagos State University.
She joined Halliburton in 2011. Prior to that, she worked as a professional engineer in the oil industry for eight years in the Middle East, Asia and Africa with Schlumberger. She was responsible for recruitment, training and development in West Africa; quality manager for wireline services in the Gulf of Guinea (Africa) as well as a field engineer for Schlumberger in the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
Tola Oloyede is a board member of Heritage of Grace Outreach, a UK-based charity active in West Africa. She is also a long-time member of the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Scholarship Committee. She is also the founder of Kàdàrà Brite, a charity that sponsors the education of talented disadvantaged children in Africa.
Priscila Romooah (Mauritius)
Priscila Romooah is the Mauritius Operations Manager of the multinational company Petredec, which buys, sells, transports, stores and distributes liquefied petroleum gas worldwide.
Priscila Romooah holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree in Chemical and Environmental Engineering from the University of Mauritius. During her industrial training, she had the opportunity to work in different wastewater treatment plants and in a fishmeal industry, which helped her to choose her degree project on fish oil refining. After graduation, she got a job in the fishmeal industry, where she was appointed as a process engineer, in charge of the different operations of the unit and the quality of the product. A year later, she joined Shell Mauritius as Plant Manager of the Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) plant, the first woman to hold this position. Priscila Romooah was responsible for both the storage tanks and the bottling plant, supervising 33 contractors, all men. “Initially, it was a real challenge, as I was often under enormous pressure from management, with sometimes unexplained delays. All this contributed to the impression that a young female manager was not really welcome. But I was determined to show that I had been rightly chosen for the job, and I gradually gained the respect of my colleagues,” she explained in a Women in LPG publication.
Priscila Romooah joined Petredec Mauritius in 2013 as operations manager. “An interesting new challenge because this time it was not an existing facility but a newly built LPG import/export terminal that had to be set up from scratch. It was a huge task, but it is with great satisfaction that we now have a great team and a well-functioning terminal,” she said.
Mariah Lucciano-Gabriel (Nigeria)
Mariah Lucciano-Gabriel has over 12 years of experience in the upstream oil and gas industry. Since August 2018, she has been the Business and Commercial Development Manager for Asharami Energy, a downstream oil and gas company with operations throughout West Africa. of Asharami Energy is part of the Sahara Group.
As Head of Business and Commercial Development, Mariah Lucciano-Gabriel led negotiations for the company’s asset acquisitions, crude handling agreements, buy-sell agreements, unitization discussions (development of a single oil field by multiple companies) and production rights reconciliations.
Mariah Lucciano-Gabriel holds a Master’s degree in Energy Studies with a specialization in Energy Economics from the University of Dundee, Scotland and a Bachelor’s degree in Economics, Finance and Management from Queen Mary, University of London. She joined Sahara Group’s prestigious Graduate Management Training Program in 2008. Thereafter, she was assigned to Asharami Energy. She started in the business development unit, overseeing government relations and joint ventures. As the company expanded rapidly across sub-Saharan Africa, she joined the commercial department as her capabilities in oil economics, asset valuation and risk management were critical to the company’s growth trajectory. In this role, she was exposed to the various upstream opportunities and fiscal regimes in Africa and the Middle East, as well as the different macroeconomic and political choices facing the growing hydrocarbon provinces.
Sarah Bouzid (Algeria)
Sarah Bouzid is of a Chemical Engineer background, currently working as North Africa Technical Sales Lead. She’s Responsible of the deployment of the Audit to Optimize program in North Africa region by targeting new customers and proactively engaging with clients with a large installed base of Valves and Proces systems in their facilities and define the strategy to help convert the potential business leads into real opportunities. Looking after the Sustainability strategy and policy for North Africa region within Schlumberger Midstream Production systems.
Before joigning Schlumberger, Sarah Bouzid was a technical project coordinator at Sonatrach, the Algerian oil and gas company and a major player in the oil industry. Known as the African Major, Sonatrach is ranked as the number one company in Africa. Sarah Bouzid is a graduate of the Faculty of Hydrocarbons and Chemistry in Boumerdès, Algeria.
Joy Shaiyem (Nigeria)
Joy Shaiyem is the Nigeria Coordinator for Women in LPG. She has over 12 years of experience as an engineer in the oil and gas sector, especially in LPG, in management, business development, financing and project management. Joy Shaiyem is also a member of the Board of Governors of the Nigeria LP Gas Association.
Joy Shaiyem holds a degree in Mechanical Engineering from Lagos State University and a certificate in Finance Management from Cornell University, New York, USA. She began her career as an intern at Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited at the Qua-Iboe terminal. “It was an eye opener for me, as I had the opportunity to get my hands dirty assembling and disassembling large pumps and working on a wide range of heavy equipment, and I even saw a turbine! I left there with the belief that this is a woman’s world as much as a man’s world,” she explained in a Woman in LPG publication.
Joy Shaiyem later became a partner in TSL Logistics Limited, the largest independent terminal management company in Africa. The company invests, manages and operates oil and gas logistics assets and infrastructure. As a partner at TSL, Joy Shaiyem worked in a variety of functions including business development, project management, project finance and change management. She also led the team that led the company’s transition to ISO 9001, a standard that defines quality management system requirements for organizations wishing to continuously improve customer satisfaction and provide compliant products and services. She also led the company to ISO 14001, a standard that defines a set of requirements that an organization’s environmental management system must meet in order to be certified – by an outside organization and for a limited time.
Betty Amechi Ugona (Nigeria)
Betty Amechi Ugona is the General Manager of Sales and Marketing for NNPC Retail Ltd, a subsidiary of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). She studied at the University of Ilorin, Nigeria, Enugu State University of Science and Technology, Nigeria and the University of Abuja, where she obtained her degree and post-graduate certificates.
Betty Amechi Ugona joined NNPC in 1987 as a process engineer for the Port Harcourt Refining Company. Since then, she has worked in various departments of the company where she has acquired several skills.
In 2008, Betty Amechi Ugona was promoted to Assistant LPG Sales Manager, which she explains exposed her to something that has left an indelible mark on her entire life and career. “A few years after heading LPG sales in my company and studying the Nigerian LPG market in relation to the country’s energy mix, I discovered that only 5% of the population uses LPG as a cooking fuel in a country that produces about three million tons per year and the main reason for this low consumption is lack of awareness on the benefits of using the product as the most efficient energy for cooking.
To this end, she said, her passion to grow the business and improve the lives of the citizens led to the birth of a non-governmental organization (NGO) called Gas to Health Innitiative, whose main objective is to raise awareness on the use of LPG throughout Nigeria by distributing the devices free of charge to local food vendors and teaching them how to use it wisely and efficiently.
Betty Amechi Ugona’s contribution to the growth of LPG use in Nigeria has been significant, particularly through the NGO’s awareness campaign, which has resulted in the free distribution of over 5,000 LPG cylinders. Also an author, Betty Amechi Ugona has written several books, including “Your Choice, Your Future and Your Life” and a book on LPG entitled “Who Cooks it Feels the Brunt and the Environment Feels the Heat”.
