The Managing Director of Phillips Consulting Limited (PCL), graduated as an Industrial Economist from the University of Wales, Cardiff in 1974. He joined the British Gas Corporation as a graduate Trainee Accountant where he qualified as a Cost and Management Accountant in 1976.

In 1977, he joined the Lucas Electrical Company (based in Birmingham, England) as a Systems Accountant where he was subsequently promoted to the position of Management Accountant. He left the UK for Nigeria in 1979 to work with the Pfizer Group, initially as their Systems Accountant and then subsequently as the Financial Controller and Company Secretary of their Livestock Feeds Division.

In 1985, he relocated to the U.K, to work as a Management Consultant at Coopers & Lybrand International. During his tenure, he undertook and managed, financial management, costing, computer systems and organisation development assignments in the UK, Northern Ireland, parts of Europe and West African countries.

In 1990, he returned to Nigeria after being appointed the General Manager, Finance for the SCOA Group in Nigeria. He held the position for two years before setting up Phillips Consulting Limited.

Foluso Phillips has gained tremendous international functional and management experience at very senior levels and has thus specialized in accounting, finance, costing, information technology, management systems, organisation development and general management.

He is a certified Management and Chartered Accountant.

Francis is a Director of the Firm and heads the South African Office of Phillips Consulting. He is a Chartered Accountant by profession with extensive management and accounting experience in the soft drinks, textile, auto manufacturing and service industries. He has also been involved in the      strategy development and corporate restructuring exercise for merchant banks in Nigeria.

His consulting experience has involved assignments in strategy development, accounting systems    design, corporate restructuring and organisation development in the banking, insurance, construction and publishing industries. He has special interest in the development and implementation of corporate strategy and has successfully implemented a corporate restructuring assignment for a major insurance company in Nigeria.

Francis Osuyah has a very strong manufacturing background in a career spanning major sectors of   the Nigerian economy. He was Manager – Corporate Planning and Development for the SCOA group   before joining PCL in 1992.

An Economics graduate of Obafemi Awolowo University and a Chartered Accountant, Supo commenced his working career with Ernst and young, Lagos, where he gained extensive audit experience and qualified as an accountant.

He was later business manager for an estate development company and Treasury Manager in a mortgage bank. He joined Phillips Consulting Limited in 1994 and has been involved in various consulting assignments covering change management, feasibility study preparation, business strategy development, process management and financial management.

He has facilitated various training programmes covering group dynamics, quality management and financial management.

Elo Akin-Agunbiade is a fellow of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants, with over 14 years of UK business experience.

Elo qualified as a chartered certified accountant in December 1991, since qualifying, she has worked in a number of audit practices and accountancy firms including Ernst and Young. The depth and breath of Elo's experience has equipped her with excellent client facing skills and therefore is comfortable helping businesses understand their needs and requirements.

During her time spent at Ernst and Young, Elo was the inward investment manager responsible for managing the requirements of foreign (non-UK) businesses seeking to expand to the UK. She subsequently joined the firm's management consultancy practice specializing in enterprise resource planning, business process design and change management. Elo was also involved in the development of new business lines for the practice.

Most recently, Elo has been involved in major financial systems implementation and change management programmes for large blue chip companies in the financial services sector such as Barclays Bank, Canada Life and First National Bank on a consultancy basis.

Mike worked with the First National Bank for 25 years where he held the positions of Assistant General Manager (Training and Development), Senior Manager Human Resource Development and Senior Manager-Organisation Development. He brings on board his experiential knowledge of Mergers and Acquisition, having been strategically involved in the merger between First National Bank and Rand Merchant Bank in South Africa between 1999-2001. He is currently the Director in charge of Human Capital Development in the South African office of Phillips Consulting where he focuses on the development of Performance Management Systems in large corporate organizations, such as Standard Bank of South Africa and Johnnic Communications. He also and lecturers part-time at Bond University (South African Campus) for a suite of management courses.

Mike Watkins holds a B.Comm (General) degree and an Honours Degree in Business Economics from the University of the Witswatersrand. He is currently completing an Engineering Doctorate through the University of Warwick and his thesis is titled, “Behavioural Fairness in Performance Management”. Over the years, Mike has specialised in the field of Human Resource Development and Adult Education. He is a Certified Associate of the Institute of Bankers, a full member of the Institute of Personnel Management and a registered Practitioner with the South African Board for Personnel Practice.

In recent years, Mike has served on numerous development bodies including the National Standards Body and the Council of the institute of Bankers. He was also the First Rand representative on the Banking sector Educational and Training Authority (SETA), the SETA Banking Employer Forum and the Institute of Bankers Education and Training Quality Assurer (ETQA) Executive Committee. He served on the council of the Institute of Bankers for a number of years prior to leaving the banking industry.

Mike’s will bring the full weight of his experience and expertise to bear as Project Director of the proposed interventions.

John Okonmah is at the moment a Managing Consultant with Phillips Consulting Limited. An Economist and ex-banker he is Head of the Strategy and Research group in the firm.

John Okonmah has over ten year's economic consulting experience. He has a Masters degree in International Economics from the University of Ife, Ile-Ife as well as an MBA from IESE, University of Navarra, Barcelona Spain.

He was at different times Manager Corporate Development SCOA Nigeria plc, Group Head of the Financial Advisory Service Department at Financial Derivatives Company Limited as well as Head of Strategic Research at FSB International Bank, plc.

John has led a number of assignments on strategy in his years of consulting practice. He comes with significant theoretical and hands on experience.

Babs is a Chartered Accountant with a Masters degree in Business Administration. Babs has had extensive experience in finance and administration in the public, trading and manufacturing sectors and in the computerisation of financial operations.

He has been involved in the design and implementation of Human Resource policies and procedures and is currently in charge of the administration and management of the Treasury, Finance & Accounting activities of the firm.

The Corporate Services Group for which Babs is responsible, is a professional support group for the firm in its three locations and deals with all issues on finance and administration, internal human resources, graphics and reproduction, knowledge management and corporate governance issues. Babs is the firm's Practice Manager.

Abiola is a Management Consultant with a First Class (Hons) degree in Computer Science combined with Accounting. Also a Chartered Accountant, she commenced her career as a Business Analyst with Mobil Producing (now ExxonMobil) where she worked extensively on project analysis, reporting and systems design. She has also worked as an external consultant to the World Bank funded project of the Federal Government of Nigeria’s Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) Project.

Abiola joined Phillips Consulting Nigeria in 1998 and has been involved in devising customer-focused strategies and aligning management systems to support service delivery on behalf of several clients. Currently, she is responsible for financial advisory and enterprise related activities geared towards creating organisations by establishing the feasibility of their value proposition. Her team assists clients in seeking opportunities for profitable engagement of ideas and money by conducting feasibility studies, developing credible business plans (& financial projections), sourcing project finance, facilitating strategic business alliances, M&As and carrying out business valuations.

Over the years, Abiola has gained significant general, operational and strategic management experience working on diverse client projects. She has a passion for providing a range of advisory services to companies seeking to manage strategic and/or financial opportunities.

Modupe qualified as an Electrical Engineer in 1991, after which she obtained an MBA in Information Technology Management from City University Business School, London.

She began her career at the Lagos Business School as a research analyst, after which she joined Citibank Nigeria to pursue a career in banking that would last 10 years. After Citibank, Modupe had a brief stint with Cable & Wireless Omnes, a division of Schlumberger, from where she was recalled into banking, to form part of a team with a vision to transform First City Monument Bank Plc, a prominent Nigerian bank as it prepared for universal banking. The fulfilment of this mandate saw her working in various departments of this institution for the next 6 years – Private Banking, Retail and Commercial Banking, and Corporate Banking. Modupe is passionate about Customer Service and at FCMB Plc was very involved in policy and strategy formulation. Her last assignment at the bank was as the Head of the Oil & Gas, Construction and Telecommunications desk, a unit that consistently contributed over 40% of the bank’s profits.

Modupe left the banking industry to take on a new challenge at Sahara Energy Resource Limited, where her brief was to help take the company to the next level, after its phenomenal success. At Sahara she had direct responsibility for the growth and profitability of a $75m real estate portfolio.

A proven team leader who successfully integrates strategic thinking with strong technical and analytical competencies, Modupe has been responsible for a broad range of initiatives aimed at optimizing business processes and the development, deployment and support of new systems and processes.

She joined PCL in 2007 as head of recruitment, where she uses the diversity of her experience to lead a team of professionals.

Uyi Edokpolo has extensive experience and expertise in corporate finance, investment banking technical assistance operations, micro-credit and venture capital operations. He has worked for a number of financial institutions including the IFC – the private sector arm of the world bank in capacities as an investment manager as well as a technical assistance expert, and has over 15 years of managerial experience in banking, money /capital market operations, micro –credit and venture capital operations.

Uyi is a chartered marketer and treasury dealer with a postgraduate qualification in Banking & Finance. He joined Phillips Consulting from AMSCO – Technical assistance arm of the IFC where he was Regional Manager for the East African operation – to establish the Phillips Consulting Eastern and Central African operations.