Today, our Woman Crush Wednesday is Lola Masha. Lola who is currently the Executive Director of Babban Gona, an innovative Agricultural Franchise model founded to leverage the private sector to address Nigeria’s spiralling youth unemployment challenge through their vision to “make 1 million smallholder farmer members more money by 2025”, has ample knowledge and expertise in business development, entrepreneurship, operational transformation, strategy and product development.
Lola has an impressive working history; she started off her career as a consultant at the Chicago office of McKinsey & Company, engaging with senior management across several industries. She spent 4 years at Google, leading some of the tech giant’s business development efforts in Nigeria, as well as various product partnerships across EMEA and Emerging Markets. Afterwards, she joined OLX Group, starting as Country Manager for Nigeria, and then adding SSA Product Lead to her portfolio. Before leaving OLX Group, Lola was Director for Trust and Safety, working across over 30 OLX markets, ensuring that buyers and sellers transact safely on the platform.
She’s also a board member at Babban Gona’s parent company Doreo Partners which is “an agriculture venture capital firm that identifies and invests in visionary business models in the Nigerian agriculture industry and brings to bear deep sector expertise, strategic guidance, access to capital and operational excellence.”
Lola’s LinkedIn aptly reads, “Exceptionally driven individual with expertise in business development, entrepreneurship, operational transformation, strategy and product development, across numerous industries including technology, financial services and energy. Significant international experience, working in North America, Europe, Asia and Africa.”
We applaud her on being an Industry force and an inspiration to other young women alike.