Osazee Onaghinor Wins Dratech Digital Transformation Leadership Award 2024

By Chineye Okenwa

Mr Osazee Onaghinor has been named one of the winners of the Dratech Digital Transformation Leadership Award 2024, emerging as one of the top three recognised recipients from a competitive field of ten nominees.

The Digital Transformation Leadership Award recognises professionals delivering measurable change in how organisations plan, operate, and deliver value through technology and structured execution. The focus is on demonstrable outcomes rather than visibility, assessing how leadership decisions translate into stronger systems, clearer governance, and improved organisational performance.

For Onaghinor, the recognition reflects a career built on execution discipline, operational clarity, and the practical application of digital systems across engineering and enterprise transformation.

His professional foundation lies in engineering, where his early roles exposed him to the realities of project coordination, engineering support, and infrastructure development. Working within technically demanding environments, he developed a structured approach to problem solving, grounded in planning accuracy, safety standards, and delivery accountability.

During this period, he supported infrastructure and facility development initiatives that required coordination across multiple technical teams. His responsibilities included aligning execution plans, tracking progress against schedules, and ensuring readiness of materials and equipment. These experiences shaped his understanding of how operational delays often stem from planning blind spots rather than technical limitations.

As his responsibilities expanded, Onaghinor became involved in managing facility upgrades and coordinating turnaround schedules at large operational sites. These environments demanded precise sequencing of tasks, coordination across contractors and internal teams, and continuous monitoring of risks.

He contributed to execution frameworks that improved turnaround planning and reduced disruption by aligning work packages, resource availability, and time-bound dependencies. By strengthening coordination and accountability, these efforts supported more reliable delivery outcomes and reduced cost overruns.

Recognising the limitations of traditional reporting, Onaghinor played a role in developing decision-support tools that improved visibility into materials availability, equipment readiness, and supply chain gaps. These tools consolidated operational data into accessible formats, allowing teams to identify constraints earlier and respond more effectively.

The impact was measurable. Improved planning accuracy led to cost savings, reduced downtime, and stronger accountability across teams. Leaders gained clearer insight into operational risks, enabling more informed decisions on resource allocation and scheduling.

His transition into programme leadership marked a shift from operational execution to enterprise oversight. In these roles, he was responsible for long-term planning, financial governance, and executive decision support.

He worked on initiatives that improved budget transparency and approval efficiency by aligning financial forecasts with delivery milestones. This approach reduced ambiguity in funding decisions and strengthened confidence in programme commitments.

His contributions included developing performance tracking mechanisms that linked cost control, forecasting, and delivery progress. By integrating financial and operational data, he supported data-driven decision-making at senior leadership levels and improved compliance with governance standards.

These tools reduced dependency on spreadsheets and manual updates, improving accuracy and timeliness of information. Teams benefited from clearer performance indicators, while leadership gained consistent visibility across portfolios.

The outcome was not only efficiency but also improved trust in data, an essential requirement for effective digital transformation.

As organisations increasingly adopted cloud-based platforms, Onaghinor expanded his focus into cloud operations, automation, and systems reliability. His work included standardisation efforts that improved consistency across environments and reduced manual intervention.

By supporting automation frameworks and operational controls, he contributed to more resilient systems and clearer ownership models. These changes reduced operational risk and improved service stability, supporting business continuity.

His approach reflected a practical understanding of cloud transformation, focused on reliability and governance rather than technology adoption for its own sake.

In his current enterprise leadership roles, Onaghinor has been involved in driving transformation initiatives that span multiple teams and functions. A central aspect of this work has been supporting Agile adoption at scale.

Rather than focusing solely on process frameworks, his approach emphasised delivery predictability, execution discipline, and cross-functional collaboration. He worked with technical teams, product leaders, and executives to align priorities, establish shared planning cadences, and improve commitment reliability.

This work strengthened trust between delivery teams and stakeholders, a critical but often overlooked factor in large-scale transformation efforts.

Alongside his professional roles, Onaghinor has contributed to academic and professional research focused on supply chain systems, predictive analytics, procurement strategy, risk mitigation, and AI-driven business models.
He has been involved as an author, reviewer, and editor across academic journals, contributing to the advancement of applied research at the intersection of technology and operations. His research work complements his professional practice, reinforcing evidence-based approaches to digital transformation.

The Dratech Digital Transformation Leadership Award 2024 adds to a growing list of recognitions for Onaghinor. In the previous year, he was a recipient of the TechQuest Innovation Award in the Digital Innovation Excellence Award category, where he emerged as a top winner.
Across his career, he has also received recognition for leadership, collaboration, safety culture, and delivery excellence. These acknowledgements reflect consistent performance rather than isolated achievements.

Being selected as one of the top three winners from ten nominees underscores the breadth and depth of Onaghinor’s impact. The judging panel assessed measurable outcomes, leadership maturity, and sustained contribution to organisational effectiveness.
His recognition highlights the growing importance of disciplined digital transformation leadership within Nigeria’s and Africa’s evolving technology landscape. It reinforces the value of leaders who focus on execution, governance, and long-term capability building rather than surface-level innovation.

As the Dratech International Conference and Awards continue to spotlight professionals shaping the future of technology and enterprise, attention now turns to the 2025 edition. Innovators, founders, and professionals across the region are encouraged to prepare for the next cycle of recognition and engagement as Dratech builds on its mission to advance credible, impact-driven innovation across Africa.