NACCIMA Appoints New Director General

Dike Onwuamaeze

The Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), has announced the appointment of Mr. Sola Obadimu as its new director general with effect from September 1, 2022.

Before his current appointment at NACCIMA, Obadimu was the immediate past Director General of the Nigerian-American Chamber of Commerce (NACC).

His appointment followed the expiration on March 1, 2022, of the tenure of former Director General of NACCIMA, Ambassador Ayoola Olukanni and the recent exit of the erstwhile Acting Director General of NACCIMA, Mr. Opeyemi Alaran.

He would bring to his new appointment at NACCIMA his wealth of experience in Nigeria’s organised private sector garnered from his rich background in the management of membership-based institutions generally and chambers of commerce in particular.

He had also served, at various times, “as the executive secretary of the Nigerian Society of Engineers; director general at the Nigerian-British Chamber of Commerce; founding executive secretary at the Nigerian-South African Chamber of Commerce and acting director general with the Institute of Directors, Nigeria (IoD) among other high-profile professional and trade-development related responsibilities in the past.”

According to NACCIMA, “Obadimu is a proven and recognised institutional administrator with a proven track record and he is widely acknowledged accordingly within the Nigerian private/public sector circles.”

Obadimu had served as a part-time Investment Promotion and Business Development Consultant for the UNDP/Columbia University’s Millennium City Initiatives (MCI) project geared towards attracting foreign direct investments to Africa, which culminated in presentations at the Millennium City Day at KPMG House in London in December 2008.

A product of Abeokuta Grammar School in Ogun State, Obadimu holds a B.Sc in Chemical Engineering, an MBA as well as a M.Sc. Economics, all from the University of Lagos.

He also served as an alternate member on the Security and Exchange Commission (SEC)’s Committee on Corporate Governance of Public Companies in Nigeria between June and September 2000, the report of which was eventually published in 2003.

Obadimu is a regular public opinion contributor in several Nigerian publications and news media organisations and has made several management/trade development presentations at seminars and other fora.

He has attended many capacity building programmes both within and outside Nigeria, including International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) developmental programmes.

Obadimu is a Fellow of the Institute of Directors, Nigeria (IoD); Fellow, Nigerian Institute of Management (NIM); Fellow, Nigerian Society of Engineers and Member, Chartered Institute of Personnel Managements (CIPM) among others. He is also a member of Ikoyi Club 1938.

He has been a beneficiary of several top executive management and leadership courses globally and he is an executive education alumnus of Harvard Business School (HBS), McDonough Business school of Georgetown University, Washington, both in the United States of America (USA); Cambridge University Judge Business School and the Manchester University Business School (MBS), both in the United Kingdom; Stellenbosch University Business School, Cape Town, South Africa; and Queen’s University Business School, Canada, among others.