Peju Adebajo
Peju is an experienced former CEO and Board Director with international expertise across Industrials, Renewable Energy, Agriculture and Finance (Wolseley, Ibstock, Lafarge and Citibank). She has extensive experience of delivering sustainable growth, transformation and turnaround results within both private and public sectors. Her experience also spans B2B and consumer-facing sectors and her career is underpinned by a formative time in consulting with BCG and finance with Citicorp.
Alongside her Non-Executive roles at Wolseley, Ibstock and Powergen, Peju is an Executive Coach and Mentor and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and MEng from Imperial College London.
Peju enjoys working with a combination of individual and team strengths to create inclusive and engaged teams that are led with empathy and respect. As a former CEO, she understands loneliness at the top and the various dimensions involved in the call to leadership. Peju has worked in challenging environments and across industries, and has the experience of being a female ethnic minority in the workplace. She believes through mutual trust and respect she can support clients to navigate towards both stretch and equilibrium.
Peju’s early career was in consulting with BCG and in finance with Citicorp in London. She has extensive experience of working in Africa and is well networked across the region. She worked for the United Bank for Africa while simultaneously launching a company, as the Founder, that brought the Mothercare brand to Africa. She handed over day to day responsibilities in 2005 and became the CEO of UTC Nigeria Plc a manufactured foods business with $12-million revenue and led a major restructure. Peju became CEO of Mouka Ltd in 2007 and spearheaded year on year growth culminating in a successful PE exit. In 2014 she became CEO of Lafarge Africa (French/ Swiss listed building materials multinational) and oversaw large transformation including a global merger.
In 2017 Peju was invited to turnaround the Agricultural Ministry of Ogun State, one of Nigeria’s highest GDP states and was the driving force for a $250 million loan from the World Bank. Peju’s penultimate CEO role was at Lumos Global a solar homes systems provider which she expanded into new geographies and steered an increase in the volume of sales.
Since 2021 Peju has sat on the Board of Ibstock, a building material manufacturing business (FTSE listed) and she is also a Non-Executive director at Wolseley, a UK building material distribution business (PE backed) and Powergen (renewable energy company).
In 2023, she was shortlisted for the “NED to watch category” for the UK NED awards and recognised in the Business Leader magazine February 2023 edition – Top 33 business influencers list. Her other recognitions include Cranfield University’s 2021 “100 Women to Watch” list, LinkedIn’s 2021 “UK Top 10 Green Voices”, 2015 CNBC Africa Businesswoman of the Year, and the 2013 Harvard Business School Nigeria Leadership Award.
Peju is married to Tilewa and together they have 3 daughters and a son, who range in age from mid-teens to young adults. She is passionate about spending time with family, going for long walks, meeting up with friends and aspiring to keep up with technology!