LEAP Africa announce New Executive board & Non-Executive Board

LEAP Africa, one of Africa’s leading youth-focused leadership development nonprofit organisations is pleased to announce the appointment of a new Board Chair, Co-Chair, and Acting Executive Director.

Clare Omatseye and Larry Ettah have been appointed as Board Chair and Co-Chair respectively. Omatseye and Ettah are astute business leaders of great repute who have led and managed many successful projects and organisations with a track record of success, innovation, and scaling. Omatseye succeeds Udeme Ufot (MFR) who has retired from the Board after serving two tenures in that position.

Clare Omatseye is the Managing Director/Founder of JNC International. (JNCI), a leading Turnkey Medical Equipment Solutions Company, an organisation she founded in 2003. She is a seasoned Healthcare Entrepreneur with an exciting pharmaceutical and Medical Technology career, spanning over three decades.

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She has served in various companies, including, May & Baker Nig, Aventis Pasteur Nigeria and Huntleigh Healthcare. She is an Independent Non-Executive Director of the Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) and Beta Glass; and the Chairman of Vaccipharm. (a company she also founded in 1999).

She is the President of the West African Private Healthcare Federation (WAPHF) and Vice President of the African Healthcare Federation (AHF). Omatseye also serves on several other NGO boards, including the Governing Council of the Pan Atlantic University (with its graduate business school being the prestigious Lagos Business School -LBS), the Society of Corporate Governance Nigeria (SCGN), the Healthcare Federation of Nigeria (HFN) and the Aspire Coronation Trust (ACT) Foundation.

Larry Ettah is the Executive Chairman of Barracuda Capital Partners, an organisation he founded in 2018 after his retirement as the Group Managing Director (GMD)/Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of UAC of Nigeria (UACN).

Before his retirement, Larry Ettah chaired the Board of UAC Property Development Company (UPDC), Chemical & Allied Products (CAP), and Portland Paints & Products Nigeria, among others. Ettah currently serves on the Board of Coronation Merchant Bank.

At the senior management level, LEAP Africa is pleased to announce Kehinde Ayeni as the Acting Executive Director. Kehinde Ayeni is a 13-year LEAP veteran, who has also served as the Chief Operating Officer in the last three years. Her passion, loyalty, drive, and excellence have contributed greatly to the growth of LEAP Africa.

She is a skilled facilitator and has led impact-driven sessions in LEAP Africa’s core leadership programmes within and outside Nigeria. In 2020, Kehinde was recognized among the ’50 African Women Making a Difference in Development by Donors for Africa’ and a 2021 Praxis Non-profit Accelerator Fellow’. Kehinde succeeds Femi Taiwo.

LEAP Africa’s 20th year has been a reflective time, looking back at the impact of the last two decades in tandem with the gaps LEAP Africa was formed to fill. The organisation has in the last 20 years focused on reshaping the mindset of young people in Africa, empowering them, equipping them, and supporting them towards individual, community, national and global change.

The next two decades will be geared at catalysing change across Africa and deepening its focus through multi-level partnerships with the generous support of partners, donors, institutions, and individuals. The organisation invites your support for their new leaders as they push the frontiers of leadership in Africa.

For over 20 years, Leadership, Effectiveness, Accountability, and Professionalism (LEAP) Africa has stayed true to its mission to equip a new cadre of African leaders. LEAP Africa achieves this through its training programmes, research publications, convenings, and most recently, e-learning. Our programme interventions focus on two core thematic pillars—raising talents to actualise the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Making Secondary Education Work in Africa. Through all these, our overall objective is to change youth’s mindset, equipping them to lead ethically, motivating them to deliver positive changes in their communities, and building sustainable social enterprises for socio-economic transformation.