Desmond is a Partner at Templars - one of Nigeria’s most prestigious law firms. He works within the finance and projects practice groups of the firm.
He graduated with First Class Honours from the Nigerian Law School, holds a Bachelor of Laws from the Ebonyi State University and has extensive experience advising project sponsors, borrowers, corporates, banks, funds and other financial institutions on diverse transactions including project finance, power projects and other infrastructure development, strategic investments, international capital markets issuances, structured finance and corporate finance.
He was previously a visiting associate at the London offices of Latham & Watkins, LLP and a finance & projects associate at a leading Lagos firm.
A multi-talented lawyer, Desmond served as Vice-Chairman of the Banking, Finance and Insolvency committee of the Nigerian Bar Association Section on Business Law, and also recently served on a Technical Committee of the Nigerian Senate on Financial Law Reform.
He is recognized by IFLR1000 and the Chambers Global Guide to the Legal Profession, with clients and other independent sources describing him as “…a good problem solver and very client oriented” … “very effective… strong and bright” and as “a savvy lawyer who displays high level of professionalism inn his interaction with clients.”
Desmond provides dedicated mentoring to younger professionals and routinely undertakes corporate pro bono services for start-ups and micro, small and medium enterprises.
Kemi Arosanyin is an International Trade Development Specialist and Director for “Africa Trade Expansion Program” at the World Trade Center Miami. In this role, she promotes market integration, creates market access and facilitates two-way trade between the Western Hemisphere (North America, South America and the Caribbean) and Sub-Saharan Africa.
An International Trade Scholar and a Certified Global Business Professional (CGBP) with over 18 years of experience in trade finance, international marketing, export development, market research and strategy. She received a Master of International Business (MIB) from Florida International University, Miami, a Master of Business Administration (MBA), and a Bachelor of Science in Pure and Applied Mathematics (BSC) from University of Ilorin, Nigeria. She also obtained a Certificate in Finance of International Trade from the Export Academy, United Kingdom.
Kemi is an active member of many prominent international trade organizations. She serves on the NASBITE International Board of Governors and she is a member of the Intra-African Trade Fair (IATF) Advisory Council – an initiative of Afreximbank and the African Union to facilitate economic development in Africa by promoting intra-Africa trade.
Ms. Arosanyin is a regular speaker and panelist at international trade conferences, she writes for the Global Trade Magazine and many of her articles have featured in the quarterly magazine for the Association of International Credit and Trade Finance (ICTF) Professionals.
Ajibola is a Partner with KPMG in Nigeria where he is Head of Deal Advisory, Mergers & Acquisitions Tax & Legal Services. He also serves KPMG as Head of Africa in the same capacity, with responsibility to coordinate KPMG member firms across the continent.
Ajibola is a qualified solicitor in Nigeria and has got over 28 years of experience, providing advice to various business concerns in matters relating to taxation and compliance with laws and regulations. He has also served in key capacities in providing support to regulators in relation to fiscal policy and drafting of legislation.
Ajibola is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN), a fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA) UK, the Chartered Institute of Taxation of Nigeria (CITN) and Fellow of the Center for International Legal Studies, Austria. He is also a Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (UK)(MCIArb).
He holds an LL. B (Hons.) degree from Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, an Executive Certificate in Business Administration and Management from Harvard Business School and a Senior Management Certificate from the Lagos Business School.
Okechukwu is the Executive Director, Business Services and Operations with Tenece Professional Services Limited – One of Africa’s leading IT firms. He started his corporate career with Standard Trust Bank (now UBA group) where he served as a regional IT engineer. Subsequently He worked in Telnet (IP Network Solutions and Design Specialist), Zain (Network Support specialist), and Starcomms (ISP infrastructure Engineer). He grew to become the CIO of Information Connectivity Solution Limited.
He has various professional certifications on the Cisco platform including Voice, Network Security, Network Design, and CCIE (written). He is a member of Mike Sisco’s IT Managers Forum USA (IT Business Manager Certified) and successfully completed the Management Program at Lagos Business School (LBS). Recently he completed the Mini Telecoms MBA at London’s Informa And Media Telecoms Academy (United Kingdom.
He is passionate about raising leaders that will transform society.
Wolemi is a Partner at Olaniwun Ajayi LP, one of Nigeria’s leading law firms.
He is a Jeremy Bentham Scholar of University College London and holds an MBA from Durham Business School, Durham University.
Wolemi is a multi-specialist lawyer and routinely advises on complex commercial transactions across the broad spectrum of the Nigerian economy.
He is ranked as a leading lawyer in Nigeria by most of the leading independent legal directories, including Chambers Global, IFLR 1000 and Legal 500.
Ian Brown-Peterside is a dynamic lawyer and business executive with over 20 years’ commercial, transactional and management experience in the oil and gas industry.
Ian was admitted as a solicitor in England & Wales in 1999 and holds a BSc Honours degree from King’s College, University of London. He started his professional career with Herbert Smith Freehills, where he worked as a Senior Associate in the London, Hong Kong and Tokyo offices of the firm’s renowned Energy practice.
Ian who joined Seven Energy as General Counsel, also served as the CEO of Seven Energy International Limited, following his time as Managing Director of Accugas (Seven Energy’s gas business) from 2016-2018.
Prior to joining Seven Energy, Ian worked for BG Group, holding various positions including Vice President Legal for BG Kazakhstan, Legal Director of Karachaganak Petroleum Operating BV and Commercial Manager, Operated Assets (Nigeria).
Kelechi works with the Deal Advisory, M&A Tax Unit of one of the big four (4) accounting firms, where he provides a range of corporate advisory services bordering on tax and regulatory issues, to top-level and multinational entities.
He previously worked with litigation-based and commercial law firms. He is a member of the Nigerian Bar Association, The Nigerian Bar Association – Section on Business Law and a student member of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA).
Kelechi earned his LL.B from the University of Uyo and B.L from the Nigerian Law School, Lagos. He graduated within the top 5% of his class at both institutions, winning multiple awards as an undergraduate and representing his alma mater at national and international competitions.
He has been involved in several community development projects and routinely assists MSMEs with free legal assistance on business formation and regulatory compliance.
He has deep Interests in Human Capacity Development, Purpose-Centered Living and Africa’s Economic Transformation.
Etido David is a Lawyer practicing with the Law Firm of Jackson, Etti and Edu, an international firm of lawyers providing legal support services to a broad spectrum of clients and is also a key team member of the Firm's Financial Services Sector.
He has spent the recent years of his career advising diversified portfolio of Clients on various issues ranging from Business Structuring, Regulatory Compliance, Crowdfunding, Corporate Mergers and Acquisitions and Real Estate and Infrastructure development.
He is also versed in dispute resolution, having commenced his legal career in a purely dispute resolution firm of Faithful Stewards LP.
Born and raised in the beautiful city of Uyo, Etido is an Alumnus the University of Uyo and an award-winning scholar of the Nigerian Law School. He has deep interests in leadership and economic development across Africa and has led several efforts at community development, economic empowerment, citizen participation in governance and is constantly engaging startups and entrepreneurs in Nigeria on building stronger businesses.
Etido currently serves as a Trustee of the Pro-Africa Foundation, and himself founded the Teenagers Advocacy and Leadership Klub (the Talk) in his local community. He is a member of the Nigerian Bar Association - Section on Business Law.
Chigoziem Onugha is a Nigerian trained lawyer.
She began her legal career in the year 2017 during which she participated in the one-year National Service at the Nigeria Police Force Headquarters, Anambra State Command (CIID).
Given her ardent interest in community development and social enterprises, she joined the legal team of Lawyers Alert – a leading human-rights driven non-profit Organization with offices in Abuja and Markurdi, Nigeria offering free legal services to vulnerable groups and indigent persons, especially women.
She has through her role in the organization affected lives and championed reforms including winning a couple of notable public impact litigation cases, participating and leading calls for legislative reforms and advocating for good governance and accountability.
At various occasions, she has made presentations at the National Assembly, trained police officers on human rights, moderated high impact meetings on social reformation. She also is a YALI - NOA One-Nigeria Ambassador.
At GreenRidge Foundation, Chigoziem is responsible for developing policies and managing programmes for the Foundation, such as trainings, deployment of initiatives, advocacy and partnerships.
Chigoziem earned her LL.B from Imo State University and B.L from the Nigerian Law School, Lagos. She is a member of the Nigerian Bar Association, West Africa Civil Society Forum (WACSOF), Coalition of Lawyers for Human Rights (CoLaHR) and other social impact organizations.
Chigoziem is also a cultural activist. She believes Africa is beautiful, rich and strong and will live up to its potentials with time.
This motivation inspires her to partake in programmes driven towards inspiring positive changes in Africa, hence, her involvement in a lot of development works across Africa, including GreenRidge Foundation whose commitment is the economic transformation of Africa by supporting Africa’s startups with free legal services.
She is also the Founder of COACH Foundation – A non-profit committed to changing the narrative about Africa, the world over by spotlighting Africa’s incomparable beauty, limitless abundance and unassailable strength to the world.
Chigoziem combines her development work with her literary works where she showcases the beauty of Africa through poems, novella, and articles. She hopes to someday be an accomplished writer, spotlighting the beauty of Africa through her published literary works.
Solomon Alo is a legal practitioner and currently works as a Senior Legal Counsel with Accugas Limited, a Seven Energy’s wholly-owned midstream business, that focuses on sales and marketing, processing and distribution of gas to the domestic Nigerian market.
Prior to joining Accugas, Solomon worked as an Associate in the Finance, Energy and Projects practice Groups at Templars, and as a paralegal with G. Elias & Co. (top reputable full-service law firms in Nigeria), amongst others.
Solomon is a highly competent and versatile lawyer. He has 6 years post-call experience advising on diverse range of acquisitions and divestment of petroleum exploration and production interests & assets, energy and infrastructure transactions and related matters, including oil and gas, real estate, telecommunication, debt restructuring, debt to equity conversions, M&A, project financing and independent power projects. While at Templars, Solomon participated in very notable and complex energy, power and finance transactions some of which were awarded Project Finance Transaction of the year 2016 and Energy Finance Transaction of the Year 2017 respectively by the Nigerian Legal Awards.
Solomon graduated from the Ebonyi State University where he was an active student leader serving in various capacities as Leader of the EBSU Law Clinic, Chief Judge of the LAWSA Moot Court as well as coordinating the Law Clinic’s pro bono Prison Project in 2011 during which the Clinic (working under the supervision of the Faculty Dean and other qualified lawyers) facilitated the release of about 15 inmates from the Abakaliki prison.
Committed to social impact, Solomon also commits his time to offering pro bono services.
While at Templars, Solomon committed over 500 hours to the firm’s pro bono activities. He has offered pro bono services to several non-profits including Cece Yara Foundation, The Sickle Cell Foundation Nigeria, The Women at Risk International Foundation, and The World Bank Group.
This he does with delight and satisfaction, and with the same degree of attention and seriousness as he gives his fee-earning activities.
He is also a member of Pearl People and co-founder of “Fix Nigeria”, a group of young Nigerians with the principal aim of revamping through their direct labour, abandoned and critical public assets such as public schools’ structures, feeder roads, water pipelines and controlling erosion in susceptible areas.
He is a member of the Nigerian Bar Association and the Nigerian Bar Association - Section on Business Law.