Mr. ‘Yinka Abioye, Chairman of The Inspire Group and an Oil & Gas executive, is a business optimization professional, and the Curator of Inspire Africa Connect as well as The Festac - Project.

During his more than two decades at ExxonMobil he managed the retail business for West-Africa and was responsible for over 500 service stations spanning over 14 countries. Within a couple of years, he was able to reverse the negative trend of business with over $350mil/yr turnover. He was also recognized for his focus on reduction of receivables by 95% within a couple of years of taking over and at the same time growing the business.

As the Managing Director & Lead Country Manager in Senegal he left his indelible mark on the business during and after the business was sold to a new owner. He successfully managed the sales of the refinery shares, collected in excess of $3 mil overdue from the government and >$2 mil of bad debt from other customers. He also managed the transfer of the affiliate to the new owners without any employee issues during and after sales.

A mentor & trainer, he left his impact on the Africa Retail Team to date. In addition to developing company training and franchising materials, he recruited and trained franchisees across the continent. While in the USA he curated various sales improvement programs for over 1000 Retail franchisees in southwest of the country.

As a Chemical, Facilities & Project Engineer while at XOM he was recognized for increasing performance while reducing the expenses by >10% in the 1st year of managing the budget of over $12mil.

Prior to joining XOM, Mr. Abioye worked for Baxter Pharmaceuticals in the Quality Control as well as the Manufacturing department. Within a short time he was able to optimize the manufacturing process and reduce manufacturing time by 40% in the cephalosporin/penicillin manufacturing plant.

Mr. Abioye’s passion is in growth and development for Africa and Africans. He has a BSc. In Chemical Engineering & MBA in Marketing & Finance from the University of Illinois.

Grace is a seasoned woman entrepreneur doing business in Africa. Recognised as one of Africas influential woman in business and professional services she has won various awards which include the Continental Awards 2020 in Media, SADC Regional award winner 2019 in Business & Professional Services and SA country award winner 2017 SME category

Grace has established the first dedicated luxury platform in Africa that aggregates Luxury brands showcasing the best products in and from Africa and within three years has been awarded the Luxury platform of the year 2020 for Africa and Middle East and also won the best online luxury magazine in South Africa 2020. These awards confirm that she is steering the ship in the right direction and doing something different.

Her passion for innovation has inspired her innovation to add to her portfolio the FIRST VIRTUAL MALL for LUXURY BRANDS, a game changer in the future of retail, marketing and advertising.

Her expertise cuts across various business interest with over 15 years combined in senior positions spanning from technology and financial services in key markets in Africa. After many years in the corporate with extensive travel in Africa that triggered her passion support and partner with leading brands & multinationals seeking expansion in Africa in various segments to help them penetrate the Africa market.

She has a diverse profile of various interests telecommunications Value Added Services, Enterprise Solutions, Digital Marketing, Luxury Management Consulting, Wealth & Investment, Research & Development, Financial Inclusion related Projects, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Augmented Reality (AR), Internet of Things(IoT), and overall systems Intelligence services which deliver business excellence and success.

Grace believes fast & furious Disruptive Digital innovations is already playing a major role in changing how future businesses will be carried out and advises business to prepare for even crazier disruptions in the coming years. Her advise is that organisations need to remain agile and adaptive and be ready to keep changing strategies as times change to survive the global business curveballs.
She is equipped with right skills on partnership and relationships management to identify, curate and execute the right strategies to maximise and leverage on existing partnerships, identify new partnerships in respective markets to drive maximum brand value.

Her passion for technology coupled with her understanding on how to help organisations, leverage on innovation and intelligence to create holistic and inclusive value added services while using existing or new channels to maximise end-to-end value chain within the eco-system to deliver maximum value for customer, gives her maximum satisfaction when projects come to fruition delivering the desired impact on the end-user.

She is available to collaborate, speak at various forums that help empower to help drive desired business outputs.

Making the right investment decision is key, and therefore she is looking to connect with like minded business leaders to grow with in partnership.