Personal bio
Mrs. Abidemi Ademola is a highly skilled and well experienced Corporate Counsel, Governance Professional, Arbitrator and Executive Business Leader with over 3 decades of Commercial Law and Corporate Governance practice in Nigeria and West Africa. Passionately driven by a personal purpose to build a lasting legacy by shaping capability in Law, Governance, Risk and Compliance, her forte is to proactively identify legal, regulatory, compliance and corporate governance risks and develop innovative mitigations/solutions to enable seamless operations and sustainability. Abidemi has been instrumental in building strong legal teams and delivering several epic legal transactions and projects across West Africa. She has supported Boards in Nigeria, Ghana and Francophone Africa for over a decade to implement world class Corporate Governance practices and processes with positive impact on Board effectiveness. In recognition of her impactful contribution at Unilever, she was appointed as an Executive Director of Unilever Nigeria Plc. a positive culmination of her stellar in-house Counsel career. Abidemi was the immediate past Legal Director & Company Secretary at Guinness Nigeria Plc. where she recently exited to set up DFA Solicitors to foster her purpose to build a lasting legacy and leverage the opportunity for greater impact.
Abidemi holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife., a Master of Laws
from the University of Lagos, Akoka and an MBA Leadership from Walden University, United States. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators of Nigeria (ICSAN) and was a member of ICSAN Governing Council in 2022/2023. She is also a Fellow of the WIMBOARD Institute, a WIMBIZ/IE University, Madrid Executive Education Programme for Women on Boards. Abidemi is a qualified Arbitrator from the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, UK
Abidemi is a member of the Nigerian Bar Association, the Nigerian Bar Association Women Forum, the Society for Corporate Governance, the Institute of Directors, Nigeria and the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, UK. She was the pioneer chairperson of the Corporate Counsel Committee of the NBA Section on Business Law and was an Officer of the Corporate Counsel Committee of the NBA Women Forum.
She has authored articles and co-authored books on Law & Corporate Governance. She is a trained trainer, an international speaker and is currently on the training faculty of the Chartered Institute of Directors, Nigeria.
When Abidemi is not working, she spends wholesome time with family, people and in God’s service.