Farouk Gumel

Mr. Farouk M. Gumel is a Group Executive Director and Head of Agri-Businesses for the Tropical General Investment (TGI) Group, a global conglomerate operating in 13 countries across Africa, the Middle East and Asia. TGI’s business interests span the entire food value chain from origination/farming, processing, distribution, and branded retail. He is also the Chairman of WACOT Rice Limited, one of the largest state-of-the-art rice mills in Nigeria. He is a consummate professional with nearly two decades of cognate experience spanning consulting, audit, corporate finance, advisory services, and asset management. Mr Gumel serves on the board of several companies.

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Prior to joining TGI, Mr. Gumel was a Partner and Head of PricewaterhouseCoopers’ (PwC) West African Advisory/Consulting business which covers Nigeria, Ghana, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Angola. He worked in PwC in various capacities from 2002 to 2015 in the United Kingdom, United States of America and West Africa.

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Between 2016 and 2020, he was an Honorary Advisor to the Presidency of Nigeria on agriculture and food security, where he supported in the development and implementation of the Presidential Fertiliser Initiative (PFI), the National Food Security programme and various Agriculture and food-related backward integration policy development initiatives.

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He is currently the Chairman of the Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority (NSIA). He is also the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Union Bank of Nigeria, Nigeria’s second oldest and sixth largest bank.

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Mr. Gumel is a member of Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN) and a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (ICAEW). He has served on several Presidential and Ministerial level task forces/committees for more than a decade. He is also a life member of the Institute of Directors, Nigeria.

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In addition to his professional memberships, he possesses a Masters’ degree with a Distinction in Clean Technology from the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, which he earned in 2001. For his first degree, he graduated with a First Class Bachelors’ degree in Materials (Leather) Technology from the University of Northampton in 2000.