16/09/2026
Woman Crush Wednesday: Mrs Ibukun Awosika
She studied Chemistry at the University of Ife. She built a career in furniture manufacturing, banking security, corporate governance and faith-based work across Nigeria. Nobody told her those things belonged together. She built the bridge herself.
Ibukun Awosika grew up in Ibadan, the third of seven children. Her parents raised her on hard work, discipline and resilience, values she has carried into every room she has walked into since. She never let a Chemistry degree box her in. Instead, she started The Chair Centre Group, now one of Nigeria's leading providers of office furniture and banking security systems.
In 2015, she became the first female Chairperson of First Bank of Nigeria, one of the country's oldest and most respected financial institutions. She got there not through noise or shortcuts, but through structure, consistency and a reputation for doing things properly.
She has never separated her success from her faith. She built the Christian Missionary Fund to change lives across Nigeria, and she speaks openly about grounding her ambition in her belief in God, proof that conviction and leadership are not opposites.
She has spent years mentoring women through WIMBIZ and her own Leadership Academy, building platforms that will outlast her rather than titles that end when she steps down. That is the real measure of her impact, not the boardrooms she has sat in, but the people she has pulled up behind her.
You can follow her on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and TikTok:
This is Woman Crush Wednesday. Every week, we spotlight a woman from Nigeria, Africa or the Diaspora rebuilding what leadership looks like.
Follow this page. Next Wednesday, another name.
