Rensource, a significant supplier of energy and payment services to SMEs in West Africa, was founded and is led by Ademola Adesina. The Financial Times/IFC Transformational Business Award for Climate and Urban Infrastructure Solutions went to Rensource in 2019.
He started off at the Global Markets department of JPMorgan’s investment bank in New York, where he was in charge of the distribution and structuring of financial derivatives.
For the most of his career, he has concentrated on developing or revitalising early and growth stage firms while working with entrepreneurial management teams in demanding operational settings. He served as Entrepreneur in Residence for Capricorn Investment Group, Jeff Skoll’s investment arm based in Palo Alto, starting in 2007 with Agrica, an East African agricultural company, and moving on to Automatiks, a California-based integrator of hybrid power solutions, AST, a leading provider of Power-as-a-Service in India, and Pagatech, a Nigerian mobile payments company.
Aquifer, a London-based investment firm connected to Lord Sainsbury’s family office and the Gatsby Trust, was where he previously oversaw business development and corporate strategy. He engaged in tasks that served as strategic support for establishing, bolstering, and expanding Aquifer’s operations in this capacity. He left the Rockefeller Foundation in New York, where he served as a founding member of the Innovation for Development and Impact Investing initiatives, to join Aquifer.
In addition to the USA and Europe, Adesina has lived and worked in Africa, making tremendous impact.
