Chief Bimbo Roberts Folayan
Community Development
Chief Bimbo Roberts Folayan is the Executive Director of J Williamz Limited, promoters of the Nigerian Diaspora Direct Investment Summit (NDDIS), an organization which mobilises Nigerians in the Diaspora and other British and international investors to invest in the Nigerian economy and help facilitate trade and business development between British companies and Nigeria (http://www.nddis.com).
He was also a past Chairman of the Central Association of Nigerians in the United Kingdom, (CANUK) - the umbrella organisation of the hundreds of Nigerian professional, Cultural, States, Welfare based and Social organisations in the UK. He held this position for four years.
He has garnered a tremendous amount of all round experience in private and public sectors both in Nigeria and in the United Kingdom. A graduate of the University of Ife, he later participated in a M.Sc. Conversion programme at Greenwich University (UK) in Information Systems and Computing. Bimbo is a fellow of the Institute of Information Management (FIIM) and holds the British Computer Society (MBCS) Chartered IT Professional (CITP) and Assessor status, amongst several other qualifications.
Bimbo Roberts Folayan
Chief Bimbo Roberts Folayan
He worked with The Guardian Newspapers in Nigeria and was a Publisher of a UK based tabloid - ‘The Main Issue’.
Bimbo is an African with a rare social conscience who has initiated, participated in and executed various activities and ventures with others with the aim of promoting democracy, good governance and the development of the Diaspora community.
Before leaving Nigeria in the early 90s, he was a pioneer staff of the ‘People's Bank of Nigeria’ and worked closely with its Chairman and Managing Director - Pa Tai Solarin and Mrs. Maria Sokenu respectively in disbursing small-scale loans to Nigerians in the 1990s. As the Programme Manager of the Bank, Bimbo was responsible for setting up of bank branches, centers and the disbursement of micro business credit for local communities in some parts of Nigeria between 1989 and 1991. He later worked as a Financier and mid-wifed the creation of Treasury and Finance Company/Mortgage Bank after the liberalisation of the banking sector in 1992.
His IT Consultancy in the UK has seen him participate in several bank and telecommunication merger projects across the UK and parts of Europe. Bimbo’s clients include Nationwide Bank, Ulster Bank, IBM, Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Marks & Spencer’s, Royal Bank of Scotland, NatWest Bank, Halifax Bank and Bank of England, amongst several others. He was part of the team that completed the harmonisation and re-branding of NTL, Telewest, and Virgin Telecoms (Virgin Media) and also the merger of NatWest Bank with other financial institutions with the Royal Bank of Scotland brand. He is the Senior Partner of ABN Limited based in the UK.
He is an idea generator and was the Chairman of the Ekiti Economic and Investment Forum (EEIF), an Economic and Development think-tank, Founding President and now Patron of the Association of Nigerian IT Professionals in the UK (ANITP), member of the National Think Tank in Nigeria, Diaspora UK nominee to the Nigeria Vision 202020 board and was the Chairman of the Main Events Task Force of the Nigeria @ 50 celebrations in London.
He holds two traditional chieftaincy titles: Serikin Yakin (King of War) of Kagara Town, Niger State and Garkin Kowan Pada (Member of Emir's Palace) of Kotangora town, Niger State.