Nigerian serial entrepreneur, Onyeka Akumah has stepped down as CEO of agritech startup, Farmcrowdy. Onyeka quits the managerial position after almost five (5) years at the helm.
Farmcrowdy co-founder, Akindele Phillips takes over as CEO of the company following Onyeka’s resignation. Onyeka will transition to the new role of Executive Chairman at Farmcrowdy to provide leadership and direction to the company’s board of directors.
In a blog statement, the former Farmcrowdy CEO said he had built the agritech platform with a plan to exit at some point.
However, today this chapter as CEO of Farmcrowdy has come to an end. Yes, even founders have a day they exit their own startups and that’s why I’ve preached about building with an exit in mind.
Onyeka Akumah
“Today, I have handed over the reins of running Farmcrowdy’s day-to-day operations to my co-founder and friend, Akindele Phillips, while I take on the new responsibility as Executive Chairman,” he added.
Onyeka also disclosed that he will be focusing more time and resources on scaling operations at Nigeria’s sole bus-hailing startup, Plentywaka where he currently leads as CEO.
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Meet Akindele Phillips
Farmcrowdy’s new CEO, Akindele Phillips is a seasoned entrepreneur and chartered accountant who co-founded Farmcrowdy with Onyeka Akumah in November 2016.
Akindele has mostly worked as chief finance officer (CFO) of the agritech startup before a recent one-year stint in the role of chief risk officer (CRO).
He is currently the Tax Coordinator for Africa at Centurion Law Group as well as a Managing Partner at Porter’s World Consult. Prior to these roles, Akindele had worked as a Senior Audit Associate at KPMG Nigeria for up to three years.
Farmcrowdy now caters to a network of over 400,000 farmers and claims to have raised over $17 million for farmers since it began operations.
According to Onyeka, Farmcrowdy has broken even and is heading towards profitability in Q1 2022.
“This is a solid testament to the team’s effort and it’s a dream I’ve lived as one of the best times of my career,” the outgoing CEO said.
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