Serial entrepreneur, founder of Farmcrowdy, Onyeka Akumah is stepping down as CEO of the company while co-founder Akindele Phillips takes over as the new CEO. This was announced by Onyeka Akumah today in a LinkedIn post.
Mr. Akumah will however remain in the organisation as the Executive Chairman providing “the necessary support needed for the business from a board level and will continue to give any strategic advice when called upon to grow Farmcrowdy into new frontiers.” He said he will “be focusing more attention on Plentywaka going forward as CEO to build the most respectable Transportation-Technology company from Nigeria.”
Launched in 2019, PlentyWaka is a technology-driven bus sharing solution, designed to allow users to schedule their rides from their preferred pick-up locations to their desired destination and receive real-time information about their rides thus offering every-day commuters convenience, safety and comfort in their daily commute.
According to Onyeka, “Beyond friendship, Akindele is a chartered accountant and successful entrepreneur who has built two other startups from scratch to profitability in a short period. We worked together on a previous startup before he joined me to launch Farmcrowdy in 2016. So, as he takes on this new challenge, I trust in his abilities to provide the necessary guidance to the team to achieve the next set of goals we’ve put in place for the business.”
Launched in 2016, Farmcrowdy is Nigeria’s first digital agriculture platform which offers Nigerians a new way to participate in Agriculture using their online technology.
Farmcrowdy started as a crowdfunding platform and has grown with the first farmer in Ibadan to a network to over 400,000 farmers nationally. Over the years, it has achieved some notable milestones which include the acquisition of the 3rd largest meat processor in Lagos; sale of one of its businesses (the crowdfunding business – Crowdyvest); raising over $17m USD for farmers and the engagement with stakeholders, governments and policy makers to improve agriculture with technology.
In commemoration of its fourth year anniversary in November 2020, Farmcrowdy announced the launch of six businesses – Farmcrowdy Structured Finance, Farmcrowdy Insurance, Farmcrowdy Marketing, Farmcrowdy Tech and Data, Farmcrowdy Foods and Farmcrowdy Aggregation – along with the introduction of two major platforms, the Farmcrowdy Foods E-Commerce platform and the Farmcrowdy Trader platform (Flagship platform under Farmcrowdy Aggregation).
Onyeka attests to the fact that as at today, Farmcrowdy has broken even and is heading towards profitability in Q1 2022.
It would seem Onyeka is gently easing out of day-to-day operations of all his businesses as he recently also stepped down from the CEO role at Crowdyvest and appointed Temitope Omotolani to take over the reins as the new CEO.
