Dr. Alabi is a veteran, yet versatile international trade development and small business specialist with nearly 35 years’ practice in the private, public and third sectors; supporting the small and medium sized businesses across different industries both in the UK and in Africa. He has led and participated in many high-profile international trade missions to the USA, Asia and Africa and comes with a wealth of experience, working with business executives from diverse cultural backgrounds. He is an accomplished international business executive with several years’ experience from his engagements in the eastern and western sub-Sahara Africa regions, with excellent working knowledge of business in southern Africa.
Dr. Alabi’s diverse overseas business adventures have taken him into the MENA and South East Asia regions, including trade missions to Vietnam. A management and marketing professional by training, he has a keen focus on entrepreneurship, small business management and entrepreneurial education; supporting C-suite boards and directors of SMEs with specialist skills; as a UK government Small Firms Enterprise Development Initiative (SFEDI) certified small business practitioner, mentor and coach. He has delivered and managed several UK-government funded business support schemes involving financial and skills input, to mainstream and specialist sector-specific businesses in manufacturing, engineering, branding, leisure, hospitality, travel and tourism, health and medical sciences.
Dr. Alabi advisory roles includes engagements with government departments as well as not-for-profits in the UK and across Africa; delivering organisational development and capacity building programmes. He has a demonstrable passion for development in Africa and is regularly engaged to speak on wider socio-economic development issues; particularly as they impact on sub-Sahara Africa’s growing young population and women. He regularly contributes to the discourse in broadcast and print media and delivers regular mentoring and coaching support to doctoral and post-doctoral research fellows and young professionals.
Dr. Alabi is on the roster of the African Development Bank Group as a consultant on policy matters relating to private sector development, human capacity, education, skills, entrepreneurship and livelihoods.
Dr. Alabi has taught widely within the UK academia and was a former professor of marketing and management; an external examiner for MBA programmes and a former examiner for the Chartered Institute of Marketing. Dr. Alabi personifies a well-balanced blend of experience in doing business in the western cultures with business practices in developing African countries.
He regularly writes on issues of governance, compliance, leadership, equality and diversity, education, business, skills and socio-economic development on the continent of Africa and is a regular guest on TV and radio shows commentating on these subjects.
English
Arabic
Chinese (Simplified)
French
German
Greek
Italian
Japanese
Portuguese
Spanish