Adesuwa Nosa-Ehima Efienemokwu is a resourceful and formidable Business Operations Manager with over 8 Years’ experience handling field operations, business development, and managing projects with portfolios valued as high as $1 Billion.

A Graduate of Biochemistry, Adesuwa has an MSC in Public Health from Oxford Brookes University, UK and a Leadership Certification from ALX.

Adesuwa got her start over 8 Years ago at Pam and Associates where she was the Business Development, and Corporate Strategy Manager. She delved into customer service management and business administration when she joined AYS and then moved on to Cellulant in 2015 where she served as a Financial Analyst and Programs Manager. In her 5 Year stint at Cellulant she grew through the ranks from Financial Analyst and Programs Manager to Operations Manager, and then Country Business Manager which she left the company as in 2020.

A Farmer and Expert in Agri-Commerce, Adesuwa currently serves as the Chief Operations Officer at AgriTech StartUp Voriancorelli. In her current role, she is in charge of operations excellence, business strategy implementations, end-to-end performance, and stakeholder management within Voriancorelli’s ecosystem.

She reveals more in this interview. Excerpts…

Tell us about yourself and what you do?

My name is Adesuwa Nosa-Ehima Efienemokwu and I am the Chief Operating Officer at Voriancorelli a fast rising Agritech venture. I have a BSc in Biochemistry, and an MSC in Public Health from Oxford Brookes University, UK, yet somehow, my passion is the to transform the African Agricultural landscape one step at a time, beginning with Africa’s largest market Nigeria. 

I am an Operation Management Expert with over 9 years of experience in Operations, Sales, Marketing, and Project Management. My Career experience spans different industries most notably; Fintech, and Agritech where I have worked as a Country Business manager overseeing projects with portfolios valued as high as $1 Billion and managed the delivery of a $75 million project geared at creating employment opportunities for over 100,000 Nigerian youths. 

What does VorianCorelli do?

VorianCorelli is a demand and supply matching company seeking to solve key problems in  Africa’s Agriculture Sector including; inefficiency, unfair pricing regime, and lack of transparency.

It is a B2B company whose sole aim is to create an efficient platform where opportunities to scale are offered to those who need it by matching demand and supply across the value chain.

VorianCorelli is essentially a marketplace for agricultural commodities where Buyers, Sellers, Commodity Aggregators, Logistic Partners, Food Processors, and Agricultural Business Financiers can do business proficiently and seamlessly. 

Why did you choose agriculture?

I have always been enthused by the prospects that the agricultural sector held. For perspective, as of 2019, the agricultural sector contributed N10.50 Trillion to the nation’s GDP despite the challenges faced by Farmers and other stakeholders in the industry. So, having worked in different capacities across different industries, finding my way to the agriculture sector was a pull I could not ignore. 

Food security is something that bothers me as people are starving to death in some parts of the world. So, for a while now, I find that I have been involved in the agricultural sector through one form or the other starting from farming and then journeying into agritech. For me, when there is food security, we can create wealth. 

The agricultural sector requires a great deal of innovation and investment to ensure that it reaches its full potential and solves the problems of food security amongst other things. It was therefore a very natural choice to come onboard the VorianCorelli ship as COO.

Do you think the agricultural sector is getting the kind of attention it deserves from the government and investors?

At different times, initiatives, policies, and programs to spur this growth in the industry have been passed by the government. For instance, NIRSAL (Nigerian Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agriculture Lending) is a $500 million non-bank institution created by the Nigerian government aimed at providing finance to the sector. Also, the Growth Enhancement Support Program (GES) that supported 8 million farmers yearly from 2012 to 2015 with high-quality inputs the program is another example. 

On the Investor end of things, many investors would love to invest in the Agric sector but the paucity of platforms & opportunities to do so, coupled with false reports has dissuaded some.

 It is not that the agricultural sector is necessarily suffering from a dearth of attention from both Government and Investors, it is simply that considerable impact can only be made where governments’ efforts are backed by private Investors. To achieve this, a synergy of effort between stakeholders and a transparency that inspires confidence is required, and this is one of the key issues we’re working to resolve at VorianCorelli. 

What are some of the challenges you have faced in the time you have spent in the agriculture sector?

I would say my major challenge in the Agriculture sector is that posited by language. In different roles, I often had to work with a lot of people from different ethnicities and backgrounds, and sadly, I am not a polyglot, as I only speak English and my local dialect. So, while interacting with people and hearing different languages can be very culturally enriching, it can also be a hindrance when it comes to closing deals and ease of doing business. This language barrier challenge is one of the challenges though that I find that technology, particularly the one we are deploying on our platform can help fix.

What are the potentials in combining agriculture and technology?

From my experience in the sector, I can conclusively say that technology is going to play a huge role in achieving considerable gains in the sector. For instance, the GES program launched by Dr. Adesina Akinwunmi which I worked on, leveraged technology in delivering high-quality input commodities to farmers who needed them through the E-wallet platform. The program which operated by giving Farmers subsidized access to inputs they picked up from agrodealers, led to a considerable increase in crop production while also reducing the cost of food items due to availability unlike what we have now.

Also, look at the challenge presented by diverse languages which I highlighted before, with technology, we have been able to create a platform where the difference in language has no bearing on the sale of agricultural commodities thanks to the multi-language option. 

Now imagine where different businesses across the value chain incorporate technology into their delivery? We would have a Nigerian agricultural sector moving at the speed of light and competing with world markets. Combining technology with agriculture would also do away with the bottlenecks that have plagued the sector thereby hampering growth and development. What we will see is that achievements that previously took let us say 10 years to attain would be surmounted in 2-3 years. 

How have you been able to leverage technology to grow your business?

At VorianCorelli, technology has been instrumental to achieving growth at scale and ensuring that our core objective of matching players along the chain is achieved. Even though we have only been around for 4 months, leveraging technology has led to our recording a total sale volume of over 4 million kilograms of Agric commodities on our platform. 

How do you intend to carry along those looking at investing in the agriculture sector?

As I mentioned earlier, one of the core features/components of our business is in matching actors across the agricultural value chain. One of such Actors are Investors or Financial Institutions. We match Financiers seeking to invest in the sector with suitable Individuals or entities in need of capital for their businesses. By so doing, we are encouraging development and growth in the agricultural sector, as these funds would help in facilitating access to input and output commodities to increase farm yield and returns and resolve the issue of food security.