Damilola Ogunbiyi

Biography

Damilola Ogunbiyi is the CEO of Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL), Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All and Co-Chair of UN-Energy. She is also a Commissioner for the Global Commission to End Energy Poverty and the Co-Chair of the COP26 Energy Transition Council. She is a global leader and advocate for the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG7), which calls for access to reliable, affordable, sustainable and modern energy for all by 2030, in line with the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Prior to joining SEforALL, Mrs. Ogunbiyi was the first female Managing Director of the Nigerian Rural Electrification Agency where she was responsible for successfully negotiating the Nigerian Electrification Project which is a USD 550 million facility (World Bank USD 350m and African Development Bank USD 200m) to rapidly construct solar mini-grids and deploy solar home systems across Nigeria to close energy access gaps. She also conceptualised the Energizing Economies Initiative, which provides sustainable and affordable off-grid power solutions to economic clusters, including markets and industrial clusters in Nigeria, that is estimated to impact 1.2 million SMEs.

Mrs. Ogunbiyi previously worked as the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Power and Head of the Advisory Power Team in the Office of the Vice President of Nigeria. She was responsible for the Power Sector Recovery Programme, which is a series of policy, operational, governance and financial interventions to be implemented by the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN).

Before joining the FGN, Mrs. Ogunbiyi was the first female to be appointed as the General Manager of the Lagos State Electricity Board. Under her leadership, five independent power projects were completed to deliver over 55 megawatts of power to Lagos State hospitals, schools, streetlights, and the Government secretariat. She entered public service as the Senior Special Assistant to the Lagos State Governor on Public Private Partnerships (PPP). Prior to her appointment, she was a consultant for the UK Department for International Development (DfID) on public-private partnerships.  

Mrs. Ogunbiyi maintains a keen interest in mentoring and empowering young people through skills acquisitions. She created the Lagos State Energy Academy to build the capacity of young people in renewable energy technology, and the Energizing Education Programme (EEP) which launched a Female STEM Student Internship Programme to provide hands-on practical experience in designing and constructing power systems for 700 female undergraduates.

Mrs. Ogunbiyi is one of the Commissioners for the Global Commission to end energy poverty which is an initiative driven by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and The Rockefeller Foundation. She is the Co-Chair of the COP26 Energy Transition Council aimed at driving action to accelerate the shift to clean energy ahead of COP26 and to bring together leaders in the power sector across politics, finance and technology to speed up the transition from coal to clean renewable energy in developing countries. She is also a member of the Development Advisory Council of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), member of the clean cooking alliance advisory board and a member of the Advisory Board of the University of Oxford – Future of Cooling Programme