Oyindamola Lami Adeyemi, the founder and Group Managing Director of Still Earth Group, and chairperson of Tirex Petroleum and Energy, had an epiphany about her future quite early in life with the realisation that she could not bear to serve another man for too long or play underling to any man or woman as she never believed in wasting her most productive years in building another man’s dreams. Ms. Adeyemi who is also the founder of Still Earth Capital Partners Limited, conceived her dreams almost as the exact equivalent of the great Gothic cathedrals, the supreme creation of an era, conceived with passion by unknown artists. Like the passionate artist, she pursued her dreams unhindered by lethargy and that constant spell of self-indulgence that afflicts a woman in her prime. Her passion stoked by a hunger to succeed, she defied the odds of ambition and the usual elements fated to manifest as the bane to growth in the life of every woman.
Like anxious teenagers waiting for their bar mitzvah, many Nigerians, near and far-flung, are eager to know who Oyindamola Adeyemi is. This palpable and pervasive anxiety is expected because of the self-effacing and self-deprecating nature of this cheerful and relentless giver.
Unlike many of her peers, her rise to eminence was as much a product of unrelenting will and her astounding ability to pirouette herself from obscurity to entrepreneurial acclaim by the bootstraps. As far as business ideas and innovations are concerned, Adeyemi turns nothing down, except the collar of her shirt. From construction to oil and gas, real estate and finance, het imprimatur stares you boldly in the face.
Yes, Oyindamola deftly maneuvered through the labyrinth of disappointments and despair characteristic of this period in a man’s life; more astonishingly, she survived it.
With visages of failure constantly flashing at her through her rear view, she navigated through the folds and challenges of enterprise with unusual tact and wisdom.
Through her journey, mirth and hopefulness, were never absent from her heart and her face. Some people, one imagines, may be naturally dauntless and buoyant of heart, but with her, good spirits always seemed, far more admirably, to be the product of a strict program of self-improvement in her youth — she believed, like most truly modest women, in the absolute virtue of self-improvement — which had wrought deep, essential changes in a nature inclined by birth to the darker view and gloominess that cropped up elsewhere in the manhood circuit.
Interestingly, however, in a universe that has not always made space for women, has fearlessly taken up a conspicuous space for herself. Now, the power and pull of her entrepreneurial attainments are making space for a new generation of young women who are willing to interrogate their fears and achieve greatness.
A woman of high ethics
Oyindamola Adeyemi understands that her possession of entrepreneurial success is a divine award gifted to her to glorify her work as a top business woman; she also understands that she must commit her enterprise and hard earned resources with noble intent, to the alleviation of the agony and sweat of the human spirit, not for self-glorification and least of all for profit, but to create out of the materials of the human spirit something which did not exist before: love, peace, compassion and hope in the hearts of the underprivileged and impoverished.
Thus she committed to find a dedication for her money, devoting it to commensurate needs with the purpose and significance of its origin. She laboured through commerce’s brutish straits, burnishing her spunk with ethical realism; eventually, she emerged as one of the keenest juggernauts in the downstream oil sector and the most perceptive visionary.
Indeed, her march to grow her enterprise, she got too busy to engage in sloth. Naturally, she attracted the best to herself. She had no room for failure. She sought to actualise her Nigerian dream through daunting odds. As she adds another year to her enchanting life today, the pert, blue flame of joy burns through her pretty frame; brightening her world and burnishing her persona with irrepressible shine. Oyin is beside herself with joy for being privileged to witness yet another glorious addition to her inspiring days.
Beautiful in an exotic, utterly understated way, Oyin exudes vigor, drama, fortitude, and happiness. Very early in life, she attained entrepreneurial acclaim for her inspiring exploits in the business world—you could be forgiven for imagining that she was shepherded by a savvy, tireless innate alter ego to get to her current height.
The Stormrider…
For the past decade and more, she has worked hard to attain her current status and, therefore, is far removed from the contemporary alpha female stereotype that glorifies flamboyance, self-aggrandizement and narcissism above substance. Importantly, Oyin is acutely aware that she orbits a universe that has not always made space for women and, thus, has fearlessly taken up a conspicuous space for herself. Now, the power and pull of her entrepreneurial attainments are making space for a new generation of young women who are willing to interrogate their fears and achieve greatness. And it is not hard to see why.
Funnily enough, an era when both the mainstream and new media commit the systemic looting of accolades, heaping it on undeserving social symbols and demagogues, Oyindamola attracts recognition by dint of her good works.
It is, therefore, understandable that the media would focus on her while shunning its tendency to embrace and promote nuanced, complex, midwifery properties for menace and subjugation. Her cool, humble demeanor even while she performs great feats that could make any money-bag swoon with pride, continually endears her to global media, civil societies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that are often beneficiaries of her philanthropy.
Good deeds
In the din of interminable acclaim and deafening applause that welcomes her arrival to the metropolitan oasis of high society courtesy her sterling achievements in the business world, she will not rest on her oars. Her unflagging spirit continually spur her to seek and attain landmark feats in business and even outside the business sector.
Unlike many a businessman who would rather expend his hard-earned money on guilty pleasures, Oyindamola devotes her time and money to the betterment of lives, particularly that of poor, disadvantaged folk. So doing, she establishes and perpetuates a rare culture of philanthropy that pleases and astounds many a recipient of her humanitarianism even as you read.