Why MainOne CEO, Funke Opeke was Honored with Data Centre Dynamics “Business Leader of the Year” Award

The Data Centre Dynamics (DCD) Awards has announced MainOne CEO, Funke Opeke, the Data Centre Dynamics Business Leader of the Year during the 2018 edition at the Royal Lancaster, London on Thursday, December 6, 2018.

The Business Leader of the Year Award recognises a company or individual who has done the most over the past 12 months to build the profile of the data centre industry to key stakeholder groups including investors, shareholders, financiers, owners, operators, the media and/or government.

Why Funke Opeke?

This award wouldn’t really come off as a surprise as Funke Opeke has had many feats to her name.  After moving back to Nigeria, Funke Opeke started MainOne in 2008 when she noticed the low internet connectivity in Nigeria. As the first privately owned services and network solutions provider in West Africa, MainOne laid a 7,000-kilometer undersea high capacity cable submarine stretching from Portugal to South Africa with landings along the route in Accra, Ghana and Lagos, Nigeria.

Selected by an independent panel of data centre experts from hundreds of entries from across the world, Opeke was recognised for her role in leading her company, MainOne to success in West Africa, taking on the task of building a Tier III-certified data centre from the ground up with cables connecting it to the rest of the world, as well as her ability to assert herself, deliver results and actively take on challenges within a male-dominated field while encouraging other women in her team to do the same.

Expressing her delight at winning the award, the Ms Opeke, who was unable to attend the awards, shared a one-minute video where she thanked the organizers of the Data Centre Dynamics Awards for the award and affirmed the company’s commitment to the digital transformation of West Africa

Digital infrastructure is so critical to improving productivity and helps build economies and we are truly committed to ensuring that West Africa is well connected with the rest of the world and that we are able to provide high quality and low latency access to services to people in our region.”

Other big winners of the night include Equinix, CyrusOne, Microsoft, American Express, Next DC, Apple and Akamai.