Roland Oletu Oroh
Roland is a Business Development Practitioner with specialization in agribusiness, trade and investment facilitation. He has 25 years’ combined experience in bilateral development assistance in trade capacity building, agribusiness development, and project management. Since year 2000, he has been involved in value chain assessment, design and development and has developed knowledge and established contacts in value chains such as rice, cashew, garments, cocoa, maize, sesame, sheanut, soybeans and processed agricultural foods for export from Nigeria to the U.S and Europe. He has also worked in government engagement, public-private partnerships, investment facilitation and promotion, trade corridor development in Nigeria including the Lagos-Kano-Jibiya (LAKAJI) trade and investment corridor. He has worked and continues to work for international development assistance projects and agencies including the U.K. Department for International Development and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). At USAID, Roland designed, launched and managed till close-out, the $16.8 million, 5-year USAID/Nigeria’s flagship trade capacity and investment facilitation Nigeria Expanded Trade and Transport (NEXTT) Project. NEXTT facilitated over $50 million in exports of cashews and other products from Nigeria and facilitated over $30 million in new investments along the LAKAJI Corridor from 2012 to 2017. Prior to NEXTT, he successfully managed the Nigeria Expanded Export Project, a $2 million pilot export promotion facility funded by USAID/Nigeria from 2010 to 2012.
Roland is the founder of Rossland Group www.rosslandgroup.com, a diversified business development service provider for the agriculture and food sectors in Nigeria and Africa, offering services in recruitment, research, franchise development and business brokerage. He is also the founder and publisher of the “Nigeria Agribusiness Register” www.nigeriaagribusinessregister.com, a public-private partnership facility (modelled after the concept of Business Registers), for aggregating and profiling investment data in the agribusiness sector and used for measuring economic growth, jobs, inclusiveness, and to address barriers to investment growth in the agriculture sector. He is a firm believer in African entrepreneurship as a solution to the development challenges in the continent. Recently, he launched a unique program that helps employees transit to become employers through a mentorship and BDS support program called EnRise (rise with entrepreneurship!). Both EnRise and the Agribusiness Register are powered by Commodity Development Initiative, a non-governmental organization vehicle founded by Roland.
Roland has a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) degree and a Bachelor of Science (BSc) degree in Business Administration. He was born in October 1967, and is married with a son.