Wole Abu small

 

Wole Abu is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Liquid Intelligent Technologies Nigeria (LITN) and Africa Data Centre (ADC) in Nigeria. Prior to his appointment at Liquid Intelligent Technologies, Abu served as the Chief Executive Officer of Pan African Towers, a telecom infrastructure company he built to one of the leading towercos in Nigeria. Abu also served as Vice President of Sales at Airtel Nigeria, where he also held several senior management roles in the Human Resources, Engineering, Operations, Finance, Legal, and Marketing departments respectively since joining the company in 2010.

He worked with Vee Networks Limited as a Project Manager from 2004 to 2006 before joining Celtel Nigeria Limited, Zain Nigeria Limited and Bharti Airtel Limited in 2006 as HOD Business Support, in 2009 as Regional Sales Manager, and in 2012 as General Manager, Acquisition.

This polyfocal blend of functional skills, makes Abu a very experienced leader and force in the telecoms sector as he is poised to bridge the connectivity gap in Africa in an environmentally sustainable fashion. This is demonstrated as he was recently honoured as one of the most influential black CEOs to Follow in 2023 by CIOVIEWS Magazine, a globally renowned US Magazine. Shortly after, he forged a partnership with Meta AI for the launch of the Large Language Model AI (LlaMa 2) in July 2023.

This achievement is not shocking as he was named one of the top 20 Towercos Chief Executives in the World by TowerXchange in 2020. Abu, in his storied career also won the Nigeria Tech Innovation and Telecom Award (NTITA) by the Association of Telecommunication Companies of Nigeria (ATCON) for his outstanding contributions to the growth and development of the telecom industry.

Abu was also elected by the same association to serve as its Publicity Secretary in 2020-2023 and was recently appointed as the organisation’s Treasurer in 2023. He has managed across startups and mature companies, leading these businesses into periods of massive and rapid growth through new business service rollouts, while driving positive change in the respective companies. Abu was instrumental to Liquid Intelligent Technologies building the largest data centre in Nigeria called the Africa Data Centre. Abu led Liquid to be the first company to light up capacity on the Equiano cable in Nigeria with Active Nx100G waves between Lagos to Sesimbra, Portugal and Lagos to Melkbosstrand South Africa.

He also led Liquid Nigeria to deliver over 150km of metro fiber in Lagos. With operations launched officially in November 2022, Abu has led Liquid Intelligent Technologies to have active PoPs in Lagos, Abuja and Port-Harcourt, making the company a one stop shop for local and international connectivity, cloud, cyber security, SD-WAN, SAN and systems integration in Nigeria. Abu is a member of the Project Management Institute, and volunteers regularly for causes that protect families and empowers communities.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering with Honours from the University of Benin in 1990 and an MBA from the Lagos Business School in 2006. In 2012, Abu attended the Indian Institute of Business Management, Ahmedabad where he acquired a certification in Business Administration and Management. In 2020, Abu got a professional education certification from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Digital Transformation: From AI and IoT to Blockchain, Cloud and Cybersecurity. In the same year, the Technological Titan attended the Podcasting Workshop and got the POD Certificate granted. Abu has attended several leadership courses in top educational institutions and consistently gives talks and makes presentations in top conferences and seminars globally.

Abu is creative, innovative, visionary and a strategic planner who has an excellent sense of business ethics and corporate governance. While at Pan African Towers, Mr. Abu led the company to win four significant awards in its two years of business operations including the Telecoms Infrastructure Company of the Year Award at the 2020 Nigeria Business Leadership Awards (NBLA) organised by BusinessDay. With his continued leadership style, rare enthusiasm and heightened drive to revolutionise the telecom industry in Nigeria, Mr. Abu is dedicated to making a significant impact on the society.