Adesuwa Okunbo Rhodes
Founder and Managing Partner, Aruwa Capital Management
Adesuwa Okunbo Rhodes is currently the Founder and Managing Partner of Aruwa Capital Management, one of the few women owned and managed growth equity funds in Africa. She has 15 years of investment banking and private equity experience in developed and emerging markets from global institutions such as J.P. Morgan.
Prior to starting Aruwa Capital, Adesuwa was the Managing Partner and Co-Founder of Syntaxis Capital Africa, a provider of growth capital to SMEs in Nigeria and across Sub Saharan Africa. At Syntaxis Africa, she led transactions totalling more than $200 million across SSA. Prior to co-founding Syntaxis Africa in 2014, Adesuwa was in the Leveraged Finance and M&A teams at J.P. Morgan in London, where she was involved in $5.6 billion worth of transactions across emerging markets including Nigeria.
She was named as an Agent of Impact in 2019 by Impact Alpha and recognised as one of the Top 35 Women Moving Africa Forward in 2020. In 2021, she was named as one of the Top 100 global leaders combining profit and purpose by Meaningful Business and Ernst & Young. In 2022, Adesuwa was named as one of Top 100 African leaders under the age of 40 by the Institut Choiseul, set to play a major role in the economic development of the African continent and also recognized as one of the Top 50 Inspiring Women in Nigeria by BusinessDay. In 2023, Adesuwa received national recognition from the Executive Governor of Lagos state in Nigeria, as one of the 150 women in Nigeria contributing towards achieving gender equity and nation building. With Aruwa Capital’s $20 million Fund backed by global institutions, Adesuwa is the only female GP in Nigeria to raise over $10 million in a first fund.
She holds a BSc in Economics from the University of Bristol. She currently sits on eight boards in Nigeria across healthcare, manufacturing, agriculture renewable energy and hospitality sectors. She is married with a son and enjoys travelling, tennis and cooking.
