Yvonne Ezekiel

Yvonne is currently the Managing Partner of OAL (Olisa Agbakoba Legal), setting the strategic goals and objectives of the firm, managing its daily operations and driving business growth. She started her career at OAL in the Litigation Practice before leaving to pursue other endeavours in Business and Management. She also heads the Corporate and Business Advisory Practice focusing on corporate governance, compliance with company laws and regulations that govern businesses and on matters arising from transactions and commercial trading. Her remit also includes Estate Planning, Employment Law and International Trade group focusing on Trade control matters – sanctions, export controls, trade litigations and helping our clients understand how government enforces, regulates and addresses compliance matters,

She graduated from Bendel State University with a Bachelors in Law and proceeded to the Nigeria Law School. Upon completion of Law School, she was called to the Bar and joined Olisa Agbakoba and Associates as it was then known.

After a couple of years at the firm, she proceeded to the United Kingdom where she had management consulting experience in the public and private sectors. Upon her return to Nigeria, she joined an FMCG multi-national.

She held various positions within the FMCG with the last role as Head HR of the of the Marketing subsidiary covering the West Africa Region. She moved into the banking sector joining a newly acquired Bank, supporting the core investors to lead the People Transformation workstream and process re-engineering under the Bank’s overall Transformation Agenda. She also had a working period with another FMCG, an international alcoholic beverage company as a Business Consultant to the Commercial Team. At the end of her engaged period, she re-joined OAL rich in the multi-disciplinary experience of Law, Business Management and Human Resources. Her experience in business management and process re-engineering has been key to the re-organization of OAL in making it a world class law firm supported by strong business and people processes.

She has project management experience buoyed by her PRINCE 2 Project Management certification. She has an MBA from the University of Liverpool and Post Graduate Diploma in Organization Development and Design from the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development UK.

She is a member of the Nigerian Bar Association, Chartered Institute of Personnel Management, Nigeria and Chartered Institute of Personnel Development UK. She is member of the Nigerian -British Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Trade and Investment Committee of the Chambers. She is currently undergoing certification with the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators.