Building Skyscrapers: Frameworks for Scaling Companies in Nigeria's Renewable Energy Sector.
Lessons from A Global CEO's Quest for African Excellence
The complexity and scale of the energy access challenge in Nigeria present an opportunity for this generation to catalyse local development, domesticate value chains, and build lasting corporate institutions.
Yet, despite the historical availability of Result-Based Financing (RBF) grants from the Federal Government and development partners, implemented primarily through the Rural Electrification Agency of Nigeria (REA), companies in the Distributed Renewable Energy (DRE) sector consistently struggle to secure the bridge or equity financing required for true scale.
Investors have shared that most companies in the sector are essentially limited by their weak back offices and poor corporate governance and are therefore unable to transition into institutions that attract capital at scale.
The spotlight for this month on Notes on Project Development is a leader who has dedicated her post-corporate career to addressing the challenge of scaling companies.
When I joined the Lagos Angel Network in November 2025, she was already a member, and she reached out with a welcome message and a connection request on LinkedIn.
In January and February 2026, while I was posting about governance, structure, and the phased maturation of businesses seeking to attract capital, I noticed her own posts going deeper and offering more detailed frameworks for how to evolve from hero founder to institutional architect. They resonated, and I sent her an effusive DM asking for an interview. She said yes without hesitation, and my schedule finally allowed it on May 1st.
This month, Notes on Project Development spotlights Adeolu Adewumi-Zer, a global strategist, board member, and founder of ZER Consulting Africa, whose 26-year career spans the United States, Germany, Turkey, Kenya, and Nigeria. She led mergers and acquisitions and corporate turnarounds estimated at over 500 million Euros. She holds seats on the boards of several companies, is the founder of ZER Consulting Africa, and the author of Afro-Optimism Unleashed: Scaling African Excellence to the Global Stage.
In our two-hour, fifteen-minute conversation, we explored her journey to date, how Afro-optimism works, and the blueprint for scaling companies that businesses operating in Nigeria’s renewable energy sector could learn from.
“I left Nigeria at age three, and from a young age, I knew I was coming back.”
“I was born in Nigeria, and around age three, my father moved the family to the USA to complete his PhD in Chicago. He was supposed to return to the University of Ibadan after he finished, but for various reasons, he could not. He secured a position at Pennsylvania State University, and we relocated there. While it is a college town surrounded by cornfields, there was a thriving African community there, and we were able to interact with other cultures.”
“I felt like I grew up in a sort of Nigerian bubble inside America. My family was good at keeping the Nigerian heritage very strong at home, so even at a young age, I knew I was coming back to Nigeria. I would tell anyone who would listen, and they would laugh. I cannot explain how I knew this, but I just knew it deep down. Even my father will attest to how often I would say this growing up.”
“I Became an Actuary with a North Star Pointing Home”
“I’m a professor’s daughter, and I say that very proudly. Education was number one in our home. I also loved maths, but rather than do engineering like my dad, I chose accounting. In my very first semester, I took a statistics course and heard of actuarial science, which uses statistics to model business questions. I immediately changed my major to become an actuary.”
“When I had my final interview for my first job as a consultant with Hewitt Associates, based in Chicago, I told them I would open a Nigerian branch of their company. I raised my hand for any and every international opportunity they had because, in my mind, the first step to getting back to Nigeria was to get out of the US first.”
“Though I was rejected for many international opportunities, the work was interesting and engaging enough, so I stayed and kept raising my hand for them. Then, eight years after I started, a chance to take up an assignment in Munich, Germany, came up. It was in the same time zone as Nigeria for half the year due to daylight saving time, so I said yes immediately.”
“While working in Munich, Hewitt merged with another company, Aon, and I was given a choice: return to the Chicago office or leave the company. I did not want to go back to the US, as that would take me further from my dream of returning to Nigeria. I had met and married my husband, who is Turkish, so I decided to leave and took a seven-month sabbatical in Turkey, as it was proximate to Dubai, and I could be close to possibilities for companies creating an Africa team.”
“18 years after my career started, Allianz takes me back to the continent.”
“During that sabbatical, I was approached by the Allianz Group, the largest customer of Aon in Germany, and I went back to join their team in a role supporting HR. While there, I remained vocal, as I have always been, about my keen interest in African and Nigerian roles. The company’s strategy had shifted away from Africa, but a new senior leader wanted to roll out a business development strategy across other countries and asked me personally if I was interested in supporting that work. While it was not Africa-focused, it ticked all my other boxes.”
“I could stay in Germany with my husband and still have global exposure.”
“Opportunity to work with and learn from a senior executive with over 30 years of experience.”
“Opportunity to shift from the back office to the market-facing part of the business.”
“I was in this role for some time and really enjoyed it.”
“Then, a new Group CEO was selected for Allianz, and he turned the strategy back to Africa. He wanted to set up an office responsible for acquisitions of insurance businesses in Africa, and because I had been vocal about my desire for work in and about Africa, he asked to speak with me to offer me the role. I arrived at that meeting in November 2015, eight months pregnant with my second child. He looked at me and said, let us speak after your maternity leave.”
“I went on leave and afterwards returned to my current role and continued conversations around starting and setting up the Africa M&A team for Allianz. The Africa role was confirmed, and in March 2018, eighteen years after I started my career, I landed in Nairobi to set up and lead the Africa M&A strategy.”
“40 years after I promised to return to Nigeria, I finally did, during the pandemic.”
“The whole African business was seen as a “rounding error” in Allianz’s portfolio, so while we were connected to the corporate mothership, we had to set up and launch with a very lean regional team. I was sourcing deals, setting up an office, and recruiting staff at the same time. By July 2018, we closed a deal with a private equity firm looking to exit its position in a Nigerian company. We acquired it, and I became a non-executive board member for the first time. We went on to acquire several companies across Africa, including a Kenyan business that won East Africa Deal of the Year in 2020.”
“Then, I was called to effect a turnaround in the company that became Allianz Nigeria, after it had been acquired previously by my team. In October 2020, just as COVID-19 lockdowns were lifting and a few weeks before the EndSARS protests erupted, I finally arrived in Nigeria, forty years later, to become the CEO of Allianz Nigeria.”
“Two years after I took the role, the company that had been bleeding since the acquisition was back in profitability. However, despite delivering a good result and being at the top of the company, being paid an expatriate’s salary with a devaluing naira was becoming more expensive for the company. For the second time in my career, I was faced with a choice that had nothing to do with my performance or willingness to remain, but with circumstances. Either I return to Germany, where my costs could be better absorbed, or leave.”
“What if I put that same commitment I had shown with companies into building my own dream?”
“I left at the end of 2022 and took another sabbatical for most of 2023, this time staying in Nigeria. During that time, I spoke to many people, had numerous breakfast, lunch, and dinner dates, and attended various events because I wanted to deepen my network and gain a grounded assessment of genuine opportunities in Nigeria and Africa.”
“While doing these things, I was also receiving offers from private equity, venture capital, and development funds, but nothing seemed right. I kept asking myself, these companies are asking for potentially another decade of my life. What if I put that same commitment I had shown in building other companies into building my own dream? If I do not succeed, I can always go back, but I really want to try.”
So that weekend in October 2023, when she made up her mind to go all in, she called her immigration consultant and asked how she had registered her own business in Nigeria. Two weeks later, ZER Consulting Africa was registered. The day she received the registration documents, she stayed up all night and built the website.
“ZER Consulting Africa is a Catalyst for Scaling African Excellence”
“After founding ZER in 2024, I wrote Afro-Optimism Unleashed: Scaling African Excellence to the Global Stage.
“I didn’t coin it, but I borrowed the term ‘Afro-optimism’ because it encompasses my vision and ideas well.”
In the book, I detail how SMEs can build a strong leadership team and achieve long-term success, become globally competitive enterprises, and contribute to Africa’s bright future.”
“ZER Consulting Africa is a purpose-driven strategy management consulting firm with a mission to build that excellence in African companies so they can scale and compete globally. We want to take companies from 1 million USD to 10 million USD, then from 10 million to 50 million USD, and up past 100 million USD.”
“The 100 million USD threshold is not arbitrary. When living and working in Germany, I observed that it is the point at which companies begin to be taken seriously globally.”
“I also had a first-hand view of the German Mittelstand, the German term for SMEs. These are family-owned, generational businesses with fewer than 250 employees that handle annual revenues of around 50 million USD. Collectively, they make up over 99.6% of German companies, are responsible for 55% of the German economy, and employ more than half the workforce.”
German excellence may have been made popular by brands like Mercedes-Benz, but it is the Mittelstand companies that deliver consistently at the scale that holds the economy up. That is the vision for Africa that I see, and I am building ZER Consulting Africa to deliver it.”
At this point in our discussion, I asked her to share what she observed about Germany’s culture, education, politics, and policies that may have enabled this steady and strong base of companies. She responded as follows:
“Culturally, they discuss ideas for a long time first, then act quickly after.”
“The Germans will spend a long, annoyingly long time discussing something. And then, when the thinking is done and decisions are made, execution begins in earnest. All the preparation takes a long time, but it should make execution faster, because everyone is already on the same page. Comparatively, in Nigeria, many of us move fast and fix things as we go. That has its benefits, and innovation can happen that way, too. But things that last, and things that do not create unwitting second and third-order effects, tend to be built the first way.”
“Vocational education is not treated as inferior to degrees.”
“In Nigeria, we push everyone to go to university. Doctors, engineers, lawyers: that is seen as the end goal. Coming out and saying you want to be a top-class artisan or a master tradesperson is not seen as acceptable in our culture. In Germany, this is not only accepted, but it is encouraged. There is a clear path to mastery and formalisation for artisans and tradespeople. So, you have a deep pool of excellent tradespeople who have practical knowledge and expertise. That is why German cars are so respected. The engineer imagines and designs it, yes. But the person who actually builds it is also so well educated that they can translate and execute that design faithfully. Training covers vocations very well, so excellence flows both top-down and bottom-up.”
“Politics and policies generally align, and we see where our taxes go.”
“Whether you agreed or not with the policies themselves, you always knew there was a specific intention and thought behind them, connected in alignment to a desired outcome. The tax rate is up to 45% there, and you could argue about whether it is too high, but you could not say you did not know where your money was going. You get value for money in the services, government support, and infrastructure.”
“Afro-optimism isn’t blind optimism; it’s realistic resilience.”
I then asked what mindset founders and leaders should have when preparing to transition their companies into institutions, because building these institutions requires a fundamental shift in how African founders view their operating environment. Adeolu responded, sharing the mindset she strongly advocates for in Afro-Optimism Unleashed.
“Afro-optimism is not blind optimism. It is not about ignoring the infrastructure challenges, the unreliable power supply, the potholes, or the unreliable banking system. It is about understanding and acknowledging the very real challenges that we have as Africans, while being able to look beyond them and say, despite what I see, I can work to overcome it.”
“We cannot wait for a perfect operating environment. We cannot throw up our hands and say, ‘this is Nigeria’. I hate hearing that statement; it is such a defeatist attitude. We have to do the work. When the next generation asks what we did to change the trajectory of our country, we cannot just say, but that was Nigeria.”
To operationalise this mindset, Adeolu uses the ROAR framework:
Realistic: Acknowledging the actual difficulties of the African market without sugarcoating them.
Opportunity: Training the mind to see the opportunities that these gaps in the market create.
Action: Moving swiftly to execute solutions that capture the value within those gaps.
Resilience: Building the stamina to absorb the inevitable roadblocks without letting them define the limits of what is possible.
“You can’t build a skyscraper on a bungalow’s floor plan.”
When we transitioned our discussion to the operational mechanics of scaling, Adeolu diagnosed the most common challenge afflicting African SMEs:
“Many founders believe that to grow their company ten times, they simply need to work ten times harder.”
“When you start a company, you are the hero. You love being the one everyone runs to with their problems. But imagine you have fifty or a hundred people coming to you to put out fires. You will go mad. Scaling is not about working harder; it is about building something that works even when you are not in the room.
“If an investor walked into your office today, would they be buying a strong operating system, or just your personal exhaustion?”
Adeolu uses an architectural metaphor: the floor plan required to build a small bungalow is entirely inadequate for supporting a 50-storey skyscraper. To help companies move from being hero-led to becoming architects of institutions, ZER Consulting Africa deploys the Foundational SSG Blueprint: Strategy, Systems, and Governance.
Strategy:
At the heart of this blueprint is the PVTV framework, which defines the key elements of strategy, the foundational anchor that must be established before any scaling can occur.
Purpose: The ‘Why’. “Money is not enough to keep people. Someone else will always come around with more money. What is driving your people? Your purpose could be: we exist to permanently transform economic productivity through energy access.”
Vision: The ‘What’. “In five or ten years, what do you want the company to look like? This is a shared vision agreed upon by the leadership.”
Tenets: The ‘How’. “These are the action points. How are you going to implement that vision? Strategy is not just a 100-page document; strategy is about which initiatives you say yes to and which you say no to.”
Values: The ‘Culture’. “What kind of value system and culture must be in place to execute this? If you hire people with the wrong mindset, you will never execute the strategy.”
Systems:
Once the PVTV is locked, the company must build its Systems, comprising organisational structure, people, and processes.
Processes: “For systems, start with mapping your processes. What are the exact steps you take to develop a site, construct a mini-grid, record revenue, and measure performance? Strip out the inefficiencies. If everyone is clear on where we are going (Vision), how we are getting there (Tenants), and the processes are mapped, then you should be able to delegate 90% of decisions to the great people you have hired. If you cannot trust them, they should not be there. That is how you begin to move from being a hero to an architect.”
Structure and People: Adeolu stresses that founders must map out their ideal organisational structure to deliver the defined vision and the processes that execute it and then define the people who would best fit each role.
“You must map your ideal organisational structure, separate from the people currently occupying the roles. Then look at the structure and ask, what is the type of person I would need in this space? Then look at the person currently there and ask if they are the right fit. We try too hard sometimes to fit round pegs into square holes. When I restructured Allianz Nigeria, we had to exit one-third of the business, including executives. It is better to pay one excellent employee twice what you were paying two ill-fitting employees. I would rather have 10 powerhouses who deliver ten times what a 100-person fully staffed team would deliver. That requires letting go of the ego that measures success by headcount.”
When I asked her how to address the challenge of a lack of skilled, capable talent in the renewable energy market, Adeolu cited the work of Daniel Pink and noted that throwing money at people is not enough.
“What changes behaviour is when good people feel they have:
Autonomy: “the sense that they are not being watched over their shoulders”.
Mastery: “the feeling that they are always learning and can see a path to mastering their work.”
Purpose: “a reason to be there beyond a salary.”
“Ask yourself: are you truly building a corporate environment that offers these three?”
Governance: “Corporate governance is not just whether or not you have a board. Governance includes statutory compliance and basic business controls. Do you have your financials audited every year? Do you pay your taxes? Are there checks and balances on how financial decisions are made? And critically, are the founder’s personal finances and the company’s finances completely separated? If a founder cannot tell me their top-line revenue and bottom-line profit figures, but they claim to be audited, that is an immediate red flag.”
“Your board is not a table of your buddies.”
For founders intimidated by the prospect of a formal governance board, Adeolu recommends a phased approach.
“Start small. You do not want a board so large that it becomes like herding cats. Start with an advisory board. The benefit of an advisory board is that you get the advice without the heavy bureaucracy or legal obligations, and it allows you to test out potential members for a future governance board.”
“But remember, your board is not a table of your buddies. Your buddies will simply check-mark every decision. The board is meant to fill your gaps as a CEO, act as your sounding board, and must be able to push back. They are your boss.”
She advises that when building this advisory board, founders should seek specific, missing competencies in their senior leadership.
For a growing DRE company seeking to scale, this might mean a finance expert who has raised development capital in infrastructure, a governance expert who understands due diligence requirements, and an operational expert who has managed multiple large-scale projects.
While formal governance boards are strictly compensated, typically with a quarterly flat rate and per-sitting fees, advisory boards are often composed of unpaid volunteers who have relevant time and expertise. These advisors are often compensated either through shares or a deep sense of purpose in supporting the company.
Above all, the board must share the company’s mindset and long-term vision.
Bringing It All Home
For Nigeria’s DRE sector, the stakes could not be higher. The goal is not merely to close the next grant milestone or install the next mini-grid. The goal is to build sustainable, robust corporate architectures capable of delivering and maintaining energy infrastructure for generations.
Nigeria’s energy access gap will not be closed by charismatic individuals working 18-hour days for months and years on end. It will be closed by heroes who turn into architects, who then build the institutions the continent deserves, intentionally and consistently.
I leave us with the same thought-provoking question Adeolu posed as her closing statement:
“We are not going to move forward as a nation without energy, and sustainable energy is renewable energy. So I ask the hero founder: what are you doing to build the foundation of strategy, systems, and governance so that you can leave a legacy of access to energy to 250 million Nigerians when you hand off to the next generation?”
Find Adeolu Adewumi-Zer
Website: https://zerconsulting.com/our-ceo/
Find ZER Consulting Africa
Website: https://zerconsulting.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/zerconsulting/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@zerconsult
Practical gems worth trying