With a career spanning the length and breadth of the health sector, Abimbola Adebakin has become one of the country’s foremost purveyors of medical solutions.

A highly innovative health practitioner, who has taken a tech driven approach to addressing some major health concerns within the country, she is the Chief Executive Officer for Advantage Health Africa. The organisation which is described as a direct-to-consumer Health Technology Group has devised a technology-enabled pharmacy franchise model (myPharmacy) to address the problem of a limited access to genuine and affordable medicines.

Launched in 2017 at a time when the transition from manual health procedures to tech health procedures was not an easy one, the challenges encountered with this new idea was not something Abimbola Adebakin had not accounted for.

Being in a line of work that constantly and literally requires one to solve problems, she was well aware of the fact that procuring solutions to make the Advantage Health Africa initiative fully operational and easy to use for Nigerians would probably be a never ending struggle. This was due to constant advancement in tech and tech needs, as well as the challenge of scaling business operations in general.

Luckily, this is a woman with an incredible work ethic. Her business ethos revolves around hard work, constant development (personal and organisational), innovation and collaboration, as well as all the necessary ingredients required to take on the complex challenges of the tech world. Her initiative is providing access to healthcare through my-medicines.com (the first aggregated online medicine ordering platform).

Prior to founding Advantage Health Africa, Ms. Adebakin had a very successful career as a business developer amongst other things; heading the consulting arm of Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC), and previously at Accenture.

Shortly after, she was made Chief Operating Officer (COO) for the Tony Elumelu Foundation where she led the operations, redesign and sustainable implementation of the Pan-African multiyear $100 million Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme.

She is a member of several committees and organisations including the Committee of Practice of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria (CIBN). An Independent Director on the Board of Hallmark HMO and accredited Master Trainer for the Global Forum/IFC Board Training programme for Board Directors.

Abimbola is a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management (CIPM) of Nigeria, a consultant with the World Bank, African Agribusiness Incubation Network (AAIN) and the African Development Bank (AfDB).

In 2021, the African Women Entrepreneurship Cooperative alumna was the recipient of the Google’s Founder Fund for Africa. Her platform, myPharmacy currently has access to 37 active pharmacies including four which Advantage Health Africa owns. She is also in the business of drug research as well as production, and has touted the idea of locally produced medications.

In the Nigerian health sector, this Bayer Foundation’s 2021 Women Empowerment Award finalist stands out as a relentless health practitioner bent on restructuring the abysmal state of the health sector in the country.

Editor