Meet Tunji Akintokun, founder of one of the largest STEM initiatives in the UK

Tunji Akintokun is the founder of one of the largest STEM initiatives in the UK establishing the award-winning social enterprise “Your Future, Your Ambition” which aims to inspire, excite and engage diverse talent in pursuing careers in Science & Technology.  It runs events every year at Arsenal’s Emirates football stadium in North London and attracts hundreds of students between the ages of 7 – 23 from the surrounding area

He is a Sales Director at Cisco, a communications equipment maker responsible for sales team and partnered alliances covering the Middle East, Africa, Russia. Cisco is working to mould the future of the Internet by creating unprecedented value and opportunity for clients, employees, investors and ecosystem partners and has become the worldwide leader in networking – transforming how people connect, communicate and collaborate.

 Speaking on how he got into the million pounds industry which has about 73,700 employees around the world, Tunji Akintokun told Huffington Post that, “I had a desire to pursue a career in engineering after IBM visited my school when I was 13 and demonstrated early prototypes of what would become the PC…I was hooked and took their advice to study the correct science subjects in order to pursue a career in computer science. Having enjoyed a successful career as an engineer, I decided to move into sales via product marketing and never looked back as combining a strong technical background with good sales skills ensured I earned and gained trust with my customers.”

Akintokun (MSc Software Engineering, London Southbank University) who is said to be passionate about diversity in the workplace and encouraging more diverse talent in pursuing careers in Science and Technology, sits on the Business Leader Council for education charity, Teach First. He won a National Diversity Award for his work in 2015 and was a Torchbearer for Cisco at the Rio 2016 Olympics.

This year, he was placed 6th in the Financial Times EMpower 100 ethnic minority leaders. He is the CEO of Signal Alliance Nigeria and sits on the board of the women’s council of techUK, Grant Thornton (Vibrant Economy Commissioner) and Raise Tech (co-chair) a professional network for people of colour in the UK tech sector.Tunji Akintokun

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