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| Mrs. Folasade Adebayo |
Folasade Adejumoke was born on Tuesday, November 4, 1969, in Lagos to the family of Engr Moses and Mrs. Christianah Oyeyemi. She is the first of five girls.
She attended Larade Nursery/Primary School Ikeja, Ifako International Nursery/Primary School, Ifako-Ijaiye, and Yewa High School, Agege, Lagos. She graduated from Ogun State Polytechnic, Abeokuta (HND Business Administration) in 1991, and had her MBA in Marketing from Lagos State University in 1997. She holds Certificates in Entrepreneurial Management from Pan Atlantic University and the Customers Service Institute of America (CSIA).
She is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Administration and the Nigerian Institute of Management. A Member of, School Management Board of Government Secondary School, Garki Abuja and the Financial Secretary of Christian Booksellers Association of Nigeria.
Folasade started as an employee of Open Gate Investment Limited. She also worked briefly at Novartis Pharmaceuticals, all in Lagos, Nigeria before venturing into private business.
Folasade is the Managing Director of Demasters Palace Investment Limited – a business outfit that deals in the production and distribution of Communion materials and the supply of Christian books and other Christian materials with headquarters in Kubwa, Abuja.
Owing to her passion for stronger families and highly fulfilling marriages, Sade started an Outreach Ministry for the Married – Couples Connect Network. Through this Ministry, many homes and marriages have been restored and strengthened. She is also the founder of a non–profit organization known as Chosen Pearls Foundation. An organization dedicated to restoring dignity to young boys and girls, and crafting a better future for them.
Folasade has been married for 25 years to her dependable, reliable, loving, caring and fun-to-be-with husband, Babatunde Olusegun Adebayo. They both pastor The World Overcomers’ Church – The Reformers Place, Kubwa Abuja. They are blessed with two amiable children – Oluwafunmbi Ayomide and Oluwabambi Ayomikun.
Interview with CEO Demasters Place Investment Limited, Mrs Folasade Adebayo.
Abuja-based Communion and Wafers production company, which started in 2010.
We all know that starting anything, especially in Nigeria, takes a lot of determination, effort. It takes a lot of consistency to achieve a milestone in any industry, Mrs Folasade Adebayo, The CEO OF Demasters Place investment limited, has proven to rise above all tides in grooming one of the finest make of Communion Wine and Wafers.
Within the space of 13years, her brand has grown within Nigeria and West Africa; with her unquenchable passion to thrive, she saw it as another opportunity to be a pacesetter and decided to venture into the production of quality Wine and Wafers especially for Church and personal use in 2010.
While speaking with our correspondent, Folasade shared her ordeal, challenges and how she overcame every struggle in the business.
Is there any incentive you have received from the government as support in terms of technical input, access to finance, and market?
Yes. We were able to access the Bank of Industry Loan to purchase our automated machine. Also, during Covid-19 some staff salary was paid for a period of 3 months.
What are you doing to sustain the business amidst the high cost of doing business in Nigeria?
Our motto as an organization is to provide “quality beyond the standard”. So regardless of the economy's recession and climate, we have chosen to continue to dispense quality products. Nevertheless, the inflation rate has made us streamline production and focus on the ones that are higher in demand.
Can you tell us your cost of production and net profit?
The cost of production has not been stable lately considering the continuous hike in prices of raw materials.
Have you trained others on this value chain?
Yes, most of our top management staff have had serval training to equip and we empower them in their roles.
How can you help more women to come into the business?
We have a couple of women and men we have helped to start especially when we moved to using automated machines for production. We resold our manual machines at affordable prices and provided training to them. Recently we started an Affiliate program that helps people out of work to resell our products and be incentivized for it. Although it is still at its early stage I believe it is a platform for women looking to financially empower themselves to do so.
What is your plan for expansion?
This year we are focusing on improving and fortifying our internal systems to prepare ourselves for expansion. We have saturated certain markets, but we know there are more grounds to conquer. Expansion for us would be getting our products to saturate West Africa and Africa and also getting them ready for the global market.