Femi Adewole is a housing finance professional with over 25 years experience leading housing initiatives across Sub Saharan Africa and the United Kingdom. Before his appointment as the Managing Director of Family Homes Funds, he was Managing Director of Shelter Afrique, the Nairobi-based pan-African housing company.
He has served in various capacities in some of the largest housing companies around the globe such as First World Communities Ltd, Watford Community Housing Trust, Notting Hill Housing Group, and Lagos HABITAT 2011 Project amongst others. He is also a member of the Board, Africa International Housing Show (AIHS), the Africa’s largest housing and construction expo.
Mr. Adewole is an alumnus of the Harvard Kennedy School and Warwick Business School. He is a chartered architect as well as a planning and development professional with the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors.
He led the biggest social housing fund in sub-Saharan African region to build at least 500,000 affordable homes in Nigeria between 2018 and 2023 with about N500 billion.
Barely a year since its kick-off, Family Homes Funds has financed the development of at least 1050 homes with another 3000 at different stages of development. They have been able to create about 1400 jobs through these projects. Over 500 units have been completed in Nasarawa state, 750 in Kano, 650 in Delta and many more all over the country.
He built the organization from scratch starting from a tiny room with one admin person and no money to a team of 54 with a balance sheet of 125bn in 4years.
Mr. Adewole pioneered the partnership with State Governments as intermediaries to facilitate the delivery of large scale housing schemes. This model has led to the delivery of the largest housing programmes in the history of states like Yobe (3200), Bauchi (2500) etc and is now considered a model worth replicating by IFC/World Bank.
He delivered about 14000 homes more than any other agency over that period and led the issuance of the first corporate Sukuk Bond in Nigeria. Oversubscribed 2.5 times, this initiative was exemplary for an Organisation that was barely 2 years old at the time of issuance.
He Won the confidence of Development Finance Institutions for the Organisation. This has produced the AFDB’s largest ever direct investment in housing 60m USD in FHFLs Help to Own Programme. Other DFIs including AfD of France, EIB are following suit.
Mr. Adewole created over 80,000 jobs with the various projects executed during his administration as the MD of the FHFL. FHFL is now a resilient Organisation, financially sustainable, respected with a distinct culture that will see it grow into a mighty oak long.
Following this numerous achievements, he received the highest honour of the affordable housing delivery in Nigeria, which led to his induction into the affordable housing hall of fame in 2021.
His indelible imprints will continue to remain visible in the nation’s housing sector and then, transcend the current administration so much that posterity will live to laud and appreciate his good deeds.
I don’t think the title of your article matches the content lol. Just kidding, mainly because I had some doubts after reading the article.