User:Olaniyan Olushola/Funke Opeke

Funke Opeke is a Nigerian electrical engineer,founder of Main Street Technologies and Chief Executive Officer of Main One Cable Company, a communications services company based in Lagos State, south-western Nigeria.She was born into family of seven; two boys and five girls. Her father was the first Nigerian Director of Cocoa Research Institute of Nigeria. Her mother is retired teacher and coordinator of many private schools in the country.

She started her early school education at Queen's school,Ibadan, south west Nigeria. She graduated with BS in  Electronics & Electrical Engineering from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-ife, in 1981.Funke left Nigeria for America to further her education at the Columbia University, New York where she obtained  MS in Electronics & Electrical Engineering.

She worked for over 20years in America with US telecommunication indurstry.Between 2001-2005, she worked as the former executive director of Verizon Communications wholesale division in New York. Aside Verizon communications, she worked in various senior positions at Telcordia Technologies (Bellcore), Piscataway; Allied Signal Corporation, Morristown; PA Consulting Group, Highstown; and RCA American Communications before returning to Nigeria in 2005. In her home country, she served as the Chief Technical Officer of MTN. She also worked in advisory capacity in the acquisition of NITEL by Transcorp, where she occupied the position of interim Chief Operating Officer.

Funke started the optical fibre cable project in the year 2007 with the sum of $240 million plus $28million in contingency. The project connected west Africa to the rest of the world using broadband cable capacity. The project laid 7,000km optical fiber cable under the Atlantic ocean from Portugal to Accra,Ghana and Lagos, Nigeria. The project is fully owned by African investors:African Finance Corporation, Nigeria;Pan African Infrastructural Development Fund, South Africa; FBN Capital Nigeria; Skye Bank, Nigeria;and Main Street Technologies Nigeria.

Funke, bagged the award of All Africa Businesswoman of the year in the year 2012 by CNBC.

Background
Funke was born in Nigeria and grew up in Ibadan into a family of five girls and two boys in the early '60s. She grew up loving maths and Physics. Funke's daddy wanted her daughter to study medicine but her phobia for sight of blood pushed her to the field of engineering. At tender age in Queen Schools in Ibadan, she was an exceptional student. According to Aljazeerah... "She was a quiet kind of student who nobody ever saw studying, but who somehow still managed to leave her classmates far behind. When she graduated and the prizes for the best students were handed out, she was called to the stage for every single subject she took. Her last name sounded so many times during the ceremony, that it ended up becoming a song: "Opeke, Opeke, Opeke..." . Her father was the first director of Cocoa research institute in Nigeria. Her mother is a retired teacher and coordinator of many private schools in the country.

Funke was a contemporary of Asue Ighodalo in the city of Ibadan, who described her according to Aljazeerah thus... "Funke is one of the most trustworthy, moral people I've ever met," Ighodalo reflects. "Also, we come from the same background. We hit it off right away." . Ighodalo is also one of the few Nigerians that worked withr funke in the mainone project.

Career
She started her early education at Queens school in the ancient city of Ibadan in the early 1970s. She obtained a bachelor and master's degree in Electrical Engineering from Obafemi Awolowo University and Columbia University respectively.

After her graduation from Columbia University, she worked with many ICT organization in the United States of America which include Verizons Communications,Telcordia Technologies (Bellcore), Piscataway; Allied Signal Corporation, Morristown; PA Consulting Group, Highstown; and RCA American Communications in various senior positions .In 1998, Funke joined a califonia based organsation called Sendmail. She left US as the executive director with the wholesale division of Verizon Communications in New York City. In 2005, she joined MTN Nigeria as chief technical officer (CTO). She served as adviser at Transcorp and interim chief operating officer of NITEL for a brief period. . Mainone cable project was launched in the year 2007. The project is a cable system, launched in the 2007 and completed within two years of commencement. It involves the laying of fiber optics cable deep sea over a distance of 7000km running across Europe and Africa; starting from Portugal,Accra and Lagos. Funke initiated the mainone idea was fully financed by core African investors such as;African Finance Corporation, Nigeria;Pan African Infrastructural Development Fund, South Africa; FBN Capital Nigeria; Skye Bank, Nigeria;and Main Street Technologies Nigeria.

The birth of this project emerged due to the challenges facing the NITEl, the main organization in charge of wire telecommunications operation in Nigeria. Her stint in the company served as high opener to the opportunities beckoning the sector and the best ways for fixing them.She left NITEL because