Aisha Abubakar is a passionate and intentional individual with over three decades of professional experience covering Public Service Administration, Pension, Investment Banking, SME Finance/Rural Enterprise Development & Micro Credit Administration, International Development, and Human Resources Management. Her work experience has focused principally on Small and Micro Enterprise Development, Women Development, and Family Livelihood Enhancement.

Aisha started her Secondary School Education at the prestigious Queens College, Yaba Lagos, and in 1982 moved to the United Kingdom to complete her O’ and A’ Levels at St. Mary’s Hall Brighton, where she also did her University Degree and subsequently her Masters in Development Studies in 1991.

She moved to African Development Bank (AfDB) Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire in 1996, before coming back home to Nigeria to join the African International Bank (AIB) in Lagos where she rose through the ranks to become a Principal Manager. In 2005, she joined the Abuja Enterprise Agency (AEA) as the Office Manager and rose to the position of Managing Director/CEO, in 2015, due to her management acumen, hard work, dedication, resilience and application to duty. Aisha’s commitment to excellence and dedicated focus saw AEA receive the Global Citizen Movement Award for Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Leadership in 2013 in New York City, USA for being a model for entrepreneurial development to lift people and communities out of extreme poverty and serving as a model for the rest of the world.

In recognition of her performance at the AEA, and desire for challenge, she was appointed a pioneer Director of the Pension Transitional Arrangement Directorate (PTAD), seeing to the welfare of pensioners under the customs, immigration, and prisons department. Aisha had only been in PTAD for a few months when she was appointed as a Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in November 2015, a role she served in till 2019.

She is co-founder of several organisations including Tarihaan Integrated Services (TIS), a management consulting firm supporting Micro Small and Medium Enterprises which remains her passion, Rahina’s Global Services, set up to mitigate climate and environmental issues as well as foster youth employment, and Fatimah Balaraba Foundation, dedicated to her paternal grandmother and established to support the mental well-being of single mothers and the development of the girl child in Northern Nigeria, in a bid to promote sustainable livelihood and self-improvement. Aisha also serves as Advisory Board Member on Onewattsolar Ltd, One Community One Industry.

As part of her continuous effort to contribute her wealth of knowledge to the development of the private sector in Nigeria, she was appointed Chairman of NACCIMA Business Women Group (NAWORG). She was also appointed as Independent Non-Executive Director of Union Bank of Nigeria and SUNU Assurances Nigeria. Her gentle but firm mien has allowed the fostering of a strong network of relationships locally and internationally which enables her to perform in every role she has been assigned.