Mr. NJ Ayuk is the CEO of Centurion Law Group, a pan-African legal and advisory conglomerate with its headquarters in South Africa and offices in Equatorial Guinea, Ghana, Cameroon and Mauritius.
1. NJ Ayuk is founder and CEO of Pan-African corporate law
conglomerate, Centurion Law Group; Founder and
Executive Chair-man of the African Energy Chamber; and
author of Billions at Play: The Future of African Energy
and Doing Deals and co-au-thor of Big Barrels: African Oil
and Gas and the Quest for Prosperity. He is recognized as
one of the foremost figures in African business today.
A Global Shaper with the World Economic Forum, one of
Forbes’ Top 10 Most Influential Men in Africa in 2015, and
a well-known dealmaker in the petroleum and power
sectors, NJ is dedicating his career to helping
entrepreneurs find success and to building the careers of
young African lawyers. NJ strives through his work to
ensure that business, and especially oil and gas, impacts
African societies in a positive way and drives local content
development.
CEO of Centurion Law Group
2. NJ graduated from the University of Maryland College Park
and earned a Juris Doctor from William Mitchell College of
Law and an MBA from the New York Institute of Technology.
Mohammad Sanusi Barkindo of Nigeria, Secretary General of
the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries
(OPEC) at the OPEC Secretariat in Vienna, Austria. An
accomplished oil technocrat and veteran of OPEC, Mr
Barkindo brings with him a wealth of experience in the oil
and gas industry, both in Nigeria and internationally.
From 2009 to 2010, he was Group Managing Director of the
Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC). Previous
to that, he served as Deputy Managing Director of Nigerian
Liquefied Natural Gas, a joint venture between NNPC, Shell,
Total and Eni. Earlier in his career, he was Special Assistant to
former Minister of Petroleum Resources and OPEC Secretary
General, HE Dr Rilwanu Lukman.
CEO of Centurion Law Group
3. Mr Barkindo also worked in several key roles at OPEC
between 1986 and 2010. In 1986, he was appointed to
Nigeria’s delegation to OPEC, and from 1993 to 2008,
served as Nigeria’s National Representative on the
Organization’s Economic Commission Board. In 2006, he
served as Acting Secretary General of OPEC, and
represented Nigeria on OPEC’s Board of Governors from
2009 to 2010.
He has also helped produce the United Nations Framework
Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto
protocol as the leader of Nigeria’s technical delegation to
the UN negotiations since 1991. He also served as Vice
President of COP15 in 2010, when he chaired the opening
session in Copenhagen attended by more than 100 heads
of state and government. He is the longest serving member
of the country’s delegation to the UNFCCC. He also served
as Chairman of the OPEC Task Force of the United Nations
Commission on Sustainable Development for the 15th
session.
CEO of Centurion Law Group
4. After earning a bachelor’s degree in political science from
Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Mr Barkindo went on to
achieve a postgraduate diploma in petroleum economics
and management from the College of Petroleum Studies
at Oxford University and a master’s degree in business
administration from Southeastern University in
Washington, DC. He is also a holder of an Honorable
Doctorate Degree in Science from Modibbo Adama,
Federal University of Technology, Yola, Nigeria. He is a
fellow member of various international petroleum
institutions such as the Institute of Petroleum, London.
CEO of Centurion Law Group