NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Kamaldeen Raji is the Managing Director of AFEX Fair Trade and has garnered over 10 years of professional experience in providing agro services in operations management, strategic sales and execution, and agriculture to our clients in a variety of industry markets and the commodities ecosystem.  In his role, he is responsible for striking the balance between production, sourcing, and demand whilst maintaining a top-notch class in quality as warehouse operations are concerned in Nigeria.

Prior to joining AFEX, he held the role of agronomist and sales personnel at Notore Chemical Industries and Jubaili Agrotec LTD, respectively, and has led various strategic and transformative commercial projects in North- Eastern and Southern states.

Kamaldeen is the numbers guy at AFEX. He has led many of the company’s significant sales milestones over the course of his career, including the aggregation of over 180,000 metric tons of commodities to enable AFEX to break even for the year 2020 despite the shocks of the COVID-19 pandemic.

He earned his first degree in Agriculture from the University of Ilorin, Kwara State, and an MBA from Nexford University with other certifications in the Agri-Business Management Program and Senior Management Program from Lagos Business School, Lagos State.

About AFEX

AFEX harnesses Africa’s commodities and talent to build shared wealth and prosperity. Its infrastructure and platform investments work to unlock capital to power a trust economy in Africa’s commodities markets. Since its inception in 2014, AFEX has developed and deployed a viable commodities exchange model for the West African market and is on track to impact one million producers; providing services in productivity and value capture and access to finance and markets. By deploying an efficient market system, the company will facilitate trade with Africa worth over USD500 million in the next five years. 

AFEX’s vision is to be the reference point for commodities in Africa. To achieve this goal, AFEX looks to introduce products that de-risk the sector, drive financial inclusion for rural communities, develop technology for data collection and market access, and enable capital deployment.