Sahara Group has appointed Chidilim Menakaya as Managing Director, moving an executive who previously led its social-impact foundation into a position with responsibility for the group’s next phase of growth.
Announced on September 12, 2026, the appointment places Menakaya at the centre of Sahara’s Beyond XXX strategy, which the company says is focused on innovation, sustainability, responsible growth and creating value for stakeholders.
Her elevation follows a career spanning more than two decades, with experience across Africa, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Before the appointment, she served as Director of the Sahara Foundation, where she oversaw the group’s sustainability and social-impact agenda.
The move also brings an executive whose recent work centred on community programmes and entrepreneurship into the leadership of a group with substantial interests in oil and gas, petroleum trading, power generation and distribution, and infrastructure.
From Foundation leadership to executive management
Menakaya’s previous role at the Sahara Foundation provides the clearest documented link between her career and the responsibilities of her new position.
She became director of the Foundation in January 2025, having previously served as its Head of Programmes, according to Techeconomy’s account of her appointment.
In those roles, she worked on initiatives supporting entrepreneurs and communities across Sahara’s markets.
Under her leadership, Sahara says the Foundation expanded its EXTRApreneurship model, strengthened partnerships and broadened the reach of its community interventions.
The company’s description presents the Foundation as a vehicle for translating its sustainability ambitions into practical programmes.
Menakaya’s new role gives her responsibility for a wider corporate agenda, although the appointment announcement does not specify how the Foundation’s programmes will be integrated into the group’s commercial operations.
Education and professional qualifications
Menakaya holds executive and professional qualifications from London Business School, INSEAD and Manchester Business School.
She is also a certified Human Resources Business Partner and Transformation and Reputation Manager, and a Prosci-certified Change Management Practitioner, according to Sahara’s announcement.
These qualifications are relevant to the transformation and organisational-change aspects of her professional background. The available announcement, however, does not identify specific degrees, graduation years or the dates on which she obtained each qualification.
A career spanning strategy, communications and sustainability
Menakaya’s professional experience extends beyond the Foundation. Techeconomy reports that her career has included work in corporate communications, people strategy, change management and sustainability, as well as leadership positions within Sahara.
It also identifies earlier experience at Sanofi and communications work at Tetra Pak in West Africa.
The range of roles points to a career that has crossed several corporate functions rather than remaining confined to a single technical discipline.
That background is relevant to a group operating across multiple parts of the energy value chain.
Strategy, organisational development and stakeholder relationships can affect how businesses coordinate operations, respond to changing markets and implement long-term plans.
However, the available public information does not provide a complete, dated employment history or detailed descriptions of her responsibilities at each previous employer. A fuller reconstruction of her career would require additional biographical records or interviews.
The Sahara Foundation and its entrepreneurship agenda
Menakaya’s leadership of the Foundation involved programmes intended to support entrepreneurship, innovation and community development.
In a June 2025 interview published by Sahara, she described the Foundation as the platform through which the group channels its social-sustainability ambitions.
She said its work focused on building sustainable communities through entrepreneurship, innovation and collaboration.
The Foundation’s EXTRApreneurship model is part of that approach. Sahara describes it as a way of supporting people and communities through initiatives intended to unlock economic opportunities and encourage enterprise.
These are the company’s stated objectives. Assessing the programmes’ longer-term effects would require evidence such as participant outcomes, businesses sustained, jobs created, income changes and independent evaluations.
The appointment announcement does not provide those measurements.
Menakaya’s previous position nevertheless gives her direct experience of a part of the group’s activities that extends beyond its energy operations.
The energy group she has been appointed to lead
Founded in 1996, Sahara Group has expanded from petroleum trading into a broader energy and infrastructure business. Its operations include upstream oil and gas, midstream trading, downstream petroleum products, power and infrastructure development.
The group’s power interests include Egbin Power, First Independent Power and Ikeja Electric. Its wider portfolio also encompasses energy trading, storage and infrastructure projects.
That breadth gives the Managing Director a role extending beyond any single business line. The group’s operations involve different markets, assets and commercial activities, each with its own operational and regulatory considerations.
Sahara says its Beyond XXX agenda is intended to guide its next phase of development through innovation, sustainability and shared value creation. Executive Director Ade Odunsi described Menakaya’s appointment as reflecting the company’s confidence in developing leadership from within.
The announcement does not disclose a detailed implementation timetable, new financial targets or changes to the group’s governance structure associated with the appointment.
What Menakaya’s appointment means for Sahara’s next phase
Menakaya’s immediate challenge is to translate the group’s strategic ambitions into priorities and outcomes across its businesses.
Sahara’s portfolio spans energy trading, oil and gas assets, power generation and distribution, and infrastructure.
The demands of managing such a group differ from those of directing a foundation, even where the roles share an emphasis on strategy, partnerships and organisational development.
Her background in transformation and sustainability may be relevant to how the company approaches those demands.
But the appointment announcement does not establish which specific operational changes she will lead, how responsibilities will be divided among the group’s executives, or what performance measures will be used to assess her tenure.
Those details will help clarify how Sahara intends to turn its Beyond XXX vision into measurable business results.
For now, the appointment marks a documented transition from leadership of the group’s social-impact platform to a broader management position.
The next phase will show how Menakaya’s experience across strategy, people and sustainability is applied to the commercial and operational responsibilities of the energy conglomerate.
