Gbemisola Abudu is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Africa Center. She is a distinguished entrepreneur, business leader, luxury marketing expert, and social activist with seventeen years of experience in developing businesses, brands, and human capital across Nigeria, the Middle East, and the United States. Currently, she serves as the National Basketball Association (NBA) Africa vice president and country head of NBA Nigeria, where she leads the league’s basketball and business development initiatives, including grassroots programming, elite player development, and social responsibility efforts that positively impact youth and families in Nigeria.

Recognized by Sports Illustrated as one of the one hundred most influential Black women in sports in 2022 and listed among ISPO’s thirty female changemakers shaping the future of sports, Abudu recently launched the NBA Meets Culture platform, integrating cultural elements into the NBA’s positioning in Nigeria. She also played a key role in the 2023 NBA all-star Afrobeats-themed halftime show and NBA Africa’s triple double accelerator. Previously, Abudu founded and managed BMGA Enterprise Limited, an educational technology finishing school in Nigeria, and the BMGA Foundation, a nongovernmental organization dedicated to fostering gender equity in the African business environment. She launched the BMGA Fellows Program to address the gender skills gap among female university graduates, earning recognition as one of Most Influential People of African Descent’s global top one hundred under forty in activism and humanitarian work. With a global marketing and management background, Abudu has worked with various companies and governments including Anap Jets, Polo Luxury, Louis Vuitton, White & Case LLP, The Walt Disney Company, and The Clorox Company.

She holds an MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona and a bachelor’s degree in marketing and public relations from the University of Wyoming.