Biden Appoints two Nigerian-Americans as Advisory Council Members

The president of the United States of America, Joe Biden has appointed two Nigerian-Americans as advisers.

Osagie Imasogie and Chiney Ogwumike, who have been appointed, are two of the 12 members of the President’s Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement in the United States.

Abike Dabiri-Erewa, Chairperson of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), congratulated the pair on their selection and added that their inclusion on the 12-member advisory board should serve as inspiration for other Africans and Nigerians in general.

“The nomination of the two great Nigerians into the advisory council is a welcome development,” she said on Wednesday in a statement by the commission’s spokesman, Abdur-Rahman Balogun.

Chinenye Ogwumike is a two-time WNBA All-Star for the Los Angeles Sparks and a full-time, multi-platform ESPN commentator and NBA analyst.

She is one of the few full-time professional athletes who is simultaneously employed full-time regularly as a national sports media broadcaster today.

Ogwumike won the WNBA Rookie of the Year award in 2014 and has made two All-Star games (in 2014 and 2018). She graduated from Stanford University with a degree in international relations under the guidance of Dr. Condoleezza Rice and is a proud Nigerian-American.

In August 2020, she became the first Black woman to host a national daily sports talk radio show.

The 2021 recipient of the Forbes 30 under 30 award also holds the position of Executive Producer for the ESPN Films documentary “144” on the 2020 WNBA season.

On the other hand, Osagie Imasogie is the Chairman of Quoin Capital and Quoin Advisors, a registered broker-dealer with the SEC and FINRA.

Imasogie is also a co-founder of PIPV Capital, a private equity firm that is focused on the life sciences vertical and has invested over $1 billion into that industry.

He founded GlaxoSmithKline Ventures and served as its founding Vice President before helping to form PIPV Capital.

Imasogie has experience working in key marketing and R&D roles for pharmaceutical firms like GSK, SmithKline Beecham, and DuPont Merck. Along with practising law, he was a partner in Price Waterhouse Corporate Finance and a member of the prestigious American law firm Schnader, Harrison, Segal & Lewis.

Imasogie is the Vice-Chair of the Executive Committee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and a member of the Executive Committee and Chair of the Nominating & Governance Committee of the Philadelphia Orchestra and Kimmel Center.

Imasogie has an LLM from the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School and a London School of Economics LLM. He is also admitted to practice law in additional states and is a member of the New York State Bar.

In addition, Imasogie is a Trustee of the University of Pennsylvania, a member of the Executive Committee of the University, and is also the Chairman of the Board of the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, where he serves as an Adjunct Professor of Intellectual Property.