Speaker

Dami Adepoju

Director, Development – West Africa
Marriott International

Dami is a hospitality professional with industry experience in various global destinations. She currently leads Marriott's hotel development activities in West Africa, in her capacity as a Director of Lodging Development. She is responsible for the deal-making necessary to growing Marriott’s footprint in this region. Her previous experience includes hospitality and tourism investment advisory, having advised on the development of major international hotel brands in African markets in her role as Senior Hospitality Consultant at W Hospitality Group, Lagos. In her time at W Hospitality, Dami supervised feasibility studies for new hotel, residential, commercial and mixed-use developments in over 25 African markets and also contributed to the Africa Hotel Chain Development Pipeline report. Dami was a pioneering hospitality industry contributor to Estate Intel, an Africa-focused real estate data platform that helps organisations make faster and smarter decisions. She also honed hotel acquisition skills at a US hotel Real Estate Investment Trust, where she was responsible for underwriting potential hotel acquisitions in domestic US markets. And as part of her studies as an MBA candidate, Dami gained hotel asset management experience whilst helping to oversee a portfolio of hotels across the Central and Eastern Europe region at Orco Property Group, Prague. She began her professional career in accounting roles at Marriott International and subsequently at Tishman Speyer Properties. Dami has spoken at various tourism and real estate forums including the West African Property Investment Summit and the UNWTO Global Tourism Investment in Africa. She was appointed as an Advisory Board member for the African Association of Women in Tourism and Hospitality and is a member of the Women in Hospitality Nigeria Network. She holds a B.Sc. Accounting from Hunter College of the City University of New York and an MBA in International Hospitality Management from ESSEC Business School, Paris.