Mr. Asishana Okauru, Esq Director General at Nigeria Governors' Forum

Special Guest of Honor

Mr. A. B. Okauru, Esq is the Director General of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum. He joined the Nigeria Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in 2003 as a
foundation staff, from where he was appointed as pioneer Director of the Nigerian
Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU), a position he held till November 2009 when he
resigned from the services of the EFCC. He previously worked at Arthur Andersen & Co., Nigeria as Management trainee and later at IBM at the Research Triangle Park, NC, USA first as an Operations Analyst and later as an e-Business Analyst.

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Mr. Okauru holds a B.Sc. Degree in Economics, 1984 (Second Class Upper Division)
from the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University), Ile-Ife, Osun State, Nigeria. He subsequently studied Law at the University of Ibadan and was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1989. He also has a joint Masters degree in Business Administration and Information Science (MBA/MIS) from the North Carolina Central University (NCCU), USA.

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In 2016, Mr. Okauru was awarded a Masters in Public Administration (MPA) degree
from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Mr Okauru is married with four (4) children.

Dr. Oluyemisi Abdulsalam

Speaker

Oluyemisi Abdulsalam, MD, FACE, FACP is an Endocrinology specialist with extensive
experience in managing endocrine and diabetic related disorders both in Nigeria and
the United States. She is a 1994-graduate of the College of medicine, University of Ibadan, Oyo state, Nigeria.

After an internship program at the university College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria and Korle Bu teaching hospital, Accra Ghana, she began an internal medicine residency program in University College Hospital, Ibadan Nigeria in 1997. She then transitioned to the United States in 1999 after successful completion of the part 1 examinations of the West African College of Physicians.

She completed her internship and residency program in Internal Medicine at Huron
Hospital, part of the Cleveland Clinic Health system in Cleveland Ohio in 2003 during
which she was bestowed awards during her training program, she then completed a
Fellowship Program in Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism at the University of
Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester, MA in 2005.She is board-certified in Internal Medicine and Endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism and is a Diplomate of the American Board of internal medicine and Medical Specialties.

She has since worked in the field of Internal medicine and Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism in Nigeria and the United States, and currently holds Practicing Licenses in Nigeria and the states of Texas and North Carolina in the United States of America and is a practicing Endocrinologist. She is a member of the Endocrine Society, American Association of Clinical Endocrinologist, American College of Medicine and the Massachusetts Medical Society.

Dr. Confidence Moloko

Speaker

Dr Esthras Tlou Confidence Moloko is an alumnus of the Medical University of Southern Africa (MEDUNSA); a medical scientist with a Bachelor of Science (Medical) and a Physician holding a Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery. He has been part of the South African national health leadership collective from 1980 to date.

He specialises in policy, planning in the social sector; who is extensively involved in
policy, planning, monitoring and evaluation of South Africa’s Education, Health,
Science, Technology and Innovation Sectors. He is a resource for and provides
technical support to local, regional and national or country policy think tanks and policy forums. He is a consultant providing services to various local and international projects and institutions. He is a senior officer of the South African Military Health Service (SAMHS) Reserve Force.

He has a wealth of experience of the public and private health sector having worked at all levels of the public sector as a student, medical officer, registrar and senior
government official in four of South Africa’s provinces and in the Ministry of Health. He
is a private Medical Practitioner.

He was the Superintendent General and Head of Department of Health and Social
Welfare; Chairperson of the Provincial Technical Committee of the Social Cluster in
Mpumalanga, South Africa; a member of the Forum of South Africa’s Directors General
(FOSAD); Strategic and Technical Adviser to the former Deputy Minister of Health, the
late Dr Molefi Sefularo; and Special Adviser to a past Minister of Health, Dr Aaron
Motsoaledi.

Dr. Kofo Ogunyankin

Speaker

Kofo Ogunyankin is a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London, and a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology. He graduated from the University of Lagos. He trained in Medical specialties in the United Kingdom and obtained Membership of the Royal College of Physicians. He continued his training in Internal

medicine at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. He underwent Cardiovascular disease Fellowship training at the University of California Los Angeles.
He is board-certified in both Internal Medicine and Cardiovascular diseases. He obtained Advanced Cardiac Imaging training at Tuft’s University New England Medical Center Boston MA, and became a Diplomate of the National Board of Echocardiography in 1999.

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He was Assistant Professor Columbia University, New York between 1998 and 2002. He joined the Queen’s University, Kingston Canada Faculty, as Clinician Scholar in 2002. He initiated major research programs in Hypertension and Diastology, and led the imaging component of the Queen’s University Molecular Cardiology program. He relocated to Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine as a Clinician Scientist where he was until 2010.

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Since 2010, he is a co-director of First Cardiology Consultants Hospital, Lagos which
has developed into the premier cardiovascular hospital in Nigeria. He established a
reference echocardiography lab from where the landmark WASE International Multicenter studies were performed, thereby providing for the first-time, data for deriving Normative values for echocardiographic measurements for Black people worldwide. The hospital was the first Lagos State designated high care, biosecurity-compliant, COVID-19 facility, accredited by the Health Facility Management and Accreditation Agency (HEFAMAA) of the Lagos State Ministry of Health.

Mesfin Seifu, MD

Speaker

Dr. Mesfin Siefu was born and raised in Ethiopia. He graduated medical school in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 1998. Arriving in the USA, he completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Marshall University, West Virginia. After, his residency in Medicine, he underwent his Fellowship training at University Hospitals, Case Western University in Cleveland, Ohio. He currently practices pulmonary, critical care and sleep medicine in Galion, Ohio. Dr. Siefu is Board Certified in Internal Medicine, Pulmonology, Critical Care Medicine and Sleep Medicine. He is involved in pulmonary research in both Ethiopia and the United States, and has co-authored several papers.

Elias Said Siraj, MD, Dr.Med., FACP, FACE

Speaker

Dr. JosephDr Siraj is currently Professor and Chief of Division of Endocrine & Metabolic Disorders and Associate Dean for Clinical Research at Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS), Norfolk, VA. He is also David L. Bernd Distinguished Chair for Cardiovascular and Diabetes Program & Director of Strelitz Diabetes Center. He has also been recently appointed at the Associate Dean for Clinical Research of EVMS. Dr. Siraj started as a Faculty first at the Cleveland Clinic and later moved to Temple University in Philadelphia where for many years he carried various leadership roles including Director of Diabetes Program and Director of Endocrine Fellowship Program. After receiving his medical degree as the best student of the year from Gondar Medical College of the Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, Dr. Siraj received residency and research training at the University of Leipzig, in Germany. In the US, he did his residency and fellowship training at the Cleveland Clinic.

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Dr. Siraj is board-certified in endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism as well as in
internal medicine, and is an active member of several professional organizations
including the American Diabetes Association, Endocrine Society, American Association of Clinical Endocrinologists (AACE) and American College of Physicians. A frequent national and international lecturer at professional meetings, he has published more than 100 original articles, abstracts and book chapters on the diagnosis and management of diabetes and endocrine problems. He serves as reviewer of prominent professional journals and is in the editorial board of many other journals.

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Dr. Siraj is involved in research and trials involving diabetes, complications of diabetes, prevention of type 1 diabetes, diabetes in Ethiopia and post-transplant diabetes as well other areas of endocrinology. He has been an investigator in several multi center diabetes trials including the land mark ACCORD study. In collaboration with others, he was instrumental in successfully establishing the first Endocrine Fellowship training program in Ethiopia In addition, In 2009, he also received Recognition Certificate from the President of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, for his support of the healthcare system and medical education in Ethiopia.

Dr. Adefunke Olawaiye

Moderator

Dr. Dr. Adefunke Olawaiye, is a Family Medicine Physician. She became board certified in family medicine by the American Board of Family Medicine in 2005 and was board certified in Integrative Medicine by the American Board of Physician Specialties in 2018. She completed her residency at the State University of New York at Buffalo in 2005 and completed her fellowship in Integrative Health and Medicine in 2018.

Since 2005, she has practiced family medicine at different institutions including Bowdoin Street Health Center, an affiliate of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston and Harvard, Medical Faculty Physician group, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Concentra. She has practiced community primary care, urgent care and occupational medicine. She is currently working as a telemedicine family medicine physician. Her areas of interest are lifestyle and integrative medicine.

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Dr. Bedri Yusuf

Moderator

Bedri Yusuf, MD, MBA serves as the Chief Physician Executive of Northeast Georgia
Physicians Group (NGPG). Dr. Yusuf is also a practicing physician who specializes in
Internal Medicine with special focus in Hospital Medicine. Prior to NGPG, Dr. Yusuf was the Vice President and Chief Physician Executive for Gwinnett Medical Group of the Gwinnett Health System. He also previously served as the Vice President of Gwinnett Medical Center’s Medical Staff and Medical Director of the Hospitalist program. He has over 20 years of experience as a board-certified Internal Medicine physician and has worked as an academic teaching physician for more than seven years.

Dr. Yusuf is a graduate of the Addis Ababa University Medical College in Ethiopia and
completed his residency in Dermatology from the University of Leipzig in Germany, and his Internal Medicine residency from Atlanta Medical Center. He earned his MBA from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and his Lean Six Sigma Black belt certificate from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Dr. Yusuf is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, American College of Physician Executives and a Senior Fellow of the Society of Hospital Medicine. He has served as a board member of the Society of Hospital Medicine Atlanta chapter, the Gwinnett Medical Center Foundation and the Sequent Health Physician Partner’s Clinical Integration Network.

Dr. Peter Puplampu, Head Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine, Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital (KBTH), University of Ghana Medical School, Accra, Ghana, USA

Speaker

Dr. Peter Puplampu