Career Biography

Ifedayo is a strategic legal counsel and business advisor; a general counsel with over 16 years of experience structuring multinational transactions, commercial contracts, and advising on high-stakes corporate strategies across Africa. She has led legal operations and strategies for The Coca-Cola Company across 30+ Sub-Saharan African markets and currently serves as Director at CI Group, where she advises on complex public-private partnerships, governance and policy frameworks, regulatory and corporate strategy, strategic planning, and stakeholder alignment across high-impact sectors and high-profile transactions.

As general counsel and strategic board advisor, Ifedayo’s added portfolio in strategic legal advisory follows her impressive tenure in corporate legal leadership and as a commercial and employment lawyer. As Senior Legal Director for Africa in the Coca-Cola System, Ifedayo directed legal practice and strategy for Coca-Cola’s operations across multiple African regions, managing cross-border transactions and regulatory compliance, commercial and complex transactions, and corporate governance for diverse market portfolios. Prior to this, she served as Legal Counsel for the West African Business Unit, overseeing legal strategy across 30+ countries in Sub-Saharan Africa during a critical period of market expansion and restructuring.

Before joining Coca-Cola, Ifedayo served as Head of Legal Services and Company Secretary at CHI Limited, Nigeria’s leading juice and dairy manufacturer. As a member of the executive management team, she transformed the company’s legal infrastructure to support aggressive growth targets while strengthening corporate governance and compliance frameworks, reducing the litigation portfolio through negotiations and establishing a pro-active risk management process that allowed the business achieve its objectives in parallel, and provided strategic legal advisory on expansion projects, regulatory matters, and commercial contracts.

Ifedayo’s corporate expertise is rooted in a strong foundation in private practice. At Perchstone & Graeys, she held multiple leadership responsibilities, culminating in her becoming the firm’s Head of Chambers and Practice Development, where she oversaw the firm’s operations across the different branches and professional development of the lawyers. In this role, Ifedayo also led the firm’s corporate and commercial, company secretarial, and employment law practice groups, providing legal advisory and secretarial services to clients across various industries, in different jurisdictions. This followed her pathway as she advanced rapidly from Solicitor to Head of Solicitors Department during her nine-year tenure at the firm.

Ifedayo is a recognized authority on African legal and business matters, having contributed to international publications including The Employment Law Review (Law Business Research UK), the Global Edge Employment Law Resource, the World Bank Doing Business Research Project, and the Overseas Anti-Corruption Project for Fortune 500 companies.  

Called to the Nigerian Bar in 2008, Ifedayo holds a Master of Laws and an MBA, and is currently pursuing a Doctorate in business management, focused on strategic leadership in the face of current technological developments and artificial intelligence. She is an Associate of ICSAN and a member of the Association of Professional Negotiators and Mediators. Her practice spans multinational and multijurisdictional transactions, corporate and commercial law, employment law and labour matters, cross-border M&As, corporate governance and regulatory compliance, and legal strategy across Pan-African markets.