Motivational speaker and finance guru, Hidiat Simbo Popoola, has emerged as Ekiti State Deputy Governor choice for the African Democratic Congress (ADC), in the forthcoming election.
Hidiat Popoola was picked by a panel of party top shots after a painstaking screening exercise that featured aspirants, comprising members of the academia, technocrats, politicians, men and women from different faith groups and from across the three senatorial districts of the state.
Following her nomination, Hidiat will partner Dr Wole Oluyede, ADC governorship candidate, a neuro surgeon and business mogul, who leads the ADC into the June 18, 2022 race in Ekiti State
Hidiat Simbo Popoola, hails from Ado-Ekiti Local Government Council in Ekiti State and was born in 1974 to the family of late Alhaji Jimoh Afolabi Owoeye and Chief (Mrs) Fadekemi Kuburat Owoeye, the Iyalaje of the popular Shasha Market in Ado Ekiti.
She attended St. Michael Anglican Primary School Ado Ekiti before moving on to Christ Girls’ School, also in Ado-Ekiti, where she graduated with Senior Secondary School Certificate in 1990.
She also attended the Federal Polytechnic, Ado-Ekiti, where she earned an Higher National Diploma in Science Technology (Applied Chemistry Option) and she did her national service in Lagos at the Quality Control Department of May & Baker Pharmaceutical Company in 2000/2001
Hidiat Simbi got employment with Nigerian Wire Industries, Oba Akran Avenue, Ikeja, as Quality Control Officer in 2003, later as Quality Control Officer and then got a special recommendation by her boss to be promoted as Assistance Operations Manager.
She resigned from the company in 2005, to earn a Masters Degree in Business Administration from Ambrose Alli University Ekpoma. Edo State.
In 2004, she became the Executive Director of Operations, EC Technologies Ltd and thereafter, moved to Senegal, where she was appointed to serve as the Executive Director of Operations Intelligence Era.
Having served diligently, in 2016, she was recognised as an Excellent Leader and was sent abroad for other trainings.
Within a year, she got two Executive MBAs in Finance and Business Innovation and Growth respectively from London Business School and Informa Academy.
Hidiat was honoured with the ‘Pitch-like-a-king” award for outstanding performance in a group project.
And to better discharge her duty with stronger competence and interpersonal relationship as a leader, she signed up for some trainings in the personal development field.
These include: Money Mastery, Project Management, Strategic Management and Leadership, Power Voice Training, Youth Development & Facilitation, Quality Control, Health & Safety Trainings and the likes.
In 2020, she became a co-author of a best-selling book titled “Women of the Power Voice”, in which she shared her personal story of how God turned a devastating situation in her life to a springboard which propelled her from set-back to set-up.
She is passionate about helping women and the youth, hence the creation of her foundation; Excellent Leadership Impact, where she is particularly working with the youth and women to drive economic growth, leadership and empowerment.
According to Mrs Popoola: “I wake up everyday making different efforts to particularly work at alienating the fear of copying as a wife, mother, and woman in the family, business and in this ever changing society.”
Her dream, she says, is to see the female gender unleash their inner potentials, free from mental conditioning, learn and re-learn skill to position them for self-reliance, growth and sustainability.
