As the world celebrates International Women’s Day in March, It is important to celebrate remarkable women in technology and infrastructure who are breaking barriers and building solutions that shape the future.
Omotola Agbi is Co-founder and CEO of SAO Energy, a portfolio company of the SAO Group of Companies, an Abuja-based infrastructure and investment firm increasingly recognised as a leading authority in Nigeria’s renewable energy and rural and peri-urban electrification landscape.
With an academic background in Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Omotola brings technical literacy to the energy sector, enabling her to engage infrastructure development not only from a financial and strategic standpoint but also from a systems and engineering perspective. This technical foundation strengthens her ability to oversee energy projects with a clear understanding of power systems design, load management, grid limitations, and decentralised solar architecture.
The firm’s impact has been particularly significant in Southern Nigeria, where energy poverty remains one of the region’s most pressing development challenges. Through decentralised solar infrastructure initiatives, including Solar Home Systems, Productive Use Equipment, mesh-grid systems, and mini-grid deployments, SAO Energy has focused on community-level electrification. Its interventions have included the solarisation of primary healthcare centres, rural schools, small and medium-sized enterprises, households, and institutional facilities, expanding reliable electricity access across underserved rural and peri-urban communities.
Beyond her executive role, Omotola is emerging as one of the leading women driving renewable energy deployment and infrastructure development in Nigeria. At a time when female representation in large-scale infrastructure engineering and finance remains limited, her leadership, grounded in both technical training and financial structuring expertise, positions her among a new generation of women reshaping Nigeria’s clean energy transition landscape.
Operating at the intersection of finance, engineering, and sustainable development, SAO Energy has positioned itself as a strategic partner in delivering scalable, bankable infrastructure projects that address Nigeria’s persistent energy deficit. Under her leadership, the company works with a multidisciplinary team comprised largely of engineers, ensuring that every project integrates sound engineering principles with disciplined financial structuring and long-term operational sustainability.
Nigeria faces one of the largest electricity access gaps globally, with millions of people, particularly in rural and peri-urban communities, still without reliable power. Bridging this gap requires more than grid expansion, it demands technically robust decentralised systems, innovative financing structures, and institutions capable of executing complex, high-impact projects. Within this environment, SAO Energy has emerged as a key player in distributed renewable energy development, leveraging blended finance structures, private capital mobilisation, and international technology partnerships to accelerate rural electrification.
Through collaborations with global solar technology providers and local stakeholders, SAO Energy has advanced the deployment of solar mini-grids and mesh-grid systems designed to power households, schools, healthcare centres, and small businesses. By combining technical design oversight, project development expertise, and structured capital mobilisation, the firm contributes meaningfully to strengthening Nigeria’s off-grid energy ecosystem.
As CEO, she plays a central role in shaping both the strategic direction and financial architecture behind these initiatives. Her leadership supports capital mobilisation, risk mitigation, regulatory navigation, innovation, and stakeholder coordination, critical components in delivering infrastructure projects at scale.
As Nigeria advances toward universal energy access targets, leaders capable of combining engineering insight, infrastructure finance, renewable technology deployment, and policy alignment will define the pace of progress. Through strategic leadership in energy project development and rural electrification financing, Omotola through SAO Energy continue to reshape the energy landscape of Nigerian communities, one community at a time.
