Deola Balogun: Chief Operating Officer at Limlim Foods Production
From corner office to factory floor, Deola Balogun’s journey was certainly fueled by grit!
What happens when a seasoned finance executive trades boardrooms for bootstrapping? When years of corporate polish meet the raw, unfiltered realities of building from scratch? Deola Balogun’s story is more than a career pivot — it’s a masterclass in humility, resilience, and purpose-led entrepreneurship. In this deeply personal reflection, she pulls back the curtain on what it really means to go from managing billions to betting everything on a bold vision — and why the most valuable lessons aren’t found in business school, but in the chaos, courage, and clarity that come with starting something of your own. Hear her:
I used to run numbers. Now I run on grit.
After over two decades in finance and FMCG, managing budgets that ran into billions and leading teams across multinationals, I thought I was ready for anything.
Then I became a founder…
Let me tell you, no spreadsheet can prepare you for the day your factory’s diesel runs out mid-production and your only backup plan is prayer, negotiation, and your personal savings.
No MBA course teaches you how to stay composed when your biggest raw material supplier ghosts you two days before a major delivery to a B2B client. In corporate, I had structure. Clear KPIs. Teams of experts. Processes that protected you from chaos.
As a founder? You are the structure.
What’s been hardest?
Letting go of perfection and embracing imperfection as we progress. In corporate life, excellence was expected. In entrepreneurship, survival often comes first, followed by sustainability, then scaling. This shift nearly broke me.
But what’s been most rewarding?
Every time a jar of our freeze-dried products lands in someone’s hand, or when a smallholder farmer sends a message saying our offtake helped pay school fees for their children, I remember why I started. We’re not just selling food. We’re preserving value. We’re making local work.
What keeps me going?
Simplicity, Purpose, and People.
The mission to reduce post-harvest losses, empower farmers, and prove that Nigerian products can meet world-class standards isn’t a slogan for me. It’s my everyday work.
So for anyone who’s made or is thinking of making a career shift:
