Our Directors

Image of the Co-Managing Partner of Idehin and Wada, Mutari Wada.

  • Co-Managing Partner

    Mutari Wada is a seasoned executive with over thirty years of experience in the public and private sector experience spanning three continents and a number of high-profile projects. Mutari has public sector experience in Australia and Nigeria. In Nigeria, Mutari worked for the Kano State Government and the Federal Government. Mutari set up the National Population Commission’s Kano State office and initiated its work programme. Mutari worked as a Deputy Chief in the Economic Research and Intelligence Department of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation. Mutari’s work provided crucial data input for NNPC’spolicy decisions and forward planning.

    Mutari was part of the executive management teams of the two most successful start-ups in Africa. Nigeria Liquified Natural Gas (NLNG) and MTN Nigeria (MTNN). In both these organisations, Mutari played a crucial role in their success. In NLNG Mutari was the General Services Manager. In that role, Mutari ran all the non-technical functions of the plant start-up team. Mutari dealt with a highly complex situation, made more challenging by host community aspirations in the context of delivering the project on time and within budget. In the initial months of the Production Team’s move to Bonny Island, the site of the project, Mutari handled the Community Relations function and was called upon to resolve issues that if not well handled would have led to the closing down of the project.

    Mutari was part of the start-up Executive Team of MTN Nigeria as a Human Resources Executive. MTN Nigeria is the most successful start-up in African history. Mutari built up the human capital of MTN Nigeria from zero. He ensured that MTN recruited the best, most motivated, and trained all with the lowest churn rate in the industry. Mutari developed the winning culture of MTN Nigeria. The culture of MTN Nigeria was a major differentiator between MTN and its competitors. Mutari spent eleven and a half years working for the Australian Government in various capacities. Initially, Mutari worked on labour force statistics and then moved into industry policy and development. Mutari worked on the Motor Vehicle Industry Plan and then played lead roles in policy development for the Renewables Energy Industry and the Petrochemicals Industry. In his role in Renewables policy development, Mutari developed some of the earliest interventions seeking to help the industry develop sustainably. Mutari project managed the tripartite (Federal/ State Governments, Industry & Unions) project that lay the groundwork for the restructuring of Australia’s petrochemical sector. The project also assisted in bringing down the costs of pant construction.

    More recently Mutari has been consulting in the Middle East and Africa. In one of the main middle eastern mobile phone markets, Mutari worked to restructure the operations of one of the biggest regional operators. In Nigeria, Mutari has done consultancies for one of the Gencos (power generating companies) that emerged following the partial privatisation of the Nigerian electricity sector. Mutari acted in an interim executive management role, to restructure the human capital function. Mutari also played a critical role in advising and guiding the Board in several areas, including the technical management agreement then in place. Muntari’s experience and depth of knowledge across countries and sectors put him in a good position to make substantial contributions to organisations seeking advice on the broad range of management issues facing companies in these very challenging times.

Image of the Managing Partner of Idehin and Wada, Sunny Idehen..

  • Managing Partner

    Sunny Idehen is a retired diplomat with over thirty years of professional experience in the Australian Foreign Service and other key Australian Government agencies. His diplomatic assignments abroad included a posting as an Australian delegate to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in Paris where he served as a permanent member of several high-level cutting-edge committees, providing evidence-based analyses and solutions to emerging global economic and investment issues. He also represented Australia at several other international committees, including the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in Washington and the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Geneva, and meetings/negotiating sessions held in several capital cities around the world. He was the 2019 Chair of the IMF Revenue Mobilisation Trust Fund Steering Committee and the Vice-Chair of the IMF Managing Natural Resource Wealth Trust Fund Steering Committee in 2019.

    Sunny was the Coordinator of Australia’s negotiation of the ASEAN, Australia and New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (AANZFTA), a highly successful preferential arrangement that entered into force in January 2010. Among several other key career achievements, he managed the WTO Trade Policy Review of Australia in 2011 and managed Australia’s participation in the negotiation of the Kimberly Process Certification Scheme introduced to minimise/eliminate the movement of illicit diamonds across national boundaries.
    Sunny has postgraduate qualifications in Economics and International Relations and has published several books and articles on trade and investment issues, some of which received positive reviews in key media outlets, including the Australian Financial Review and the Washington Trade Daily.