Raphael Stephen

Raphael Stephen is deeply passionate about the next generation of leaders in Africa. He believes that the missing ingredient in the secondary education system is the absence of leadership & skill-based learning in classrooms. He is the Founder and Executive Director of the Fashioned and Made for Excellence Foundation (The FAME Foundation), a volunteer-driven youth-focused leadership development non-profit social enterprise. That seeks to develop the leaders we wish we had in Nigeria and Africa by providing access to high-quality leadership education and skills training through secondary education. In close to a decade, his initiative has reached over 40,000 deserving students across various local underserved communities in Oyo, Osun, Rivers, and Jigawa States, Nigeria, impacting them in the areas of Leadership, Social-Emotional Learning, Entrepreneurship, Civic Engagement, and Skills Training. For nearly a decade, Raphael has led and advised various initiatives and programmes focused on a range of international development themes. As a result, he has had the privilege to master and deploy a wide range of capabilities including non-profit management, programme management, project management, curriculum development, stakeholder management, partnership building, organizational development, leadership development, training facilitation, youth development, technical advisory, systems thinking, knowledge production, strategy development, and delivery, fundraising and sustainability. Raphael’s work experience includes serving as a project lead, trainer, or key resource person to a range of private, public, and social sector partners including Research on Improving Systems of Education (RISE), the African School of Economics ( ASE ), and the Centre for the Study of African Economies (CSAE).