Engr. (Dr.) Okechukwu John (OJ) MBONU attended Mayflower School, Ikenne and Federal Government College, Warri respectively for his West African School Certificate (WASC) and Higher School Certificate (HSC). He studied Mechanical Engineering at the University of Manchester, UK where he obtained a BSc degree (first class honours) in 1977 and a PhD degree in 1982.

OJ started his career as an engineer with Nigerian Breweries Plc (NBPlc) in 1982. After holding several senior engineering positions in the Kaduna, Aba and Lagos breweries, he was posted in 1989, to Heineken Technical Services (HTS) in The Netherlands for a one-year development programme. He returned to Nigeria in 1990 and was appointed the Group Engineering Manager of NBPlc, the first Nigerian to be so appointed.

In 1996, he was seconded on a three-year contract by NBPlc to Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria (SPDC) where he successfully designed, built and commissioned for SPDC, a tailor-made, pre-recruitment “Special Intensive Training Programmes” (SITP-1 and SITP-2) located in Warri and Port Harcourt respectively.

After the contract with SPDC, he returned to NBPlc in 1999 and was elevated to the Board of NBPlc as the company’s Human Resource Director (HRD) and later in 2001 as the Customer Service Director (CSD). In 2005, he was posted to Heineken International and then to Sierra Leone Brewery Limited,
(SLBL) Freetown as the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of SLBL.
In 2009 OJ retired from Heineken International/NBPlc and joined PwC Nigeria Limited (on a five-year contract) as a Director in PwC’s Advisory Line of Service.
He left PwC in 2014 and joined Execution Edge Limited as one of the founding Partners for the provision of management advisory services to medium and large-scale business enterprises.

As part of his career development, OJ has attended several local and international learning events including courses/programmes at WHARTON School, USA; INSTEAD, France;Stanford University USA; London School of Economics, UK and IMD Switzerland.

He is currently the Chairman of the Board of Directors of First Aluminium Plc, Lagos, Nigeria (elected on 12th September 2019) and a Non-Executive Director on the Board of UAC of Nigeria Plc, Lagos, Nigeria (appointed on 14th November 2015). OJ is a COREN registered Engineer, a Fellow of the Nigerian Society of Engineers (FNSE), a Fellow of the Nigerian Institution of Mechanical Engineers (FNIMechE) and a Fellow of the Nigerian Academy of Engineers (FAEng).

OJ, a keep fit enthusiast is married with four daughters.