Although born in Nigeria, Kayode left the country when he was just 1yr old and spent most of his early childhood growing up in Zambia with some brief stints in Kenya and Tanzania. His father was a UK qualified barrister and had taken up an appointment as a senior legal advisor to the Zambian Government. This was the golden age of his family life with expatriate privileges and so much carefree fun and adventure and it was also during this period that Kayode discovered Marvel Comics and the superhero. 

At the age of seven, Kayode was sent, together with his siblings, to boarding school in England. Kayode and his older brother attended a prep school in Wiltshire called Prior Park where Kayode was introduced to a broad range of disciplines, one of which was music and the violin. Kayode took to the violin and played it right through to his late teens and up to grade eight. It was during this period that He also happened upon a fictional book in the library called Master of Kung Fu. Kayode did not proceed to the senior secondary school in Somerset like his brother did but attended a grammar school in London called St Marylebone which, being in the city, opened up different opportunities.

Kayode began to earnestly take up martial art studies side by side with his academic studies from the age of 11 inspired by the legendary Bruce Lee and the seventies Hong Kong cinema. He studied Wing Chun Kuen with Master Victor Kan, Muay Thai and Tae Kwon Do with Master Ken Wah and Wu style Tai Chi Chuan with Master Peter Chen Kayode also took up the viola from the age of 13 and played it side by side with the violin for about 5 years and researched and imbibed Bruce Lee’s Jeet Kune Do concept in every aspect of his life. 

After sitting and passing his GCE O and A-levels, Kayode decided to study Mathematics at Imperial College, London University. When He left for University Kayode decided that he had become somewhat bored of classical music and really did not want to play the violin or the viola anymore despite the fact that his school music teacher had told him in earlier years that he would end up a musician. During his undergraduate college years, Kayode started listening to Modern Jazz and Jazz Fusion and discovered artists such as Earl Klugh, Pat Metheney and Bob James, Kayode also taught Wing Chun Kung Fu and Kick Boxing after lectures and became interested in weight training.

Kayode graduated from Imperial in 1986 with a B.Sc in Mathematics and a diploma from the Royal College of Science. Rather than do a Masters, He decided to join Arthur Andersen to gain some practical life and work experience and to start earning some money. Despite exposure to the Audit, Tax, Insolvency and Consulting divisions, Kayode found the work quite uninspiring and tedious and the long journeys (jobs) away from home (including the dojo and the gym,) quite unbearable. He left AA the following year to join Morgan Stanley as an associate in their derivatives division. This was his first exposure to the capital markets and to finance, as opposed to accounting, and Kayode really enjoyed the more dynamic environment and culture and especially took to the battlefield that was the financial markets taking place on the dealing room floors. 

After watching Wall St, which had just come out, starring Michael Douglas, Kayode realized that taking calculated risk was the best and quickest way for him to achieve financial independence and pursue his dreams; he decided at this point that he wanted to ‘Trade’. This would prove elusive at Morgan Stanley, which was a blue blood firm with a very competitive culture. The opportunity would present itself 4 years later at Goldman Sachs, which Kayode joined in March of 1990. Goldman was just entering the European space and presented an amazing culture of excellence layered with humility and very effective teamwork. His outstanding performance soon after joining caught the attention of one of the Chief dealers in the Fixed Income division and Kayode was offered a position on the money market trading desk and later given the sole desk mandate to take proprietary positions (i.e. take outright risk) on currencies and fixed income instruments up to 2 years. Additionally, after many years of listening to guitar music, Kayode decided to take up the guitar, first learning the steel string method, which included chords, pentatonic scales and soloing, and later, when Kayode met Spanish guitarist Fernando Briones Villar, the classical approach, which was a major turning point in his life. Kayode had a very successful career at Goldman Sachs executing some of the largest transactions at the firm at the time, including two one Billion US dollar trades, and was made an Executive Director in 1994 at the age of 29. During this time, Kayode was also asked to speak regularly to new entry level MBAs from schools such as Harvard, Stanford and Wharton on the Capital Markets and how to trade them and held quite a number of stretching, relaxation and fitness classes, after markets had closed, in the in-house gym to help traders to better manage their exposures.

Kayode was head hunted from Goldman Sachs by the National Commercial Bank of Saudi Arabia in 1995 to set up a Hedge Fund based out in Jeddah to trade the international capital markets on a global macro basis. This was a Greenfield start-up that involved setting up the business architecture, including the IT and Operational platforms, as well as the middle office, including Risk Management and Financial Control. The final step was to hire a team of seasoned local and international proprietary traders. With the stress of building and running a business, including managing people, the guitar became an outlet to escape, forget and express his feelings; his teacher Fernando had returned to Spain so Kayode commenced private studies with the late Richard Hand, of the Hand / Dupre guitar duo, who Kayode was introduced to and started visiting once a month for lessons in London. 

Kayode would study with Richard for almost 14 years. Also during this period, he attended many leadership and people management training programs, workshops and seminars and ran many in-house and industry-wide capital market training courses. Kayode also taught mixed martial arts on weekends at a local sports club. This four year period in Saudi was the most challenging of his career, Kayode did not have the Goldman Sachs infrastructure, including tips from mentors and superiors to help support and guide him and very volatile financial markets tested his discipline and resolve, as well as his leadership and character, right to their core. It was an edifying period of immense personal, professional and spiritual growth.

Kayode left Saudi Arabia in 1999 and moved to the UAE where he joined the board of the Tricon Group of Companies based in Abu Dhabi as an investment advisor and became a personal business advisor to the Al Maskari family also based in Abu Dhabi.  In 2000 Kayode returned home to Nigeria on the advice and encouragement of his mother to review possible investment opportunities before heading back to the UK and most likely the US. Her sudden and untimely death later that year marked the lowest point of Kayode’s life and greatly influenced his decision to be based in Nigeria with a focus on helping to improve and develop the country as well as the continent in general. 

Kayode invested and started to trade in real estate, set up Enia Advisors, an independent advisory and consulting practice, in January 2001 and commenced capacity building in the local industry. Over nine years Kayode ran in-house training programs for the Treasury departments of several pre and post consolidation banks as well as their capital market subsidiaries, and almost all investment banks and discount houses and a number of brokerage firms. Kayode was also a keynote and motivational speaker at the off-sites of several cutting edge boutique firms. In addition, he ran industry wide training programs in collaboration with the Money Market Association of Nigeria and wrote many articles on specialized finance and professional development for financial journals such as ‘The Treasurer’ and personal development journals such as ‘Net Worth’ and ‘Bottom Line”. 

Capacity building programs were not just limited to finance or finance professionals or the Nigerian industry, Kayode ran specialized in-house and industry wide programs for Law Firms as well as Consulting Firms, and personal and professional development programs for Lagos Business School, Lagos University and Lagos State Government. From 2004, Kayode also ran a quarterly series of programs on Derivatives with Peter Skerritt Associates in Johannesburg for many of the South African Banks headquartered there. Two significant consulting briefs during this period was setting up Lead Securities and Investments Ltd (LSI) in 2004 for the former Lead Bank, which has since been renamed Lead Capital, and setting up a Fixed Income division for Afrinvest West Africa Ltd in 2007. Kayode joined the Board of Directors of Afrinvest the following year to help the firm through a difficult but strategically important restructuring but resigned in September 2009 and remained a senior advisor to the firm until March 2010 when he decided to retire from finance completely at the age of 45. His objective following retirement was to focus on social development by way of Speaking (both keynote and motivational), Music Performing and Teaching and Martial Art and Life Coaching and Mentoring. Although Kayode had not taught martial art up to this point in Lagos Kayode continued to practice and refine his own style of mixed martial arts with an emphasis on stretching and legwork. Kayode spoke in December of that year at an MTN Senior management Retreat on ‘Creating A Personal Leadership Brand’ that was so successful, he was asked to help to imbibe the methodology and key points that Kayode highlighted into the firm’s HR development process. With respect to guitar performing during this period, Kayode gave his first solo guitar recital early in 2000 at the Abu Dhabi cultural centre at the request and encouragement of Dr Shaikha Al Maskari, chairperson of the Tricon group of companies and a highly respected UAE citizen. She lectured him on the importance of sharing his music and the entire experience inspired him to start running Saturday guitar classes for mainly children at the Musical Society of Nigeria (MUSON) music school based in Lagos in 2001 and to give yearly guitar performances at the MUSON Agip Recital Hall from 2002 to 2006. 

In 2008, Kayode attended his first international guitar festival at West Dean in England and met guitarist and composer Gary Ryan, with whom Kayode commenced private studies in the same year at the Royal College of Music in London. Kayode also had classes with the celebrated Czechoslovakian guitarist, Pavel Steidl. The following year Kayode met guitarist Craig Ogden at a festival in France, who also became a private tutor, and had classes at the Cervo Guitar Festival in Italy with guitarists Matteo Mela and Lorenzo Micheli and, later again that year at West Dean in England, with Scott Tennant and William Kanengeiser of the celebrated Los Angeles Guitar Quartet (LAGQ). In October 2010 Kayode met the world-renowned guitarist Manuel Barrueco, by chance, following his Wigmore Hall concert in London, who invited him to his master classes at the Peabody Conservatory in the US the following year.

In February 2011 Kayode visited Manuel Barrueco at the Peabody Conservatory in Maryland in the US and he invited him to play for him at his residence near Baltimore. He gave Kayode sound technical playing and performance tips and advice and also introduced him to the guitarist Franco Platino for further lessons while he was in the United States. They also discussed the possibility of a collaboration project in Africa. On March 14, 2011, Kayode spoke on Leadership at a BAT (British American Tobacco) ‘Win in West Africa’ Regional Conference for Senior and Executive Management that seated two hundred regional participants, including the Managing Director. The speech was so successful that Kayode received a standing ovation from all in attendance, including the Managing Director. On March 27, 2011 Kayode gave a successful recital in Johannesburg for a group of expatriate professionals for ‘Arts on Tugela’. After performing at a friend’s wedding in New Jersey, USA, in May, Kayode was asked to both speak and play at the African Leadership Network in June where he first spoke on Leadership to a group of over 100 young African Leaders and then played a piece which Kayode dedicated to all the great African Leaders without Title. 

On July 23, 2011 Kayode gave a private recital for a group of mostly British Expatriates in Lagos at a venue called the Wine Cellar that was very well received and appreciated. The following month Kayode performed as part of the Guitar France Festival in Bagnoles de L’Orne, Normandy under the direction of Gary Ryan and Craig Ogden. On September 15, 2011, with the help of Fusion Media, Kayode shot his first short film entitled ‘A Dream’ which was a fusion of Oratory, Guitar and Martial Art into an inspirational story and message about the importance of pursuing one’s passions that could be shared online and make a difference in the world. In late October Kayode was invited to perform at the Opal Club in Embankment, London, as part of its monthly Poetry in Motion series by Progressive Entertainment’s Irvin Smith. The performance and music were very well received. Kayode performed the following month again in Joburg but this time to a different group of professionals and media specialists and also took the opportunity to prescreen ‘A Dream’. The performance and the film were a big hit with the audience and everyone loved the live musical interpretations as well as the film’s inherent message. On December 11, 2011 Kayode gave a Spanish Guitar Recital at the Life House Cultural Centre in Lagos that had been quite well publicized beforehand.  The concert was a great success and was a wonderful, interactive evening of music. The widely read newspaper ‘This Day’ was also present and gave an excellent and very detailed three page write up on the concert the following Sunday which was a very satisfying, independent third party confirmation of what was a very successful event.

Charity Work And FahmFIT

In the latter part of his life, Kayode was heavily involved in several charitable ventures, which were his way of giving back to the community. He sponsored and supported orphanages, and ran capacity development initiatives to empower Nigerians spanning the corporate world, martial arts, music performing, life coaching and mentoring.

He was also very passionate about CHARITY RUNWAY, an initiative that helped to discover and nurture the talents in young people.

FahmFIT

Kayode was also a keen fitness enthusiast and healthy lifestyle advocate. He founded and fronted FahmFit, which is a first of its kind multimedia platform offering consumers an opportunity to truly build a healthy lifestyle driven by fitness and wellness.

Kayode saw that the fast growing fitness and wellness industry presented an opportunity to tap into a new growing audience. Fahm Fit offered an innovative product and an integrated service to better meet customers’ needs by leveraging the smart application of media and technology to deliver qualitative information and bespoke services quickly to consumers.

The short term fitness objective of the initiative was to get one million people fit over twelve months leveraging the reach of Mobile, Online and Social media engagement.