Mr. Samuel Avaala
PresidentIng Samuel Avaala Awonnea was born in 1964 and obtained BSc (Hons) Mechanical Engineering from the KNUST in 1990. He also holds a Diploma in Financial Management (ACCA, UK) and an Executive MBA.Currently, he is the Estate Manager (or Plantation Manager) of Benso Oil Palm Plantation Ltd, a public listed company on the Ghana stock exchange. This Company was a subsidiary of Unilever Ghana Limited but is now a subsidiary of Wilmar Africa LimitedHe has had a wide-scoped career starting from 1990 as a National Service Person at the Technology Consultancy Centre (TCC) of the KNUST after which he joined BOPP, then a subsidiary of Unilever, as a Management Trainee Engineer.Positions as held in BOPP over the period include: Maintenance Engineer, Divisional Manager (Estate), Factory Manager, and now Estate (or Plantation) Manager. As the team leader, he has led his company to successfully achieve RSPO certification thus becoming the first to achieve this certification in Ghana and the second in Africa.
Other positions he has held in the Unilever Ghana Factory in Tema include: Refinery & Foods Production Manager, Planning Manager, Projects Engineer (West Africa Spreads Manufacturing Sites Rationalisation), and Manufacturing Manager in that order.He is a past member of the Unilever Sustainable Agriculture Community of Practice and is currently the chairman of the Ghana National Interpretation Working Group (GNIWG) taskforce of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), an RSPO Lead Auditor and currently, the incumbent president of the Oil Palm Development Association of Ghana (OPDAG).He is a certified Instructor of the Japan Institute of Plant Maintenance (JIPM)/Unilever for TOTAL PRODUCTIVE MANUFACTURING (TPM) - a continuous improvement and waste elimination philosophy in manufacturing industries.