Mabel Ironn Sky Turay is an abstract painter and curator, an experienced entrepreneur, an Ecosystem Support Organisation (ESO), and a Business Development (BD) Consultant. She is committed to creating employment opportunities for women and youth and driving innovation while engaging in private sector/private/public sector dialogues geared towards building a robust ecosystem in Sierra Leone, and Africa at large.
Mabel is one of this year’s winners of the Mandela Fellowship and is currently studying in the USA.
As the owner and CEO of Orkosu Organic Herbal Teas, a tea manufacturing company in Sierra Leone, and Founder of Reunion Freetown, Sierra Leone’s largest visual arts organisation, Mabel brings a unique blend of creativity and strategic insight to every endeavour she undertakes. Her expertise spans business development; with a focus on ideation, business diagnostics and technical assistance, startup coaching, ecosystem mapping, talent management, and optimisation.
She is currently a Pipeline Officer at Pangea Global Venture, while simultaneously managing her Tea Business and Arts Organisation. She also serves as a Country Lead and Financial Officer for Social Income; a Swiss non-profit association working in Sierra Leone, which she helped set up in 2020. Social Income gives out unconditional monthly stipends through direct mobile money transfers, to disadvantaged persons for three years. With over six years of hands-on experience in various facets of business development, she has spearheaded visionary strategies, leading teams to achieve operational excellence and market expansion.
Additionally, Mabel plays a key role in Sierra Leone’s emerging entrepreneurial ecosystem, contributing to ecosystem mapping projects, private/public sector dialogue, and serving as a BDS/ ESO consultant in various capacities. She is an alumnus of the SOS Hermann Gmeiner International College, Tema, Ghana where she did her IGCSE and International Baccalaureate Diploma(IB). She graduated with a Bachelor of Business Science (Hons), Cum Laude, from the Monash University, South Africa campus, Majoring in Business Management and Philosophy. In 2017 she co-published an academic journal “Augmenting talent management for sustainable development in Africa.”
She is a certified Talent Optimisation consultant and is preparing to obtain an MBA to further her career and better manage her companies.
