Daere Akobo

Daere Akobo is Chairman and Group Chief Executive Officer of PANA Holdings, a Nigerian group with interests in petroleum services, energy, infrastructure, digital solutions, financial services and agribusiness. Its portfolio includes PE Energy, AKD Consulting and PANA Academy, and in April 2026 the group was named Local Content Company of the Year at the Energy Times Awards in Lagos. He serves on the Advisory Board of the Africa Energy Technology Centre (AETC).

Akobo began his career in Nigeria’s oil and gas sector as an Electrical Instrumentation Superintendent at the International Petroleum Company of Nigeria, then worked as a Technical Stock Controller supporting procurement at TOTAL E&P. At General Electric Nigeria he moved into commercial roles and was recognised as a top talent across the African continent in 2007 to 2008. In 2009 he founded Plant Engineering Limited, later renamed PE Energy Limited, to provide engineering, procurement and technical services to the oil and gas industry, drawing on his background in flow metering, vibration and condition monitoring, instrumentation and control systems.

He holds a degree in Applied Physics from Rivers State University and has attended executive programmes at Harvard Business School, INSEAD and Alliance Manchester Business School. He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Directors, and in December 2024 Obafemi Awolowo University conferred on him an honorary doctorate. He was elected Assistant Secretary of the Petroleum Technology Association of Nigeria (PETAN) in 2020, and African Leadership Magazine named him African Energy Person of the Year in 2024.

Akobo’s work centres on building indigenous capacity in Nigeria’s energy industry. PE Energy’s Centre of Excellence in Trans Amadi, Port Harcourt, commissioned by the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board in 2021, provides automation, metering, valve assembly and recertification services, and in 2022 the company opened Nigeria’s first High Integrity Pressure Protection System (HIPPS) recertification facility there with Mokveld. In May 2025 PE Energy delivered to the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission the country’s first comprehensive engineering audit of upstream oil and gas measurement systems. He has argued for youth-centred technology innovation and for universities to commercialise research in partnership with industry and government.