Seasoned executive Femi Lakeru is Founder and President of Cerlak LLC, a management consulting firm that helps organizations improve their results, achieve their strategic goals and deliver against their objectives. With 30 years of experience in various Fortune 200 companies, Lakeru has developed a knack for building highly effective senior leadership teams that foster increased employee engagement and morale, while consistently delivering outstanding results in sales, operations and general management.
Lakeru spent 10 years of his career as a VP executive with T-Mobile USA. During that time, he held responsibility for divisions within the company including West Division Customer Care, Wholesale Operations, Supply Chain Operations and Business Sales. Throughout his involvement with these departments, he developed a reputation for successfully turning around declining business units and delivering superior P&L performance while posting the highest employee satisfaction results within the company. Mid-level managers in other departments often sought to join Lakeru’s teams in order to receive the training and coaching to enhance their own skills and abilities.
Prior to his role at T-Mobile, Lakeru served as a senior leader for a number of other Fortune 200 companies, including Office Depot, Ameritech Corporation and Baxter Healthcare Corporation. As a result of his exceptional performance in each of the roles he held, he continued to receive increased levels of responsibility and was often asked to tackle challenging problem areas within various divisions of those companies.
Lakeru is also very active in non-profit charitable organizations. A jazz enthusiast, he has served as the Vice President on the Board of Directors for Earshot Jazz, a Seattle-based non-profit music, arts and service organization. He is also a board member for Many Lights Foundation, a non-profit human services organization that provides children in kinship and foster care with permanent homes.
Lakeru holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing from St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.