Gafar Lawal

Managing Director, Microsoft Africa Development Center, Nigeria

Gafar Lawal is the Managing Director of Microsoft's Africa Development Center in Nigeria. In this role, Lawal acts as the corporate engineering leader in the region and also acts as a voice of the region to the engineering leaders globally.  Lawal engages the ecosystem in an effort to advance Microsoft's interest in the region and plays a key role in nurturing talent through various strategic efforts.

Lawal has more than 20 years of experience across various business functions and returns to Microsoft from Morgan Stanley where he served as Managing Director and Global Chief Technology Architect for the Wealth Management Division.

Before his time at Morgan Stanley, Lawal spent over six years at Microsoft as Partner Architect in the Windows server group, and Partner Architect in the Windows phone services division, operating out of the organisations Redmond office in the USA. Lawal also spent ten years at Merrill Lynch, serving as First Vice President and Chief Technology Architect.