Tobi Moronfolu

Tobi Moronfolu is an MSc candidate in African Studies at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford. Her research examines the coordination challenges in Nigeria’s public debt management, analysing how formal and informal mechanisms within the country’s federal structure influence debt sustainability and fiscal policy outcomes at both national and subnational levels.

She holds a BA in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics from the University of Warwick, where she specialised in global political economy and international development. Her undergraduate thesis critically explored Sino-African cooperation in the financial structuring of infrastructure projects across Angola and Zambia. Prior to Oxford, she worked in Deutsche Bank’s Debt Capital Markets division, structuring cross-border acquisition finance and loan origination deals for large corporations in emerging markets.

Beyond academia and finance, Tobi is passionate about language preservation and cultural heritage. In 2023, she co-founded So Yoruba, a language-learning platform dedicated to preserving Yoruba heritage through accessible education. What began as daily vocabulary posts has grown into a global initiative with over 25,000 members, providing free resources—including digital flashcards, interactive content, and a co-authored Yoruba textbook published in November 2023—to support Yoruba language acquisition among the Nigerian diaspora and non-African learners alike.

As the Sponsorship and Partnerships Coordinator, Tobi is excited to leverage her experiences to contribute to the 2025 Oxford Africa conference which serves as a vital platform for discussing critical challenges and opportunities facing the African continent.