For eminent Nigerian pharmacist, Mrs. Joke Bakare, she has consistently made enormous contributions to the growth and development of pharmaceutical industry in Nigeria. As the founder and CEO of MedPlus Pharmacy, one of Nigeria’s leading health and beauty retailers, Joke has extensive experience in retail operations and management while overseeing all aspects of her organization’s business, including strategic direction and initiatives. When in 1993, at age 26, she founded MedPlus as a pharmacy-led health and beauty retail chain, many were skeptical as the concept was entirely alien to the Nigerian pharmacy space at that time.
But her vision to be Nigeria’s leading healthcare and beauty outlet has seen the establishment grow from that modest beginning to over 48 operational stores spread across the country. But despite this awesome credential of revolutionizing the healthcare sector, most people who hadn’t met Joke in person always think as the owner of the very successful Medplus, she must be a man.
“People still think I am meant to be a man,” Joke said of the fast erasing slant of stereotype that comes with being a self-made woman who holds such an impactful space in Nigeria. Despite this chauvinistic tendency, Joke, who is married to Muyiwa Bakare, the son of former billionaire auto magnate and founder of Oluwalogbon Motors, Chief S. O Bakare, is however committed and showing no wavering in her commitment to delivering holistic healthcare to consumers in Nigeria.