Victor Mark-Onyegbu joins the Board of the International Centre for Poverty Alleviation and Sustainable Development as Non-Executive Director and Senior Advisor on Policy and Government Relations. He is expected to bring his wealth of experience to bear in advising the organization on policy programs and stakeholder engagements and help shape the organization’s direction.

Victor Mark-Onyegbu has had an enviable track record in portfolio leadership within the creative industry, enabling livelihood opportunities for young people across Africa. Over the past 16 years, he has acquired cognate knowledge in program management, research and strategy, grant making, public sector operations and stakeholder management. He obtained his first-degree honours in Applied Biochemistry from the Enugu State University of Science and Technology, Enugu State in 2005, finishing cum laude on a Federal Government of Nigeria presidential scholarship. He possesses a Master’s degree in international Affairs and Diplomacy from the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in Nigeria and several certifications including in Policy Making from the Moller Institute, Churchill College, University of Cambridge, a certificate in Intellectual Property Law from the Harvard Law School, Massachusetts and is an alumnus of the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford executive program in policy making. In 2021, he was awarded an honorary doctorate in International Relations by the West African Union University.

Over the years, he has led multi-cultural teams to design and execute cultural relations and creative policy programs and has a proven track record of successful management of operations and strategy. He started his career in the public sector as an aide to two Ministers of the Federal Capital Territory and later as a Protocol Officer at the ECOWAS Commission between 2007 and 2009. For over 6 years afterwards he rose to become a Senior Researcher at the Nigeria Arts Council – the agency of government responsible for managing Nigeria’s cultural policy, where he designed engagement frameworks between the Council and global multilateral cultural institutions including IFACCA, UNESCO, and World Crafts Council.

At the British Council where he spent 6 years and rose to a Regional Manager Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), he was part of a team that designed an MOU framework between the British Council and the Nigerian Government within which he led a multi-year festival program and grantmaking of $500,000. He also led the design and launch of the British Council’s New Narratives program aimed at updating reciprocal narratives between UK and Africa, amongst several other programs.

Currently, as Head of the Grants Portfolio at narrative change organization, Africa No Filter, he oversees a $1million grantmaking operations, strategy and programs in the arts and media sector in Africa and serves on the Senior Leadership Team of the organization, advising on organizational strategy, operations, and programs.