In 2006, Babawande Afolabi travelled to the United States to attend Illinois Wesleyan University with the intention to return to Nigeria to contribute to its economy, he also holds an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Afolabi worked at Morgan Stanley as an investment banker and also as a corporate strategist for American Airlines and later on, he established a venture capital firm in Nigeria. Teatime Capital, an initiative focused on making micro-equity investments to ultra-small businesses in Nigeria.
In 2015, Afolabi established a company that will provide low-cost air transport services in Nigeria, Green Africa Airways Ltd, which operations were originally planned to start in 2019, but have since been delayed. In 2020, the airline signed a strategic partnership with First City Monument Bank Limited (FCMB), which FCMB provides Green Africa with up to $31m in a combination of working capital and credit during the pre-sale period, which gives the airline access to short- to medium-term liquidity. In April 2021, the airline took delivery of its first two ATR72-600 aircraft and plan to deploy up to 15 aircraft between now and 2022.
Green Africa Airways intends to serve the Nigerian domestic market with plans to further expand service across the African continent.