Debt As A Growth Tool: When Should Your Business Borrow?

​Every business reaches a moment where the question is no longer whether to grow, but how to fund that growth. And for many founders and business owners, debt remains one of the most misunderstood and underutilized tools available to them.

​Sulaimon Ishola has spent his career sitting at exactly that intersection, where capital meets strategy, and where the right financial decision can determine whether a business scales or stalls.

​As a Partner in the Strategy & Transactions practice at Deloitte Nigeria, Sulaimon brings deep, transactional experience to the conversation on business financing. His career spans capital raising, mergers and acquisitions, business valuations, financial modelling, and buy and sell-side advisory across West Africa and Southern Africa, advising private equity firms, conglomerates, and strategic investors on some of the most complex financial decisions businesses face.

​He began his career at Dunn Loren Merrifield Advisory Partners, where he worked on debt and equity capital raising and M&A advisory across Nigeria and Ghana, before joining Deloitte South Africa’s Financial Advisory team, where his work extended across Malawi, Mozambique, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and beyond.

​In this session, he brings the clarity, rigor, and real-world experience that founders and business owners need to stop fearing debt and start using it as the growth tool it was always meant to be.