Ayo Omotayo is a full-bred Alumnus of the prestigious University of Ibadan, bagging all his university degrees from the school. Between 1984 and 1985, he undertook the National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) programme at a small village called Ndioulumbe in the defunct Imo State. His journey as an academic started in 1985 with his appointment as an assistant lecturer at the Lagos State University, Ojo. Unprecedentedly and in what seems a record yet unbroken in the annals of the university, Omotayo in 1992, within a short frame of time, rose to become a Senior Lecturer. He founded the LASU MBA programme in 1994.Professor Ayo Omotayo was until his appointment, a Professor of Environmental Sustainability in the Department of Geography and Planning at the Lagos State University. He was educated at the University of Ibadan from 1980 to 1990 where he obtained a Ph.D. from the Department of Geography. Professor Omotayo was appointed as an Assistant Lecturer at the Lagos State University in 1985. He quickly rose through the ranks to become a Senior Lecturer in 1992, at the age of 30 years. He was the Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences between 2012 and 2017. He was also the Director of the Centre for Planning of the Lagos State University, until his appointment as the Director-General of the National Institute by Mr. President in November 2021, and confirmation by the Senate in January 2022. Among several accomplishments, Professor Omotayo founded the MBA programme in LASU, helping the university to break new grounds in tuition-paying education. This he did against all odds and in direct competition with well-established schools such as the University of Ibadan and the University of Lagos. In 1995, he left for the United States as a Foreign National Scholar to the Austin Peay State University in Clarksville, Tennessee. He also shared with Murray State University across at the State of Kentucky at the time. Professor Omotayo is an accomplished entrepreneur in the area of technological development. Some of his start-up initiatives include Netlynk Incorporated, a computer consulting firm in Atlanta-Georgia. This was founded after he obtained training and certification in JAVA programing, EPRD, Novel Networking Engineering, and Microsoft Systems Engineering.