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Dr. May Ifeoma Nwoye was born in the mid-1950s in Onitsha, Anambra State, to Fidelis and Virginia Agulue of Umunya in Oyi Local Government Area. She completed her primary and secondary education in Anambra State before proceeding to the United States, where she earned a degree in Accounting from George Washington University and an MBA in Finance from Southeastern University, Washington, D.C. She later obtained a PhD in Business Administration from the University of Benin and completed additional executive training in Leadership and Corporate Governance at the University of Pennsylvania, as well as further studies at Oxford Brookes University in the United Kingdom.

Nwoye began her career as an accountant in Washington, D.C., before returning to Nigeria to serve with the NYSC at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital. She subsequently held roles at the University of Benin and later at Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida University. Her writing focuses on poverty alleviation and environmental advocacy, most notably expressed in her award-winning novel Oil Cemetery, which examines the impact of oil exploration on a marginalized community. A strong advocate for women’s economic empowerment, she served on a national committee on women’s and children’s rights in 1988 and later became the first female vice president of the Association of Nigerian Authors. In recognition of her contributions, she received the National Honour of Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON) in 2023 and currently serves as a professor of Business Administration at Nile University of Nigeria.