Born in Nigeria, Temi moved to northern California at age 15 for college to pursue an Electrical Engineering degree. He graduated with honors and the youngest in his class from San Jose State University and spent 8 years in Silicon Valley as a microchip product engineer at Xilinx/Advanced Micro Devices before having an epiphany at his sister’s side during the difficult 22-hours of labor that lead to the birth of her first child.

 

Realizing that his full life potential was being underutilized, and that he owed a legacy to share with the next generation, he left for graduate school to concurrently attain a Master of Business Administration (MBA) in Marketing and Entrepreneurship at Santa Clara University, and a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Motion Pictures and Television at Academy of Art University, San Francisco.

 

Temi applied his MBA to senior marketing strategy roles at Fortune 500 companies Adobe and Oracle/Sun Microsystems before combining it with his filmmaking to launch his production company Topijo Films with which he has crafted independent commercial content for a diverse portfolio of brands, including Skanska, Numi Organic Tea, Blendoor and Joie de Vivre Hotels. He was recently chosen as a national finalist with the Association of Independent Commercial Producers' Commercial Director's Diversity Program (AICP-CDDP).

 

The San Diego Union Tribune lauded his MFA thesis film RENOUNCING ANGELICA as "a heart-rending short work” and BNP Paribas awarded it a Humanitarian Prize for raising awareness of the lifesaving promise of bone-marrow donations. It won Best Short at ION International Film Festival, Silicon Valley Film Festival, Gold Lion Film Festival and was honored on BET’s Lens On Talent. His next short HABITUAL AGGRESSION, which explores the emotional costs of domestic abuse, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival short film corner, was nominated for an Africa Movie Academy Award and won Best Short at Canada International Film and Television Festival. As a writer-director-producer, his independent short films have screened in over 30 international film festivals.

 

He regularly attends international film markets (Sundance, Berlinale, SXSW, Cannes, TIFF, AFM) and is currently packaging the feature film SEEDLESS, which spotlights the sacrifices women make for motherhood and the downside of gender and racial underrepresentation in Silicon Valley. The feature project was awarded a California State Film Tax Credit and its teaser short film was a top 3% finalist in the Lionsgate/Codeblack/Jack Daniels national competition.

 

He recently won the SFFILM Sloan Science in Cinema Filmmaker Fellowship for his latest feature script A MAN WITH A MISSING FACE, based on the true story of the first black person to receive a full-face transplant.

 

Temi splits his time between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and when not working, finds happiness in the company of his nephews and niece, making them laugh.