Kemi began her professional journey with KPMG Nigeria, earning her qualification as a Chartered Accountant from the ‘Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria’ in 1992. Subsequently, she transitioned to Deloitte Nigeria before venturing into the private sector, where she assumed various senior management positions. She transitioned to academia in 2007 by joining the Leicester Business School, De Montfort University, UK, followed by a position at Nottingham University Business School, University of Nottingham, where she served as an Associate Professor. In 2019, she joined SOAS University of London as the institution's first Professor of Accounting in its century-long history. Currently, she holds the position of Professor of Accounting at Aston University, contributing to the advancement of research activities in the accounting department.

Throughout her academic journey, Professor Yekini has assumed numerous leadership roles, including the founding and directing of the Centre for Research in Accountability, Governance and Sustainability (CRAGS) at the Leicester Business School, DMU. She has also taken on roles such as Director of Doctoral Studies at DMU, University of Nottingham, and SOAS University of London, as well as Director of Research at DMU and the University of Nottingham. Additionally, she has served as the Director of the BSc Accounting and Finance Programme at SOAS University of London.

Kemi possesses a wealth of teaching experience, having extensively instructed and evaluated undergraduates at various levels and postgraduates in diverse accounting subjects. Her teaching engagements span a spectrum of student types, including both traditional and non-traditional learners such as MSc, MBAs, executives undergoing training, distance learning participants, professional students, and those pursuing PhDs.

She currently teaches the following modules:

• Postgraduate: Financial Accounting and Reporting
• Undergraduate: Integrated Case Study

Kemi's research interest have been significantly influenced by her extensive industry experience in the field of accounting. Primarily, her interests revolve around sustainability accounting and the transparency in corporate disclosure practices. Over the years, she adopted a comprehensive approach to examining Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and sustainability reporting, aiming to evaluate the accountability of large multinational corporations to these critical issues.

She interprets CSR as encompassing an organisation's social and environmental interactions within its corporate and extended environment, discernible through high-quality disclosures. To advance CSR communication research, she introduced a linguistic-based methodology, contributing to the progression of this field. Additionally, she has been engaged with knowledge exchange partnerships within the industry, collaborating, for instance, with Radley Yeldar, a sustainability reporting consultant. In a recent project, she closely collaborated to assess the written language of sustainability reports for their clients. Her research findings from these endeavors have been published in esteemed international journals, furthering the discourse on sustainability and corporate accountability.

Kemi has been actively involved in editorial positions, including serving as an editorial board member for various esteemed international academic journals. Her editorial contributions extend to positions such as

• Editor-in-chief for ICTACT Journal on Management Studies, 
• Editorial board member of; Advances in Environmental Accounting and Management, International Journal of Contemporary Accounting issues;
• Member of the Scientific Committee of the African Accounting and Finance Association (AAFA).
• Associate Editor African Accounting and Finance Association (AAFA) 
• Associate Editor International Journal of Contemporary Accounting issues

Currently, she engages in reviewing high-impact academic journals, including Critical Perspectives in Accounting, Corporate Governance: An International Review, Journal of Management Inquiry, Accounting Forum and Accounting, Auditing, and Accountability Journal.

• 2014 Postgraduate Cert. in Higher Education (PGCert) – Leicester Castle Business School, De Montfort University (LBS).
• 2012 PhD (LBS) – Title: Corporate Community Involvement Disclosure: An Evaluation of the Motivation & Reality.
• 2006 MSc Finance (University of Leicester) – Title: “Effect of 
  Financial Scandals on the Credibility and Reliability of Financial Information: The Role of External Auditors”. 
• 1990 BSc Accounting (Ogun State University) – Awarded August 1990 with the prestigious Society of Women Accountants of Nigeria (SWAN) prize titled ‘Best Female Accounting Graduate’. 

• Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria (ICAN)
• Certified Member of the Association of Certified Fraud examiner (ACFE)
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA)
• Member of the European Accounting Association (EAA)
• Member of the British Accounting and Finance Association (BAFA)
• Member of the African Accounting and Finance Association (AAFA)