Madueke takes the helm as Africa's biggest energy producer seeks to turn its state-run oil firm NNPC through landmark reforms into a profit-driven company, privatise its dilapidated refineries, and renegotiate multi-billion dollar contracts with Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron and other oil firms.
With only 13 months before the end of the presidential term, Madueke -- whose first name Diezani means "look before you leap" in her local dialect -- faces a tight deadline.
"She is facing an uphill battle. But she is an extremely trusted hand and she's from (Acting President) Goodluck Jonathan's area," said John Adeleke, a respected Lagos-based business consultant.
Jonathan, who has assumed executive powers over ailing President Umaru Yar'Adua, surprised many by appointing the former Shell director to Nigeria's top oil job on Tuesday.
Madueke and Jonathan's families are from neighbouring communities in Bayelsa state in the oil-producing Niger Delta, where attacks by the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) and other militants have shut in Nigeria's daily oil output by around a third from its peak of 3 million barrels.
An amnesty is in place to end the insurgency in the Delta and this will be another task for the new minister to pursue.
Madueke's personal history is steeped in Nigeria's oil industry, but some have expressed doubts the former mines and steel minister will be able to impose herself on the sector that dominates sub-Saharan Africa's second largest economy.
"What is worrying is (Madueke's) performance in the past was not inspiring," said Reuben Abati, chairman of the editorial board for Nigeria's respected Guardian newspapers.
"She couldn't make any impact both at the works ministry and solid minerals ministry."
BALANCING ACT
Madueke's biggest responsibility will be to implement wide-ranging oil reforms, currently before parliament, designed to encourage more domestic producers and prevent a large exodus of foreign investors.
"In terms of her background you could see that there might be a better relationship with some of the international oil companies (IOCs)," Global Insight analyst Simon Wardell said.
"Nigeria has been slipping down the rankings of countries they like to do business in, and this could improve things slightly, though obviously a large part of the discontentment stems from the security situation there in recent years."
Madueke is Nigeria's first oil minister with such close links to the IOCs. Having grown up in a Shell residential camp in the oil hub of Port Harcourt, she left to study architecture in Washington D.C. before returning to Nigeria in 1992 to work for her father's old employer.
Over the next 15 years she rose to become Shell's first female director in Nigeria, completing an MBA at Cambridge University along the way, before entering politics in 2007.
The reforms aim to break state oil firm NNPC, long hampered by funding shortfalls, into profit-driven units able to tap international capital markets. The move could bring some of the biggest financing deals of their kind ever undertaken in Africa.
But under the Petroleum Industry Bill (PIB), the government would also be allowed to renegotiate old contracts, impose higher costs and retake acreage that firms have yet to explore.
Foreign oil firms have warned the plan could threaten billions of dollars of investment if it goes ahead in its current form.
Madueke will also be responsible for conducting a planned oil licensing round this year that could bring in many new foreign and domestic investors.
Several state-run Chinese oil firms, including CNOOC, have indicated they would be willing to invest $50 billion to acquire 6 billion barrels of Nigeria's sweet crude oil reserves, according to a top Nigerian adviser.
In her new role as oil minister, Madueke is also expected to become the first ever female minister of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC).
Within OPEC, Madueke will be expected to negotiate a higher output quota for Nigeria from the sometimes fractious group.
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