Behind Every Successful Startup: The Operators Who Make It Happen

Success in a startup is the result of the collective efforts of many individuals.

While founders deserve recognition for their vision and leadership, it is important to acknowledge the critical role that operators and employees play in the company’s growth.

These individuals take initiatives, work hard, and make countless contributions to the success of the company. Without them, even the most visionary founders would struggle to achieve the kind of success that we often celebrate in the startup world.

Operators are typically not the ones who get the spotlight or the headlines, but they are crucial to the long-term success of the company. In this series, we will shed light on some of these individuals and the role they play in the success of the  startups they work for..

Adia Sohwo (VP, Migo)

Migo recently raised $20million to expand access to credit for unbanked and underbanked populations in Sub-Saharan Africa. With Adia leading the growth, she is bringing her wealth of experience to drive adoption of consumer credit scoring in Nigeria. Before this role, she has worn several hats with different startups and corporates. At Etisalat, a telecommunication company, she led key corporate initiatives that positioned Etisalat as top choice for partnerships initiatives. She launched the telco’s first Digital Business unit to tap into revenue beyond traditional channels, hence 10X’d revenue in 4 years to $100M.  He work began the phase of digital revolution for telcos in Nigeria with offering beyond sale of airtime and data.

Ogunlade Oluwole (Growth lead, VoguePay)

As the head of digital media and strategy, Oluwole positioned VoguePay for global visibility leading to several recognitions and awards as Africa’s leading payment company.

He led product initiatives that contributed to the company’s major milestones that include 100,00 global merchants and processing of over $100m USD in transactions.

His works helped the company to build a global brand, including getting featured in Forbes Asia and other international media platforms.

As a trusted advisor to the company’s c-suite Oluwole was tapped to lead the product strategy for VoguePay Digital, the digital bank they are building to offer a suite of borderless banking and investment products for users globally.

Yemi Johnson (COO, HotelsNG)

At HotelsNG, Yemi started as a digital marketer before rising to become the COO of HotelsNG; a company valued at an 8-figure dollar valuation where he managed 100+ people in the most competitive niche on the internet, online hotel booking. HotelsNG has catched a niche for itself as a leading hotel booking platform beating out competition from Jumia travels (formerly Jovago) to launching its international platform, Timbu. Beyond the business of hotel, the company also runs a hugely successful software internship program called HGN Internship, acclaimed to be Nigeria’s largest remote/online software development training programmes. In his role as COO, Yemi has led the company to profitability through cost control, improving internal operations efficiency, while developing new talents, managing a 600-person remote marketing interns, and launching 2 travel products built for a global audience.

Phillip Eze & Emmanue Azodo (Product Managers, ALAT)

Both Phillip and Emmanuel were recognized as the faces behind Nigeria’s first fully digital bank, ALAT which is powered by WEMA.

The digital bank offers customers the first fully digital banking experience that includes opening an account, making deposit, investments and lending without having to enter the banking hall. The app has over 100,000 downloads already and it’s a success on all major metrics to the delights of all stakeholders.

Olabinjo Adeniran (Growth Marketing at HotelsNG, DevCenter, Future.Africa)

Binjo immersed himself early into the tech ecosystem in Nigeria and was fundamental to the marketing success of a lot of projects you know today.

He was involved with startups through ccHub, Spark, DevCenter where he had access to many upcoming founders building and launching new businesses.

Today, he is co-founder of Future Africa, a venture fund for startups in Africa where he is responsible for growing the addressable audience to 40,000 people with a very strong and active mailing list.