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The Influence of Relationships, Navigating Crossroads and Embracing Learning with Emeka Afigbo
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In this episode, Bukola engages in a conversation with Emeka Afigbo, a Senior Director at Okta with past experiences at both Meta and Google. Emeka delves into his early years in Nsukka, Nigeria, and recounts how he embarked on his tech journey by teaching himself to code on paper, as he couldn't afford a laptop at the time. He emphasises the pivotal role that relationships played in his career success and underscores the importance of being deliberate in nurturing them. Emeka also discusses the the conundrum faced when navigating a crossroad. You can read his article on this here. His journey is undeniably inspiring, and we hope his story serves as a source of inspiration for you as well.
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Transcript
Career Influences and Crossroads
00:00:05
Speaker
If you were to ask me what's the single biggest factor that got me into the career I am today, I would say I was hanging out with those friends of mine. Your mind will always come up with a reason why you shouldn't do something different. Right now and then, life brings us at these crossroads where we have to make a choice with limited data. You don't know how it's going to play out.
Introduction to Emika
00:00:31
Speaker
Hi Emika, I hope you're doing very well. Honestly, it's a pleasure to have you on the podcast because for, I think it was a year ago, I came across your profile on LinkedIn. And I think at that time I was trying to look for professionals in United Kingdom, United States who have their background or had their background in terms of their educational experience, their childhood and all of that in Nigeria.
00:00:55
Speaker
but I now moved globally to other parts of the world and are doing very well. And I think at the time you were still at META, if I'm correct, that was two years ago. Were you still at META two years ago? Up until November, 2020.
00:01:12
Speaker
2020. Okay, maybe I'm not correct now. But I knew that it's so meta on your profile.
Background and Early Life
00:01:17
Speaker
And I was like, okay, this is this is amazing. And this is someone that I would love to have on the podcast. So I'm glad that I actually reached out to you. So thank you so much for agreeing to do this with me. How are you doing? This is just kind of the start of your dates. Late here. So about 830. Yeah, I'm doing well. And I'm grateful. Yeah, thanks for reaching out. It's my pleasure.
00:01:40
Speaker
Yes, perfect. Okay, so I think for me, I'd like to start with the genesis of people's stories. I believe that especially for us as adults, they're usually connections rather between the adults that we have and the kids that we were growing up. So what are some of the things that you'd say are key moments, experiences that you had as a child that shaped you to become this adult that you are today?
00:02:09
Speaker
Wow. Okay. Yeah. So, I mean, I grew up in Soka, South Eastern Nigeria, right? In a university town, University of Nigeria, Soka, where my parents were staff. My dad was a lecturer there, professor of history. And my mom was a university administrator, right? So,
00:02:35
Speaker
Yeah, anybody who has grown up in, who grew up in the Nigerian university campus in the 80s, late 70s, 80s can probably relate to the kind of upbringing I had. It was a very unique environment. I don't know that that environment exists anywhere today in the country at this time. It was unique in the sense that growing up in a Nigerian university campus at that time, when
00:03:06
Speaker
Yeah, the emergency system just wasn't being well taken care of. I don't know that it is today, but it wasn't at the time. So you had these lecturers or these, you know, our parents who were relatively poorly paid, right? You know, so they were poorly paid, but at the same time,
00:03:33
Speaker
because of their background and who they were and the knowledge and everything, there was this sense of self-worth, I guess you would call it, right? Which they instilled in all of us, right? And yeah, it was kind of like this bubble within the rest of Niger, even though Soka was a small town, or is a small town, it was kind of like this unique, I'll call it an incubito, right? Where,
Education Journey
00:04:02
Speaker
You know, it's not like we had much, but they were still able to create a very nice environment for children to grow. And so we grew up with this sense of, you know, self-worth that.
00:04:18
Speaker
I don't know, yeah, it's probably difficult to replicate anywhere else. You know, it had just, for example, on my street, I had the likes of Ike Anya, who is an author and renowned medical practitioner, had the likes of Chimamanda.
00:04:43
Speaker
who lived on my streets, you know, also world-renowned author. We had, in the same campus, China Chebe, lived in the same campus, you know, the likes of Chico Enequazu, who is now, who was with the NCDC and is now with the World Health Organization.
00:05:04
Speaker
You know, so we all grew up in that environment, but at that time, it's not like you don't say, oh, wow, you know, this is, you know, these are just children of university lecturers trying to scrape a living. In fact, I would say it was not until we left that environment that I actually realized how poor, you know, poor in the financial sense that we were, right, in like in terms of
00:05:31
Speaker
Naira and Cobor, dollars and cents, right? But we never, we never knew that because our parents, you know, the way, the way they created that environment, it was very, very unique. And so that's the environment that I grew up in, up until the, and yeah, it was a very, I'll say it was an awesome childhood, because there were rough times and all of that, but looking back, it was a great childhood.
00:05:59
Speaker
And then at some point when my dad retired, uh, we moved out to where, right? Where I was a totally different get a lot of fish from what I experienced in Osaka, you know? So this was not like the wider Nigeria, if you will. Um, and it took me a while to adjust, uh, to that environment, but yeah, I adjusted and I had a very, very great, I also have very fond memories.
00:06:28
Speaker
of living or not even though of course it was all this was during the this was during the early 90s.
00:06:37
Speaker
in Nigeria, which was also very interesting and turbulent time. We had the able to go to riots, you know, where, you know, I don't know how many people remember that. You know, yeah, it was just a very interesting time, but I had a great time there, made a lot of good friends who are still friends till today. And it was kind of there that I
00:06:59
Speaker
quote-unquote, grew up, if you will. In between that, I went to command secondary school, Abakaliki, which was a military-run institution in Abakaliki. I remember that the road leading up to the school was so bad that it took almost
00:07:22
Speaker
maybe you get to a bakaluki, then from a bakaluki to the school was another 30, 45 minutes, even though it was just like six kilometers of road, right? But it was also another very great, tough environment, you know, where I also created a lot of great relationships and a lot of learnings, if you will, growing up.
00:07:50
Speaker
Yeah, so that was basically my childhood, primary school in Unsuka, secondary school in command, and government college in Wari. And then I went back, I spent a year in a federal polytechnic neck edit. So that was kind of like my jam holiday sort of, but it was also a great experience too. Also tough in its own way, but I also made a lot of great relationships there as well.
00:08:17
Speaker
And then I eventually ended up in UN and I did my undergraduate in New York. It
Career at Google
00:08:25
Speaker
was also in that place. Yes. And in fact, I think that's actually so good because without you explaining your story, I just told you one of those Nepal babies.
00:08:36
Speaker
Because yeah, like seeing your path and how after university you then went to, okay, but I know it wasn't immediately, but you went to do your master's in the state and then you worked in all of these major organizations. One would have thought that, okay, maybe you had the access, but you've just explained now that it's
00:08:54
Speaker
It had a lot to do with the self-worth that your parents instilled in you and just made you feel like nothing was far from your reach. So I'd like to ask... I actually want to correct something. I didn't do my master's in the States. Oh, okay. Where is Calton College? So that's interesting. So Calton University is in Canada. Oh, okay. But an interesting thing is I actually didn't go physically to Calton.
00:09:24
Speaker
Oh, so you did it from Nigeria? I did it from Nigeria, yes. Online, yes. Wow. That story on its own, but yes.
00:09:34
Speaker
We'll probably dive into that because I feel like a lot of people would want to know how possible it is for you to actually get a degree outside of Nigeria and still be in Nigeria, maybe working. But it's interesting to hear your story. One thing I wanted to point out is you mentioned self worth and I'd like to know how you've been able to take that into your career journey. When I interviewed to get into Google,
00:10:02
Speaker
I think that's probably going to be a good example. So at that time I was, you know, my whole background had been in Nigeria. Well, actually that's not totally true. My working experience had been with Nigerian companies, let me put it that way, based in Nigeria.
00:10:27
Speaker
with a short stint in Ghana. But I don't walk, and maybe that's another part of the story, but I don't walk in different countries at different times. I had the opportunity to visit a few countries. And here I was interviewing for this role at Google. Again, how I got to that point is a different story. But I remember at the time,
00:10:56
Speaker
you know, I didn't school outside the country, right, even though I had these masters from Carlton. And yeah, at the time my attitude in those conversations were
00:11:11
Speaker
that, OK, I looked at myself, what did I have to offer in this conversation? Because obviously, I knew that I wouldn't be the only person interviewing for that role. At the time, they said that Google had how many million resumes every day or something like that. So for every opening, you had thousands of people who were always interested in that opening.
00:11:36
Speaker
The role required somebody who had a developer background. It required somebody who had some knowledge of business strategy. It required somebody who had done some community work. And it required somebody who kind of knew a little bit of the ecosystem at the time, which, relatively speaking, compared to now, you could say that there was little or no ecosystem at that time.
00:12:07
Speaker
I looked at myself, I was like, okay, I have all these things, right? And I knew that I may not be the best developer. I may not have, you know, the funny accents, right? But I had relatively, I may not even be the best in terms of business strategy.
00:12:32
Speaker
But I had done community stuff in Africa, and I had knowledge of the ecosystem, not just in Nigeria, but I'd also had the opportunity to visit other African countries and do
Transitioning Roles
00:12:51
Speaker
my work there. So I had interacted with the developer ecosystem. And I knew that nobody, or not nobody, very few people could claim to have done that.
00:13:01
Speaker
right, regardless of whatever the background was, right? So that's one. So I went into those conversations with the mindset that my, you know, what the thing that made me different, you know, or the thing that could have been a disadvantage is actually what made me unique, right?
00:13:25
Speaker
So my combination, you couldn't find my combination anywhere. That's what I told myself. And that's the attitude I took into all my conversations. And what I realized was that the interviews turned from interview,
00:13:48
Speaker
to conversations. Almost all of them were just conversations about the ecosystem, about myself, about stuff that I've done, and a lot of that. So I don't know if that answers the question, but that feeling of, hey, whatever makes me unique or different is not a disadvantage. It's more of an advantage. So that was the attitude I took into those conversations. It worked out.
00:14:17
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I think it's a very good point that you raise, like lead with what makes you unique. At the end of the day, you have a story to tell, which is going to be very different from other people's stories. Instead of looking at them and then thinking that, oh, you're competing with them, look at how you can use your own story to your advantage and lead with that in those kind of conversations. I think it just reminds me of when I was, like I was moving from
00:14:45
Speaker
my previous company to another company. Like I was transitioning to another company. And at that time I was looking for a role in human resource.
00:14:54
Speaker
I had no experience in human resource. My previous role was in an operations capacity in the bank. And it was like, how was I, what, how would I be able to sell this to the recruiter? And so I just started thinking about things that had been doing that had to do with relationships and connections with people. Cause at the end of the day, when you're in the human resource role, like you have to be people focused. So it was a lot of conversations around
00:15:22
Speaker
how I've been able to work with people, how I've been able to help people, like even informal conversations where my friends will call me about their careers or about things that they are facing with their managers and I'll just give them those kind of advice. Like I was able to sell with that and I got the job opportunity. So it's like, instead of thinking, I'm worrying about not ticking all of the boxes, see how you can transition your own story to fit into what they're looking for. So yeah, I liked that you mentioned that. So I think
00:15:51
Speaker
I mean, that's totally true. I remember funny stories. So some years before that time when I was interviewing, who at that age where a lot of my friends were getting married.
00:16:06
Speaker
whether to save cost or for whatever reason. Sometimes they'll call me to be an MC for them at their wedding reception, right? So also do, you know, I have a lot of horror stories around that. But I, you know, I obliged and, you know, as an MC at different receptions. And I remember one of the interview questions, one of the questions somebody asked me,
00:16:36
Speaker
was how good am I with public speaking, right? How good am I with public speaking? Because the role had to do, you know, you'd have to do community organizing program management work with speaker events and things like that.
00:16:53
Speaker
And at that time, I hadn't, I mean, it's not like now where you have a lot of developer events or community events where there's always that opportunity. So the only real experience I could call upon in that moment was I told him, you know, MC'd at a number of weddings, you know.
00:17:14
Speaker
I was like, you know, I've never seen a number of weddings and obviously that's a high pressure environment. And, you know, I think he
Choosing a Career in Tech
00:17:29
Speaker
bought it, I guess. What you said is totally true.
00:17:38
Speaker
you know, I believe that my entire life experiences build up to this moment, right? So, and I always try to bring that to whatever it is that I'm doing.
00:17:51
Speaker
Yeah, that's it. Like don't think any experience is unworthy of being mentioned. Obviously there are things that are personal that you probably don't have to say during interviews but there are certain things that you just think are not valuable and are not directly applicable to your roles but those might even be the things that the recruiter might say, oh my god you actually did that because I remember even my job, the job that I got immediately after the university was a lot of things I was doing in
00:18:16
Speaker
in school like extracurricular activities I didn't even think that it would take seriously and you're like oh my god like you're actually involved in that um yeah so it's it's important that you don't undermine the experiences that you're viewed in regardless of whatever it is um so I think this this brings us to your time at the university so I know you mentioned that after
00:18:36
Speaker
studying at um you know where command command university you know where you're if i'm correct command and government college you know where you move back to unn to study elect elect electronic engineering electrical engineering electronic electronic engineering a lot of schools had either electrical or electrical and electronics oh okay
00:19:05
Speaker
I think it's one of the few schools that has electronics as a separate discipline and electrical as a separate discipline in the same university. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. I think even for University of Lagos, it's electrical slash electronic. Yeah, it's weird when people hear that's the way it is.
00:19:29
Speaker
Yeah. So then how did you transition into tech? Because some people, like if you're outside of the STEM space, you think it's immediately applicable. Like if you studied electronic engineering, then you should be able to work in tech, but they're actually two different things. So how then were you able to transition from that into tech? Okay. So to understand that, I guess I need to talk a little bit about why I chose electronic engineering in the first place. Right. So, um,
00:19:59
Speaker
I've always been interested in computers in some form, you know, like you see computers on TV, you know, and stuff like that. And I was like, I need to get into this somehow. I didn't know what getting into it meant, but I was like, hey, you know, this computer stuff somehow I think I need to get into it. And I think one of my elder sisters had told me that, you know,
00:20:28
Speaker
One thing I should think, look at is computers, right? As a carrier, again, I didn't know what that meant, but it aligned with the way my head was working. So obviously, when you think about computers, the first thing that comes to mind is computer science, right? So I was like, okay, I wanna do computer science. But I was like, okay, in the Nigeria of that time,
00:20:58
Speaker
It's computer science.
00:21:01
Speaker
a viable course to study, given that there was this thing of, oh, there are no computers in the school in the first place. So I was like, if I'm going to do computer science, am I just going to be writing programs on paper? How's that going to work? Is that like, if I did computer science and I graduated, would I be able to get a job, basically? And it's not like today. At that time,
00:21:30
Speaker
There wasn't, you know, talking of late 90s, early 2000s.
00:21:35
Speaker
Like it wasn't like, hey, people are hiring programmers or things like that. So I remember from my brother, I wanted to study computer science and someone said, no, go study computer engineering. Cause like, I don't think computer science was rated highly then. So that was exactly my thoughts trend. So I was like, okay, computer science, uh, that would be too risky. Maybe computer engineering, at least that's a bit more tangible, right? You know, so, uh, you're not,
00:22:03
Speaker
programming, you maybe asked to repair the computer or something like that. That was how my head was working. But then I was like, computer engineering is a bit too niche. It's a bit narrow. So it's still risky, right? So I was like, OK, what's the next thing close to that? I was like, OK, electronic engineering.
Learning Programming
00:22:26
Speaker
You know, that way, if the computer thing doesn't work, you know, I could fall back on either the telecom side or, you know, at least there's a lot more, there's a lot more I could do, right? So that's how I settled on computer, on electronic engineering, right? And so, yeah.
00:22:52
Speaker
It was also an opportunity to go back to UNN, which is a place where I grew up. I had nostalgia. I was like, I'm missing the place. Go back there. So everything kind of worked out. Lo and behold, the year I got admission into UNN, the Electronic Engineering Lab boils down. You know?
00:23:18
Speaker
It must be so traumatic. Yeah, I was like, wow, okay. But yeah, we still made it work. And so I got into electronic engineering, but I was always in the back of my mind, like this computer thing was somehow my dream. So I remember someday or sometime in my second year,
00:23:40
Speaker
I went to see a friend of mine, you know, and in his room, I saw a book on basic programming, right? Well, this was in my first year, actually, the later stages of my first year, I saw a book on basic programming. I was like, wow, programming, you know, I've been hearing so much about programming, programming, programming,
00:24:07
Speaker
It was this exotic thing that people did, you know. But here I was with a book, an actual book.
00:24:13
Speaker
that was going to take you through the steps. So I asked him, well, you know, what's up with this book? And he was, oh, I used it for, there's a course, there was a course in our second year where you actually do some computer programming, right? So he said he used it for that course. He was in his third year, right? And I was like, wow, okay, can I borrow it? I was like, sure, you know, I've done the course. I don't need it anymore. You can take it. And so I took the book,
00:24:41
Speaker
And I remember going back to my room that day and I opened the book, you know, and I actually started reading the book and I would read the book and I would write the code, you know, on paper, right? So I would practice on paper because obviously I didn't have a computer at that time. And so basically for the next, honestly, for the next two years,
00:25:09
Speaker
What am I saying? Yeah, for the next two years, I was programming on paper, right? So I went from basic to C++, you know, all on paper, right? I was programming on paper. And when I had, at some point I did my internship with a small company that used to repair and assemble computers.
00:25:39
Speaker
So that gave me access to, that was the first time I really, really had access to like a computer, actually see what a computer was. And so I was able to, from time to time, I'll be able to type my programs in there and try one or two things. And yeah, and then there was also, there was a friend then who had a computer in school, you know, once in a while I'll go hang out there, try out a few things.
00:26:08
Speaker
And then, so that was how I got into programming. Then sometime towards my third year and beyond, you know, we then had this group of friends who are kind of in the same class, right? And we were all in the same, you know, were like-minded, I'll put it that way, right?
00:26:38
Speaker
And we believed that this computer thing was the future somehow. And so these guys were way smarter than I was, way more into the computer stuff than I was.
00:26:52
Speaker
I was fortunate to be in their company. And so together we all geeked out on this stuff. Some of them had computers, so we'd go hang out at their place, try out a few things, you know. So even just being in that environment, being with them,
00:27:12
Speaker
uh you know that that if you were to ask me was the single biggest factor that got me into the career i am today i'll say was hanging out with those friends of mine um to the point that so when time came for my uh
00:27:32
Speaker
my final year project you know it was obvious i didn't want to do a hardware project because hardware projects for people who've done electronic engineering will tell you your hardware project can disappoint you
00:27:47
Speaker
on the day of your project defense, right? Even though you may be walking in your room, you bring it to the thing. On that day, maybe one wire may just stick out and you'll be messed up, right? So software projects were kind of like the safer bets. So I did a software project. It was quite interesting. And even to show you what this positive, as I'll call it, positive air pressure does, right?
00:28:14
Speaker
I remember when I was thinking of my final year project and I was talking to my friend, you know, he may not remember this, but I remember talking to him to those who his
00:28:28
Speaker
He's the CEO of Venko, a PropTech company today. And I told him, hey, this is what I'm thinking about. He's like, what's wrong with you? That's childish stuff. Do something more exotic. And so I had to come back to him. I had to think, I said, OK, I'll do something on encryption. He said, yeah, that's more like instead of writing some silly app or something like that. So that was a kind of positive peer pressure.
00:28:57
Speaker
To that point, I'll say even my first job coming out of university was basically thanks to this group of friends as well, right? Because they had gotten a job in a company called Soccer Works that was started by somebody who had just come back and decided to start a company focused on software in Nigeria. And I was recommended
00:29:26
Speaker
you know, I was recommended by them. He was like, Hey, you know, we need more people. Do you know anybody who can do what you're doing? They're like, Oh, we know this guy, you know, call him up. And so I showed up with, uh, um, if it's not she transport boss from so got to Lagos and yeah, I had a job. My, I always tell people my interview was my first interview was two questions. The two questions were,
00:29:55
Speaker
You know, your friends said you can do the same thing they are doing. Is it true? Yes. The second question was, when can you start? You know, and so, yeah, so I always say to tomorrow that
00:30:14
Speaker
At the end of the day, like they say, it's who you know that counts, right? And it's not who you know in terms of, you know, like nepotism or something like that.
From Developer to Strategist
00:30:24
Speaker
But actually, their friends and the company you keep play a huge role in where you're going to end up in life. Right. So those among those friends, you have the likes of
00:30:37
Speaker
I mentioned Judo Siobu. He's doing very well now. You have Tachi Zukane, who is CEO of Trade Depot, also doing well. You have Mike Alopong, who is also a co-founder at Trade Depot as well. These startups are doing amazing, amazing things in the African ecosystem.
00:30:57
Speaker
You know, but at that time we were not, you know, it's not like, oh, this person is going to be the CEO of, of, of, of trade. You have people like, uh, also is you who is, uh, also running pathway projects today, um, doing great things across the region. So, but we are just, you know, folks in, in, in school just trying to.
00:31:21
Speaker
get ahead, right? So if you're asking me, how did I get into tech? I'll say it was, I had the ambition. I wanted to get into tech somehow, but the key success factor was actually my friends and the company I was fortunate to have at that time. Well, that's sort of like the part of friendships or association.
00:31:47
Speaker
and also like your willpower as well because I can imagine someone spending two years coding on paper like blow my mind but you you stop doing it and you're like oh I'm going to do because maybe the first week I'll try it and after sometimes like oh I actually need a laptop and then if you don't find a laptop your interest might just wait to something else but you stop doing it like I actually want to do this thing
00:32:11
Speaker
And then when you combine that with the associations that you also kept as well in school, it motivated you and pushed you to wanting to do more within that space. So yeah, anybody listening is very important that your associations like you don't know how they can get you to your next opportunity. Because as you mentioned, even your first job, it was through
00:32:34
Speaker
these friends and you didn't even have to prove anything. It was just, oh, your friends said you could do this and then when are you going to start? That's so amazing. Okay, so one question that I have, and I think this is just a very like by the way question, you mentioned that that was the first time that you moved to Lagos. So that was when you were moving to start at this company. Just out of curiosity, what was the difference? Like, how did you feel coming into Lagos? Because I grew up in Lagos
00:33:03
Speaker
And the first time I went to my states and on those states, it was so different. I was like, what is going on? Like, everything was happening so slow. And then my friends actually come from other part of Nigeria to Lagos. They always wondering if, like, what is going on with you people rushing? So did you have the experience? So actually, that was me going to start work was my first time in Lagos.
00:33:28
Speaker
But I would say, okay, so my experience with Lagos, I would categorize it in two ways. There was the childhood ajabata experience, the real life experience. So what I'll call the childhood experience was once in a while, my parents would visit Lagos for one thing or another, right? And
00:33:54
Speaker
you know, once in a blue moon, we'll get to go with them. Okay? And so that was, you get to Lagos, you know, you drive all the way from the east to Lagos. And, you know, you're in a staying in a guest house or something like that. And everywhere you're going, you're going with a car and, you know,
00:34:18
Speaker
that kind of experience. And for me at that time, going to Lagos was like going abroad. That was probably the same excitement. I had never been abroad before anyway, so I don't know what that could have been like. But I'm guessing looking back, that's kind of how I equated.
00:34:41
Speaker
because, you know, you go there, big city, you know, different kind of snacks and all that kind of stuff, you know, it was interesting. So that was one experience of Lagos. Then there's the other experience of Lagos, which I'll say was the real world experience. And this was when I went to do my internship with Lagos. So then I was staying in,
00:35:09
Speaker
I was staying in Ikejaya with my brother, my older brother, and I was doing my internship in Amuodafim, somewhere near South Laitang. So you can imagine the commutes.
00:35:26
Speaker
every day, you know, go to get your bus stop, get on the bus, go to Wesho D from Wesho D to sometimes mile two from mile two to satellite. So that was a totally different experience of late. That was the real experience of waking up at five thirty, coming back at midnight or ten o'clock, you know, that kind of. And I was like, wow, you know,
00:35:52
Speaker
Is this what it's right? What kind of thing is this? And yeah, you know Legos is a vibe of his own right and Yeah, it was totally different totally different but exciting in this only
00:36:07
Speaker
I can imagine. Okay, so I can see like based on your LinkedIn profile, I see that you have a combination or you had when you started your career, you had a combination of the development hardcore development side, and then you moved on into like business development as well, like the strategic side of tech.
00:36:27
Speaker
And then you combined that to apply for the role in Google. So your role in Google was a mix of both based on what you said just now. So where did that interest of like getting that exposure into the business side of tech come from? Good question. That was actually a very good question.
00:36:48
Speaker
So I started my career as a software developer. I did that for six years. Towards the end of that six years, I was still a software developer, but I was kind of more like a lead or something like that. So slightly more on the strategic side. I also used to engage customers and all that kind of stuff.
00:37:13
Speaker
Again, you have to remember that at that time, we didn't have all the fancy titles we have now, Product Manager, Engineering Manager.
00:37:24
Speaker
There was just stuff and people who did stuff. And if you did stuff well, you got more responsibility. That's basically how it worked. And so towards the end of that six years, I was kind of like, today I'll look back and I'll say like a manager, engineering or products lead or manager or something like that. That's probably how I categorize that.
00:37:51
Speaker
Okay, so while I was doing that was when I got my master's degree in technology innovations management, which basically what that did was to open my eyes to the fact that this tech thing, there's more to tech than writing code.
00:38:12
Speaker
you know, there's other aspects of technology. Technology as a business, you know, the marketing side, the strategy side and so on.
Value of Structured Learning
00:38:23
Speaker
So basically by the time I finished at Masters, I would say the way I put it is that I was in a place where I could write a business plan for a technology company. Forget whether a business plan made sense or not, but at least I could put together all the pieces, you know,
00:38:43
Speaker
to write a holistic, you know, business plan for a tech company, which, you know, that singular act is, you know, it means that you kind of have a more wholesome picture of what tech is about. Okay, so having done that, I changed jobs to go walk with Parkway projects.
00:39:12
Speaker
which incidentally was run by my classmates, Jose Zuku, from UNM. And basically, he was like, hey, again, in those days, it was more about the job to be done than the title. So it was like, we've been in the B2B space.
00:39:38
Speaker
Because the pathway projects at that time built value-added solutions, e-payment solutions for banks. We've been in the B2B space, but we want to expand out of B2B or strictly banking B2B payments and explore other kinds of business. It's like, okay, you know, you...
00:40:01
Speaker
being able to, you've done this, you're a shiny masters, you're able to write a business plan. Why don't you come help us figure out this stuff, right? And so I think my title then was Head of Strategic Initiatives, right?
00:40:18
Speaker
So that was my role. But effectively, I always tell people today, like, if you want to say, what was the job about? I was basically, I'll call myself, I was I was kind of like an intern, you know, to the CEO. Right. In that sense, in the sense that
00:40:40
Speaker
a lot of the strategic conversations that the CEO or strategic things the CEO wanted to do that were not in the strict line of business of the company. I was a person who would
00:40:59
Speaker
take those things on with his guidance, so to speak. Because again, I'm not a business. I didn't have any business creds. I was more of a technical person, but I had the theoretical knowledge. So I would work with the CEO and develop those initiatives. And in doing that, I had to articulate what the initiative is in writing.
00:41:25
Speaker
which sounds trivial, but is actually a very important part in the sense that you need to be able to describe what the thing is all about. I had to figure out who the potential partners were, engage them, find out, you know,
00:41:43
Speaker
what's important to them what's not important to them attend meetings with the CEO sometimes attend on my own come back transcribe it you know follow up talk to this person talk to that person and then
00:41:58
Speaker
I also had to work with the lawyers to draw up agreements for partnerships and all that kind of stuff. And then if there's a product to be built, maybe a demo, a proof of concept, I would work with the engineering team to get that done and demoed. So basically everything that had to do with
00:42:26
Speaker
getting that initiative or partnership up and running, right? So that was basically my rule. Eventually, so for example, when mobile money became a thing, right?
00:42:38
Speaker
there was a thing about getting a mobile money license. And I was basically the person who helped, again, under the guidance of the CEO to spare head the whole initiative of getting the license. I had to come up with, like Central Bank was asking for, oh, you need to write all your processes, how you're sure that. So I had to come up with all those processes and do all those things and write it up.
00:43:07
Speaker
And I believe we were one of the first people to submit our application, right? I believe we were one of the first people to submit our application. So all those things exposed me to strategy, business, the good, the bad, and the obvious, as it were, of being a startup or a growth company in the Nigerian environment.
00:43:38
Speaker
That's very good. And I just wanted to know if that was what informed your decision to later on take your MBA. Because you already had the experience, the business side experience, but I know you still had an MBA. You took it in 2021 and you just completed it this year. Yeah. Was that what you informed? Yeah, I mean, it was more like trying to validate
00:44:04
Speaker
what I knew and also the one thing I gained
00:44:12
Speaker
in doing it was there's also a lot of new, you know, business has changed. There's new technologies now, there's blockchain, there is AI, there is all this, you know, all that stuff. And so just even when it was for me, it was an opportunity because there were modules in that MBA that dealt with this thing. So it was just an opportunity to
00:44:38
Speaker
study those things in a structured way. Because again, what I'm going to say is very controversial. But strictly speaking, in terms of the actual knowledge you get from an MBA, you can get it online.
Leadership at Facebook
00:44:59
Speaker
There's articles, videos, content, and so on. If you are really, really, really disciplined,
00:45:07
Speaker
You can get all that knowledge online. But if you're like me, that is not really, really, really disciplined. And you actually need a structured way to get it.
00:45:26
Speaker
then yeah taking a cost like an MBA doesn't have to be an MBA but a cost like where you pay somebody money and say you know because you've paid money you keep yourself honest you're like you know if it's 11 p.m and you're about to go to bed you remember how much you paid your life
00:45:44
Speaker
I need to kind of wash my face and read this thing, right? Whereas if you are just doing it on your own, you might be like, oh, you know, I'll read it tomorrow or next week. So all those things put together are part of why I did it. And yeah, it was quite rewarding. You know, it may not be for other people, but that's my story and I'm sticking to it.
00:46:06
Speaker
No, I actually agree with you on this. I think these days, MBA is great, but I don't think there's anything that you cannot learn online these days for free, really. On YouTube, a lot of people have done so many things. I can even remember just, because for me, I'm so interested in entrepreneurship. And I know there are programs around entrepreneurship. But for me, I just feel like what makes you a better entrepreneur is actually doing the thing. And so it's like, oh, how do I start doing the thing without having to take
00:46:34
Speaker
structured program that I need to pay for. And there's been a lot of materials, even this, what's the name of this company? These guys are that, is it Textai? It's not Textai, it's the other one. I can't remember them now.
00:46:49
Speaker
Yeah, Y Combinator, they have a YouTube channel with so many information. I'm like, if you actually want to start entrepreneurship, just go and watch those videos. You're able to do so much. Yeah. There's a lot of content out there. Content is not... The key selling point of an MBA is not the content. It's one, the structure. And if you're doing it in person,
00:47:15
Speaker
the network, the cohorts. So that's powerful. And then depending on the school, the brand, the alumni network, the brand, all these are different factors. Very, very important factors, mind you.
00:47:32
Speaker
But depending on your unique situation, financial, where you are in your career, all that stuff, develop, discipline, you can, yeah, you figure out based on these factors, does it make sense for me now? It not makes sense now, it makes sense later, you know, or it makes sense now. So those are the different factors you consider in making up your mind if you want to do it or not.
00:47:59
Speaker
So, and then after some time in Google, you then moved on to Facebook, now Meta, and you were head of strategic partnership for EMEA or
00:48:12
Speaker
Africa. Yes. So that's, who would you call it? Is it Mia or Ami? Mia. Yes, Mia. So you're ahead of strategic product partnership. So how can you find out about the job and, you know, the application process? Because I know you had talked about Google's process. So yeah, I'll just like to know about this one. Yeah, I mean,
00:48:36
Speaker
So it was kind of interesting. So at that time, I was at Google. I was based in Nigeria. I was covering sub-Saharan Africa. I was also doing a few projects that cut across other emerging market regions here and there. And yeah, I was happy. And then how did that even happen? I'm trying to think.
Making Career Decisions
00:49:06
Speaker
A number of things, again, life, the way life happens, right? So at an event some years before, I ran into a bellow cubby who
00:49:24
Speaker
leads or who who ended up leading policy public policy for africa matter right at the time she was working at yahoo i believe right so i just ran into her were like oh wow you know connected exchange details and we kept in touch now um fast forward later on
00:49:50
Speaker
There was a role that came out that Facebook was interested in, and the role was called content partnerships, I believe. Right now, that role, you know, again, different companies call different roles different things.
00:50:08
Speaker
From my perspective, I saw content partnerships as video content. That was the lens, video, social media kind of thing. That was the lens I was looking at it through. And so I actually referred a few people.
00:50:28
Speaker
Like not referred, like I send them the link. A few people I knew who could do that kind of stuff. I send them the link and say, hey, this room might be great for you. Then as it happened, some of those people got back to me to be like, hey, we applied for the role. Turns out the role is a developer role.
00:50:54
Speaker
you know, and we would like you to, you know, give us tips on the interview process, how to interview for such roles, which I did, right? You know? But then more and more people, oh, and also around the same time, Ebele had sent me the role as well to say, hey, we need somebody, do you know anybody for this role? Which was also why I had distributed it around. And so,
00:51:24
Speaker
But when people were coming to me, telling me the rule was something different, so I reached out to her, I was like, this rule is not what it says, it's not what I understand it to be. Now, what is this rule really, so that I can let people know? And she's like, oh, you know,
00:51:50
Speaker
talk to the person who's hiring for the role, right? And so that was how I ended up having that conversation with Imea Chibong, who was the one hiring for the role. And long story short, you know, nothing led to another. And it burned out that, oh, you know, I was actually a fit for the role. Now,
00:52:18
Speaker
It wasn't as straightforward as that, because it meant, first of all, leaving Google, potentially moving countries, because at that time, Facebook didn't have an office in Nigeria. And yeah, so it was not a slam dunk decision. But then, basically, the key reason I decided to do it was
00:52:46
Speaker
for some weird reason. I just felt, OK, this is something new. This is something different. This is risky, but it's a good opportunity to also work with another big company that is coming to invest in Africa. And I felt that, hey, if this company is coming to invest in Africa,
00:53:16
Speaker
they can't afford to get it wrong, right? It's good for them to have the right people working with them to do that. And it provides a good opportunity. Now, between the time I took on the role and when I started the role, the scope of the role had changed because Facebook's, shall I say, ambition for the region had increased.
00:53:45
Speaker
You know, so even by the time I was getting into the position, like things had moved on so fast that, you know, it went from being a individual contributor role to actually being a, you know, a leadership role. And I was then able to take that and actually grow that into what it then became and help build out the ecosystem for Facebook in the region.
00:54:14
Speaker
Again, I'm trying to keep everything condensed, but that's the summary of it. Wow, like that's very interesting. Like looking back at your journey, just so many inflection points, so many decisions that were being made without you realizing how that would shape your, like where you currently are now. And it's just so good to see when people share their stories because
00:54:38
Speaker
Many times we always think it's just like very, it's been a very straight journey, linear path for them. But when we're hearing the stories, it's like, actually when we're making the decision, it's not like they had seen the future. They just made the decision because they thought that was the right opportunity for them at the time. And he ended up becoming something beautiful. So yeah, it's good to hear that.
00:55:00
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you know, I wrote the, it's funny you mentioned that about this, I wrote something up blog posts some weeks back about this exact same thing you're talking about. Yeah, I mean, every now and then life brings us at these crossroads where we have to
00:55:17
Speaker
you have to make a choice you know with limited data right you don't know if the choice you're making you don't know how it's gonna play out you know you can ask for advice talk to your mentor you know pray to god whatever it is by the end of the day you are the one who has to like say yes i'm doing it or no i'm not doing it right
00:55:42
Speaker
And you're the one who is going to live with the consequences of that decision. Yeah, so, yeah, what do you do, right? So, but one thing I've realized is so long as I make the decision with the most sincere reason, you know,
00:56:08
Speaker
At the end of the day, it's all for good,
Advice for Tech Newcomers
00:56:10
Speaker
right? It doesn't, like, whichever way you go, you're never going to know what would have happened if you, if you take the other way. So the best you can do is, you know, weigh all the factors that are available to you at that point in time and come out from a position of sincerity and purity and honesty and all of that.
00:56:31
Speaker
and go with it. Now, eventually, you may end up in a situation where you're regretting, oh, why did I do that? Or why did I not do that? But it's all a matter of time. A bad decision now may end up being a good decision in 10 years' time. So I've been in a situation where I had the opportunity to leave the country in my secondary school days.
00:56:59
Speaker
Right? I was in my secondary school days, early in my university days, or something like that. And I turned it down, because I was like, you know, my life is here, my friends are here, you know, I can't live this, you know, like, why? So chock it up to youthful exuberance, or, you know, whatever it is, right? Now, fast forward several years later, right?
00:57:28
Speaker
You know, I'm at a stage in my life where I'm like, where's the future? What am I going to do? You know, I'm living in a boys' quarters, you know, with Legos, with big Legos rats running all over the place. And I'm asking myself, you know, is this, you know, what's going to be the next step, you know? And looking back, I'm like, America, you really messed up. You should have taken that opportunity
00:57:57
Speaker
You'd be abroad now, who knows where you'd be, and all that kind of stuff. But fast forward again several years later, all those experiences I had leading up to that point, what helped me get into Google? What helped me get to where I am today? So you ask yourself, what is the wrong choice here? Or what's the right choice?
00:58:27
Speaker
You never know. It all depends on the position you're at, your head space, when you made that choice, and how you take advantage of today, of now, regardless of what choice you made in the past. What are you doing right now? I can talk about that for hours, but yeah.
00:58:43
Speaker
Yeah, and I would like to read the article that you wrote, and if we could share it with the audiences, I think it would be really good. Because those are the kind of questions I like to ask. Sometimes I'm like, well, what if I made this other decision? What would it have been? What would my life have been? But at the end of the day, it's like, as long as, like, don't leave in regrets, because regrets is just going to leave you stuck in a place when you can actually do something about things. So, okay, if you had made that decision, you don't know what would have happened. It probably might not have been as
00:59:11
Speaker
as great as you're thinking it would be or it would have turned out. So this is the life that you live in. Like live in a forward way. Like live life. What's the word now? Stop living backward. I think that's what I want to say. Like stop living life in rich respect. Like live forward. Reflect on the things that you've done. Reflect on the maybe mistakes that you've made. But like live life forward and
00:59:41
Speaker
is the decisions that you make now that might probably correct those things that you think were mistakes. So yeah, thanks for sharing that. I know that we are actually over time now, but I have two more questions to ask. Let's do it. Yeah, perfect. So I think the first question I'd like to ask is,
00:59:59
Speaker
Now you're currently a senior director at Okta. Based on obviously like you've had leadership roles so far. And I would like you to share from your experience now as a leader, what would you say someone that is just coming into tech, maybe a young person just right out of the university or maybe even still in university and is interested in tech, what do you think they can start doing now to position themselves well in the space?
01:00:28
Speaker
Wow, I mean, again, like I keep saying, today is way different from when we started, right? So today you have all the programs. You have coding schools all over the place. There is Decagon, semicolon, old school. I think, oh my God, there's one that's keeping me now. There are a bunch of greats.
01:00:52
Speaker
you know, programs. Some of them have scholarships, you know, there are people who are willing to pay, there's giveaways on Twitter, people giving away laptops, giving away, you know, textbooks or like courses free courses. So it's a very different ballgame now, right? I don't think there's anybody who is really, really, really interested that is not going to find an opportunity.
01:01:19
Speaker
Yeah, so I mean, if I was writing code on paper back then, today, there's way more opportunity. You don't need to do that. Or even if you have to do that, because people's situation may vary, I think the curve is not as steep as it was. So first of all, there's all these opportunities.
01:01:44
Speaker
The question then is, how do you know about these opportunities? Or how do you know what's going on? Again, it goes back to what I said before, your network. Then my network were this group of friends. Maybe total, if you check the size of the network, it was about five to at most 15 people.
01:02:08
Speaker
But that had a very, very huge impact on my life, as you can see. Today, you have that even multiplied. You have all sorts of communities out there. There's the Google Developer groups. There is, I think, the Africa Open Source group or something like that. There are so many groups.
01:02:31
Speaker
communities, mythos, events, where even if you don't know anything, you can just show up and be like, hey, I don't know anything, no, you know, maybe can I help me? I beg. And you'll find people who are like you or were like you not too long ago who are going to show you the rules, right? So I'll say find a community, like find your tribe, you know, and just
01:02:57
Speaker
let that wave carry you, you know, just anything that say or this where it's happening, you can't follow them, figure it out, right? And if you are sincere enough in what you're doing, you know, you're going to make it a key thing is that sincerity. You know, why are you trying to do this thing? What's your motivation? Because
01:03:26
Speaker
You know, again, at the end of the day, that's what's going to carry you through. When you are there in the middle of the night trying to write code that is not working, and you look to the left, look to the right, there's nobody you can point to, and you're just there by yourself, that's when you're really going to know, am I really, is this thing, am I really, is this thing really for me, you know?
01:03:51
Speaker
And if you're sincere, it doesn't matter. It doesn't mean you're a junior. You don't need to be a junior. It's about that sincerity of why you want to do it, right? So yeah, to wrap it up, I'll say, you know, first of all, the sincerity. And then if you're sincere, find your tribe, find the community.
01:04:11
Speaker
And between your sincerity of purpose and the community, just go with that flow and, you know, take the opportunities as they come. If you are sincere in what you're doing, you'll be able to spot the right people. You know, you'll be able to recognize other sincere people, right? You know, who are also sincere in what they are trying to do. And you stick with them. It's as simple as that.
01:04:40
Speaker
It's as simple as that. It's not easy in doing both. It's as simple as that.
Embracing Growth
01:04:46
Speaker
I'm a testimony of that story. I've been blessed to, yeah, I was blessed with being able to identify the right friends at that stage in my life. And I can't tell you what that has done for me. Yeah. Wow.
01:05:05
Speaker
Oh, so good. That was a very good note to end, but I'll still ask my last question, which is, what does growth mean to you? Growth means what growth means to me. Yeah, growth means trying to be better today than you were yesterday.
01:05:32
Speaker
That's simply what it is. In any facet of life, you know. I mean, you know, you could look at me and say, hey, you know, my guy's, you know, director of the Okta, what the hell, Google, wow, you know, he knows it all.
01:05:53
Speaker
It's not true. I'm still hustling like everybody else. I still walk into some meetings, not knowing anything. I'm still in some conversations sometimes where they're talking about stuff and I'm Googling to say, oh boy, what are these people talking about? What's this?
01:06:14
Speaker
I'm still scared of things you know they're like hey go and do this you know like I've done it before like I know you must do it okay and you have to go figure them out you know so and and it's not just at work also in life you know every day obviously new experiences um but
01:06:35
Speaker
being willing to embrace those new, to overcome that initial misgiving, you know.
01:06:47
Speaker
which at the end of the day boils down to fear, fear of the unknown, fear of change. The office that tell you, oh, go and do this task. You're like, no, I don't like it. Or that's not my job description. Or it's boring.
01:07:12
Speaker
or whatever. It's not as exciting as what I'm doing. Your mind will always come up with reasons why you shouldn't do something different or why you shouldn't walk on that new opportunity or whatever it is. But being able to overcome that and embrace it is what opens the door to growth. Like I said, when I moved from
01:07:40
Speaker
Almost all my career changes at different times. None of them was a slam dunk. You know that. It was like, oh, there's no way you can feel. I'll tell you, even when I moved from Parkway projects to Google, I was apprehensive.
01:07:59
Speaker
It may not, it may be, it may sound weird, like why would moving from a Niger, small, tertiary, pathway projects to Google, that's like, you know, but for me, in terms of what's important to me, I'm somebody who values peace of mind above anything else, right? And I was happy at pathway projects. It was a small company who was struggling, but the people I was working with,
01:08:29
Speaker
I enjoyed working with them. So it was a question of, who knows what I'm going to meet in this place? If you go there, they'll give you big money, but you may end up having a horrible time. It's happened to a lot of people. But I had to do my research, and I had to make that choice to step forward. Same thing moving from
01:08:55
Speaker
Google to Facebook or Meta. Same thing moving from Meta to Okta, right? There's always, even within those companies, you come up with new people who tell you, hey, you know, go and do this task. Or, you know, go and make sure you sort this thing out. It's not exciting. You'd rather not be doing it.
01:09:15
Speaker
But do it anyway. And in doing it, you learn new stuff. And you check that one off, oh, I now can do this. Even if it's not your most favorite job, but it's there in your skill set. So that's what growth means to me. It means being sincere and just trying to be
01:09:43
Speaker
trying to be better by embracing new experiences when you can, finding that courage to do it. I don't know. That's a bunch of words, but... No, that was perfect, honestly. That was perfect. I think it coincides with what you said, just one thing that I've been thinking about of late on how
01:10:03
Speaker
you what if you really want to grow you cannot skip that process of the inevitable stupidity that you feel when you're starting something and for many people it's at that stage that they they just feel like oh they can't do it because maybe they're eating so much roadblocks or they just feel like their child again and and they have to start learning something new but growth actually sits at the other end of overcoming and and pulling through all of that but yeah thank you so much
01:10:33
Speaker
There's this, what I always call it, I call it the Namibidis. When you, maybe whatever superpower you had before, it's not working anymore.
01:10:47
Speaker
and you look at yourself you're like what's wrong with me I used to be able to do this maybe before if I talked to people they always agree what I said or if I try this thing first time I always get it first time or second time what's wrong I've tried it five times it's not working or you know whatever it is that used to work is not working anymore and you're like oh boy now maybe this right what's going on but that is actually what what that means is that you are now
01:11:17
Speaker
As the saying goes, you're now in a larger room. You're now in a larger room that was different from the room you were at before. You have to relearn or learn the skills needed to survive or to navigate that larger room.
01:11:36
Speaker
And that's why, like you said, it's like you're a baby all over again. You're learning to walk, learning to talk, learning to... And yeah, you feel stupid, you feel inadequate. But as actually a sign of growth. People who never feel inadequate in anything, basically, in my opinion, means you're not growing.
01:11:54
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much. I think that's a perfect news to end on. I just want to thank you again for agreeing to do this with me. Just sending the message to you. A lot of people would have been like, oh, no, I don't want to do that. But you're just generously deciding to share your experience. Because I know for the people listening now, a lot of things that you've said would resonate with them. And
01:12:21
Speaker
If somebody had probably been stalking you on LinkedIn rather, just looking at your career like, oh my God, I'd like to be this person one day, they can actually hear the process that led you to where you are. So thank you for generously sharing. I appreciate this. And I wish you success in your journey and all of the things that you are doing. I pray that God continues to bless and elevate you and continue to take you on this journey of growth.
01:12:49
Speaker
so that you can continue to be an inspiration to us all. Yeah, no, you're all the inspiration. So thanks for watching.
01:12:57
Speaker
No, no, no, for real. What you're doing now is really, really important, which is why I'm honored to be on the show, so to speak. So keep doing what you're doing. I know it's not easy. And it takes a lot of sacrifice. So I really appreciate you. I appreciate what you're trying to do. And this is great. You are the real MVP, not me.
01:13:24
Speaker
Well, I'll take that. Thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday. You too.