Uche Ofodile ’ s passion to see young African leaders at their ultimate best
COVER STORY
Uche Ofodile ’ s passion to see young African leaders at their ultimate best
Uche Ofodile is passionate about supporting Africa ’ s next crop of leaders . She is a strong advocate for women empowerment through ‘ forward leadership ’ and has for the past 10 years been at the forefront in driving business turnarounds for top multi-national companies across Africa . She has taken up some of the most powerful jobs in Africa ’ s telecommunication industry including CMO and more recently a CEO role in DRC
In this interview with Business Times Africa , Uche talks about her career rewarding experience in DRC and her desire to contribute to nurturing and developing talent in Africa .
BT : Welcome back from the DRC . How was the experience as a first time CEO and in DRC ?
UO : It was by far one of my most exciting career experiences . First of all , it was a completely new experience , I had never worked in a francophone country so I had to try to quickly learn French . It was also my first CEO role . When I first arrived in DRC , I took the opportunity to travel across the country and I was pleasantly surprised at the beauty of the Democratic Republic of Congo . They have the most beautiful landscape .
From the moment I landed in Kinshasa , what was obvious was the energy of the people , they were so vibrant . My immediate thoughts were how can I harness this energy through use of technology ? And indeed that was my challenge for the subsequent 2 years . Our strategic focus was to turnaround the commercial performance , improve the brand perception as well drive a much stronger employee performance and engagement . I believe we were able to achieve all 3 and this eventually led to an in-country acquisition by Orange . Looking back on it , I can honestly say this role was by far the most challenging and probably the most rewarding career experience .
BT : Tell us , in what ways is technology changing the lives of the people in DRC ?
UO : As a business we were very eager to get people connected , especially online . Internet penetration in DRC is still below 10 percent and this was a big opportunity for us to drive data . Our goal was to find really innovative ways to get people online .
One way we approached this was through partnerships . One of our most successful partnerships was with Facebook to provide people with access . We launched a product that gave new data subscribers free access to Facebook and a number of other sites relevant to our customers and we were also able to do a workshop for some of our external stakeholders including very senior government officials . We were able to bring more people online and we also demonstrated to the government that it is a useful tool to speak directly to their constituents . It was brilliant .
One of the biggest challenges we faced was providing the Congolese with affordable Internet ready devices ( a big consideration for
2016 | Business Times Africa 37