Nigerian chef Tolulope Erogbogbo has made it his mission to introduce authentic cuisine from his home country to the world. He shares the next phase of his journey with FORBES AFRICA.



In the luxurious ‘Members Only’ club of Soho House in Los Angeles (LA) in the U.S., Tolulope Erogbogbo, who goes by the moniker, Chef Eros, is in his element, performing with a live band as a hungry audience of about 200 people eagerly await his next culinary masterpiece.



The sold-out private dining experience was in such high demand that another 150 people were confirmed on the waiting list, to be part of the gastronomic experience by Erogbogbo, who does not see himself as just a chef but rather a culinary entertainer.



“This is someone who basically uses food as a medium of entertainment to deliver joy and experiences that are memorable just like a musician and an actor would,” Erogbogbo tells FORBES AFRICA.



And that is exactly what he did.



Erogbogbo created a carefully-curated dinner. The entire kitchen staff and the musical selection played by the live band were also led and selected by Erogbogbo.



“It felt like watching an artist perform. It was almost like watching Chef Eros sing and it was just beautiful to watch. At the end, he received a standing ovation and people were in tears,” says Deji Bello, an investment banker based in LA.



The city in California is home to Erogbogbo’s new restaurant, ILÈ. It is a far cry from the man who began his culinary journey on the other side of the world in Lagos, Nigeria, where his luxury bakery, Cookie Jar and his flagship restaurant, ILÈ EROS, cemented his status as one of Nigeria’s most promising restaurateurs.



“At university was when I felt the impact of the dining table experience and I realized how important my culture and food was to me. I had to get on the phone with my grandmother and mother who taught me how to make some of my favorite foods,” says Erogbogbo.



“I would listen to the two of them argue over the recipes and I realized that the recipe is not the bible, the recipe is just a guideline. The most important thing I took from the conversation, particularly from my grandmother, was that if you do not cook with love, then do not cook at all.”



After graduating, Erogbogbo returned to Nigeria where his mother helped him to set up his first restaurant venture by the age of 21. As a self-taught chef, he began to immediately carve out a niche when a serendipitous moment led to him creating a private dining experience for the family of Nigerian billionaire, Mike Adenuga.



“And the rest is history. From that family, I got hired by other billionaires in Nigeria and hence the moniker ‘The Billionaire Chef’ was created. My friends would tease [me] and say if you are not a billionaire, Eros will not cook for you. I started to hone into that mindset,” says Erogbogbo.



By focusing on private dining experiences for Nigerian billionaires, Erogbogbo’s brand grew significantly and so did his bank balance. His catering services cost anywhere from $10,000 to $30,000 depending on the number of courses and the number of heads at the table.



After a brainstorming session with his team, Erogbogbo’s vision transformed. His new mission is to put West African cuisine on the map, globally, and with that mandate, Erogbogbo set out on a gastronomic journey which saw him travel to exotic locations like the Hamptons, Ibiza and LA.



A seat at the table of one of these exclusive dinners will set you back anywhere from $200 to $300. Each menu features authentic Nigerian meals with a modern twist.



In light of this new brand direction, Erogbogbo moved to LA with the goal of doing three dinners in three cities, namely LA, New York and Houston. He ended up doing 13 dinners in seven cities at a cost of $120,000 to fund.



“At the end of the 13th dinner, which was New York Fashion Week in September 2021, I saw what impact my style of cooking and presenting food had made. I had not just mastered the culinary art of West African cuisine, but I had started to master speaking and using the words to match the food. This day, I saw all my skills come together. As the food was being brought forward, people were applauding. At the end of that trip, I called my mother and said ‘I don’t want to go back, I want to go forward’,” recalls Erogbogbo.



That meant switching his immigration status in the United States to one that allowed him to live and work there. His immigration lawyer advised him on the O-1 visa, which is reserved for non-immigrants with extraordinary ability.



“We hoped it could take 10 days otherwise we would be in breach of my I91 which tells you how long you can stay in America, and I would have been breaking immigration rules if the application did not come back on time. We put it in the application, and it literally took four hours and we got approved,” says Erogbogbo.



And with that approval, he was able to secure his work permit. Next up was ILÈ LA. The intimate space has played host to everyone from actor Michael B. Jordan to individuals from American financial giant, Chase Bank.



“In partnership with Chef Eros, Amplify Africa has showcased the richness of African cuisine through numerous successful collaborations,” says Dami Kujembola, CEO and Co-Founder, Amplify Africa Inc. A notable collaboration was a dinner for Disney, celebrating their flagship African animation series, Iwájú . “Chef Eros’s storytelling and innovative approach to African cuisine provides an unparalleled experience.”



Erogbogbo is also the first West African chef to serve a multi-course dinner at the global music festival Coachella, as part of their ‘Outstanding in the Field’ culinary programming. For that show, Erogbogbo cleared “north of $35,000 in fees”.



“The response has been ‘wow’. People say I am a gifted culinary artist and storyteller. We are moving on to a tour and we are excited about how the tour will be received. We are taking the table into different cities to showcase West African culinary food to the world. We will go to New York, Chicago, D.C., Los Angeles, Baltimore MD, Austin Texas, Atlanta and Miami,” he says.



The goal now is to expand his mission through a capital raise to grow the ILÈ brand as well as get the right team. Erogbogbo’s growth is one that has been both strategic and steady with a focus on patiently finding a niche that amplifies its value.



He sums this up in his advice for would-be entrepreneurs: “Ask for what you want because closed mouths don’t get fed. Be honest with yourself and your work. To thyself first be true, and finally be patient because Rome was not built in a day.”

Chef Eros wants to put West African food on the map (Image Supplied)

‘Food As A Medium Of Entertainment’: A Course In Culinary Curation By ‘The Billionaire Chef’

A personal health crisis spurred Ebun Feludu to switch to using coconut milk, and today, through her enterprise, she is on a valuable mission to plant over a million coconut trees with other farmers in Nigeria.



Kokari, which means ‘let the good go around’ in Yoruba, is a mantra Ebun Feludu has lived by for as long as she can remember. As the founder of Kokari Coconuts in Nigeria, she is on a mission to bring the health and economic benefits of the coconut crop to the world.



The genesis of her passion for economic empowerment, however, was crystalized when Feludu saw firsthand the impact her father’s death had on her mother.



“He died in his early 40s and it was a shock for my mom because she had leaned on him for support throughout and it was difficult for her when that support was no longer there. She was on her own with six children and that made an impression on me because his passing made me lose a piece of her as well – that had an impact on me,” says Feludu.



Since then, she made the decision to put women at the center of her business to ensure they are economically-empowered and able to weather life’s many storms. Following several stints in the media sector, Feludu also had a life-altering moment when she fell ill due to lactose intolerance.



“In December 2015, I had some milk and fell very ill. It was incredibly scary for everyone. It was at this point that I knew that I couldn’t consume milk anymore; I knew it didn’t agree with me and I just had to find an alternative. I lived in Lagos, so coconut was everywhere,” says Feludu.



“I started playing around with coconut milk and my kids loved it, so I started moving in that way. I later found out that about 80% of Africans and 68% of the world’s population are also lactose-intolerant, but a lot of us just deal with it because, for the most part, it does not have that much of a negative impact or affect us in an extreme way anyway.”



And just like that, Kokari was born.



Feludu spent some time in India learning about the coconut value chain, from seedling to farming and factory processing, before finally returning to Nigeria to set up her own factory with $200,000 of her personal funds.



“In the early stages, I was very clear that I wanted this to be a legacy business – coconut is a legacy business because if you plant the coconut, it can stay for about 100 years,” she says.



The coconut products market size is estimated at about $4.96 billion in 2024, and is expected to reach $7.98 billion by 2029, as per data intelligence platform, Mordor Intelligence.



In Nigeria, that economic power is already being harnessed.



Stephanie Ofori, a management consultant, has been living in the bustling cosmopolitan area of Ikoyi in Nigeria, for the past five years. During the Covid-19 pandemic, she too had a life-changing experience when she endured complications brought on by lactose intolerance.



“It turned out that although I could previously digest lactose, it had caused a lot of damage to me. I was suffering from an infection which meant I had to undergo surgery on my small intestine. It was a really scary time because it happened during Covid and I honestly thought I was not going to make it,” recalls Ofori.



The condition is one in which you develop digestive symptoms such as diarrhea or gas after consuming food that contains lactose.



Since her recovery, Ofori has completely changed her lifestyle, opting for a plant-based diet which includes the use of coconut milk, which she buys from Kokari.



“After my surgery, I started researching plant-based diets and discovered the many health benefits of coconut milk. That is when I stumbled on Kokari and have never looked back,” she says.



According to Dr Nma Okechukwu-Okoroji, President of the National Coconut Producers, Processors and Marketers Association of Nigeria (NACOPPMAN), the crop can add an estimated $400 billion to the Nigerian economy annually.



“What we are advocating for is to get the more innovative and modern seedlings from Asia. The yield is much greater with these modern seedlings and that means that the farmer can generate a lot more revenue from them because they have an average life span of about 80 years,” says Okechukwu-Okoroji.



Kokari has diversified from producing just coconut milk to over 10 products, all certified by the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC). These range from coconut snacks to skincare and even oral hygiene products.



“The coconut value chain is a $38 billion market and what we found is that most of the coconuts we get from Nigeria are imported. I am on a mission to plant over one million coconut trees with other farmers,” says Feludu.



For her, this business is also a major source of economic empowerment for women, so 80% of her workforce at Kokari is women.



“I am passionate about creating value; for women to earn economic independence. We have now created Kokari Café which is our distribution model. It is solar-powered and run by women and our vision is to grow to hundreds of shops run by women so they can also share in the value chain,” she says.



Okechukwu-Okoroji shares Feludu’s passion.



“The good thing about coconut is that it can be planted along- side other food crops like cassava without it affecting the growth, so we encourage farmers to incorporate coconut in their crops. Agricultural entrepreneurs can earn billions of naira annually from coconut production,” adds Okechukwu-Okoroji.



In addition to acquiring over 10 acres of land and growing the company’s distribution outlets, Feludu supplies seedlings to other farmers.



Kokari has also recently broken into the United States (U.S.) market, with an exhibition at the PACK EXPO East in Philadelphia, which allowed them to connect with international buyers.



It has not all been smooth sailing, but for Feludu, navigating soaring fuel prices, which peaked at about 400% this year alone, as well as delayed payments from retailers in Nigeria, has only helped to strengthen and diversify her business model.



“Last year, we had a major retailer owing us so much money, we almost shut down. Our Kokari outlet helped us with cash flow; to help us deal with retailers not paying us promptly. Also, the cost of electricity and fuel to power the place forced us to move to solar as a source to power our business,” says Feludu.



“We are grateful we are doing that, and this is the model that we will take [to] the other outlets.”



According to Feludu, the goal for up-and-coming agricultural entrepreneurs should be to solve problems bigger than themselves.



“If you are solving your own problem, you can start and end it in a short amount of time. But when your ‘why’ is bigger than you, then you have the focus, the passion and drive to pursue a dream that is much bigger,” she says. Her ‘why’ is to plant the million coconut trees and create a coconut city where everything from farm to factory, as well as schools, hospitals and amenities in the entire community, is supported by the coconut enterprise. And all while placing women at the heart of economic development.

Kokari Café is solar-powered and run by women

Seed Capital: The Nigerian Farmer Wanting To Plant A Million Coconut Trees

Botanikka Wine Bar and Kitchen founder, Margaret Adenike Balogun, has a history of turning concepts into businesses. She shares more on her penchant for creating instagrammable spaces and taking up opportunities when they emerge.



Very early in her life, Margaret Adenike Balogun was told by her parents that she was so much like her grandfather, wh0 made his money through entrepreneurship.



The comparison first began when she was in primary school and she decided to make her own coconut candy, which she sold to friends at school. When Balogun attended university in South Africa, she started making wigs/weaves for her friends to earn extra money and during her vacation trips back to Nigeria, she would buy high-end clothes from South Africa. Balogun would then sell them to her friends, who could not easily access these clothes in Nigeria.



“That is when my entrepreneurial journey started,” says Balogun.



Though her mother hoped she would follow in her footsteps as a civil engineer, once she was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, she knew there was no going back.



While she studied software engineering in South Africa, she worked as the head of events for an international company. She was responsible for building the events department from the ground up.



“I realized that I was bringing in all the business based on my relationship with people. Somewhere along the line, I lost that job. I had gotten three big contracts for the end of the year and, all of a sudden, I [received] my dismissal letter, so it was a shock to me. I was so devastated,” says Balogun.



“I went back to all the people that had given me business and asked them if they would put it in my events company, which I had registered, and they said yes. Luckily enough, they swapped the contracts to my business – that is when my events career took off.”



This was in 2011 and the contracts she secured at the time were worth $50,000.



“That is when I realized that I want to be successful. I delivered everything for the event, and said to myself, ‘I can make a lot of money from this’, but I didn’t have a clue how I was going to do it,” recalls Balogun.



With her events business, Diamondink Luxury Events, up-and-running, Balogun decided to do a course in entrepreneurial management at the Lagos Business School and with that, things became a little clearer. Every step she has taken since has been strategic.



As a start, Balogun decided she would offer her clients a one-stop solution for events.



“I realized with events comes the decoration aspect. I didn’t want to outsource any aspect of the event management process to any other vendor. I went to China and bought goods and props for events and set up an office in Lekki (a city in Nigeria) where people could come and rent [décor],” she says.



“Then I thought of the floral aspect, and I decided to go to school in America for six months to study floristry because every event needs flowers. By the time I came back, I knew so much about fresh flowers, and I could apply fresh flowers into faux flowers as well.”



With that new skillset, her business, The Billionaire Florist, was born.



To promote it, Balogun created a pop-up shop on Valentine’s Day, where people could purchase fresh flower boxes. That strategic move into the floristry sector demonstrated Balogun’s penchant for spotting opportunities in unlikely places.



The African floral industry has grown significantly over the years. Dominated by the Kenyan Floriculture Market which is estimated at $1.09 billion in 2024, the horticulture sector is the third-largest foreign exchange earner, according to the Kenya Flower Council.



The value of flowers is still a largely untapped market in Nigeria.



Balogun then had a ‘eureka’ moment to merge flowers and food.



“I realized, at the time, that I ate out almost every single day. I had a small space in front of my office, and wanted to create a small space for myself to have pastries and tea with my friends. My biggest supporter, who was my business coach at the time, said ‘let me coach you on this plan’. So, we did the business plan, and it became more elaborate than I planned. She advised we take a bigger space. I wanted to display my floristry and I wanted it to be very pretty,” says Balogun.



After a month of planning, The TeaRoom was born.



“We created a brand identity around the entire brand which had a slogan that says: ‘Eat, Drink, Tea’, and ‘The TeaRoom, a beauteaful place’.”



“On opening day, it was filled to capacity, and we were overwhelmed. It was so busy. We were having queues for the first time in my life. Our opening month, we had over 10,000 followers on Instagram and the whole world was talking about this place. We got featured by ESSENCE Magazine in New York as one of the top seven international brunch spots in the world,” says Balogun.



And just like that, she became a pioneer of instagrammable spaces in Lagos.



The TeaRoom, which opened in December 2018, reportedly racked up revenue of over N120 million (approximately $72,000) in its first quarter of operations and, by that time, had already broken even on its capital investment. In year one, the establishment brought in an annual revenue of N240 million or around $144,000.



“The TeaRoom is really beautiful and, as a content creator, it is one of the most instagrammable locations in Lagos. From taking pictures with the Beetle car to the floral décor inside, the TeaRoom really pioneered beautiful unique spaces for food in Nigeria,” says Vera Frank, a content creator in Lagos.



As the TeaRoom grew, Balogun decided to open a more premium and upscale version of it, Café de Flore, during Covid, and it also became a viral hit. This was followed quickly with another instagrammable location, Mykonos On The Roof, an ode to the Greek island.



“In terms of ambience, this was one of the chicest cafés you could find in Lagos. Everything from their décor was popping. If you were looking for an instagrammable location in Lagos, this was the place to be,” says Sisi Yemmie, a blogger and YouTuber in Lagos.



However, the rapid pace of growth soon began to take a toll on Balogun.



“I was overwhelmed and managing it was crazy. We had major staffing issues and pilfering was rampant. During Covid we had the highest inflow of customers. People were stealing and I couldn’t manage it because I had to handle three restaurants all by myself. Along the line, I fell pregnant so I couldn’t keep up. I fell into a post-partum breakdown. I was burned out and I couldn’t do it. So, I threw in the towel and decided to focus on my child, and took a break for a year,” says Balogun.



She was done with restaurants. Or, at least that is what she told herself.



“I wanted to be a consultant and design beautiful spaces for people and help them set up their bar and restaurant, but I didn’t want to own a restaurant again. I felt like it had been so overwhelming for me for the past five years. I wanted to be there for my child,” says Balogun.



But ever the entrepreneur, Balogun soon became restless again and saw another opportunity. She raised over N225 million ($146,700) to convert one of her properties in the highbrow area of Ikoyi into a boutique apartment and, to cater to the residents, her latest creation was born – Botanikka Lagos, a kitchen and wine bar.



“Botanikka had been ready since December 2023, but I couldn’t open it because I was thinking to myself, ‘Can I be the same TeaRoom owner and do I have this drive to push Botanikka the way I did the TeaRoom?’” says Balogun.



The answer was yes.



Botanikka opened to notable praise and has the potential to be just as successful as her previous creations, but this time, she is more than equipped to ensure she stays on top of things by introducing the right systems and structures.



A rebranding and reopening of the TeaRoom is also reportedly in the works, with the possibility of opening up an international branch as well.



“Our Instagram page is still active with about 35,000 followers and over 3,000 DMs requesting to book [the] TeaRoom,” Balogun says.



The events business is currently still open and running but more focused on kids’ events. According to Balogun, the business’ clients “have included Aliko Dangote and Daisy Danjuma”.



As she continues to break barriers, Balogun hopes to steadily live up to her grandfather’s reputation… one distinctive concept at a time.

Margaret Balogun (Image supplied)

Flowers, Food, Tea And Everything In Between: The Nigerian Events Entrepreneur Restless With Ideas

As Ghana’s home market picks up, so is the demand from consumers for opulent interiors, but there are challenges.



The interior design market size was valued at $130.5 billion in 2022 and is expected to grow to $211.29 billion by 2032, according to global market research company, Market Research Future. In Ghana, in particular, Statista reports that revenue in the furniture market is estimated to be $431.30 million in 2024, and projected to experience an annual growth rate of 2.04% (CAGR 2024-2029).


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“Ghana is currently at an exciting juncture. We are seeing new design concepts come to the forefront. There is a growing recognition of intrinsic elements, such as superior craftsmanship and exceptional materials,” says Pamela Michelle Aboagye, founder of Ms. Atkinson Interiors.



“I feel Ghana could be the leading luxury interior landmark. We have the resources, talent and craftsmanship to exceed all other countries. We are gradually being acknowledged and appreciated for our design ability.”



Mawuli Nii Mensah, CEO of Tema-based FBM Marble &amp; Granite that provides natural stone products, further attests to this.



“Our typical clientele encompasses a diverse range of individuals who share an appreciation for the transformative power of a beautifully designed home. Contrary to the perception that interior design is just for the affluent, everyone deserves a living space that is both opulent and reflects their style,” he says.



“While my portfolio includes clients with notable budgets, which grants me the freedom to prepare designs without constraints, my core philosophy is that beautiful homes should be accessible to everyone.”



The sector can also be considered crucial because, in many cases, it helps to increase the value of real estate. This, in turn, would have a knock-on effect on sectors like the furniture market.



A 2022 report from the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) states that the country’s real estate sector had become the fastest-growing sector with a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30% between 2016 and 2021. The development of residential spaces has been bolstered by both the government and the private sector, having increased to 5.86 million structures in 2021.



The luxury space in Ghana is also brimming with opportunities and Yaw Appiah Kubi, designer and creator of Yak Group, has taken full advantage of this.



“I have worked on several high-end projects including, Ridge Condos, Teflon Suites, Gyamfuaa Courts in the Ashanti Region, in addition to the resplendent Makers House Chapel, Embassy Gardens, Airport Hills, Lakeside Estate, Chain Homes, and many more luxurious apartments in Accra. Luxury consumers appreciate made-to-order experiences and exclusivity. Offering tailored services, limited editions, and immersive retail experiences can create a strong brand connection and customer fidelity,” he says.



Yak Decor, one of the portfolios in his group, is a luxury home interior design company in Ghana. With a 10-year journey in the dynamic world of interior design, Kubi prides himself on being a creator of bespoke furniture and a curator of luxurious interior and exterior furnishings.


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However, as attractive as real estate – and supporting sectors – is in Ghana, the current economic climate still presents challenges for businesses in the industry.



“The last few years’ recession has impacted every known industry and the interior design industry is without exception. Many projects have been put on hold, and the profitability and sales of many interior design businesses are going south,” says Kubi.



He has seen a decline of about 30% to 50% in revenues due to decreased consumer spending on non-essential items such as home furnishings and decor.



“I was also faced with increased competition from other similar businesses as they offered lower-priced goods and services to stay afloat in the market. This, again, has caused a dent in profit margins as I was compelled to compromise on our prices as well,” says Kubi.



Aboagye, of Ms. Atkinson Interiors, is, on the contrary, seeing a slightly different trend from Kubi.



“We have seen a 20% growth rate month-on-month in Q1, showing an understanding that, despite financial difficulties, people are choosing to invest in themselves and their homes. Some clients are conscious of their spending. I think that the goal should be to cater to everyone and educate our clients on the value of what we offer,” she says.



“With luxury interiors, the beauty lies in the durability and quality of our products. Everything is made to last, which means that while clients might feel like they are spending more, especially during an economic crisis, we are actually helping them make long-term investments in their homes.”



For Kubi, the current state of the economy as well as the increasing competition has led to a shift in strategy.



“In our recent board meeting, we concluded that we needed to find real estate investors, like developers who are planning long-term projects, because getting hired for these projects can fill in the gaps in our pipeline,” he says.



Aboagye has taken a different approach to protect her business and guarantee growth in these uncertain times.



“Businesses like mine require collaborations with other professionals, like architects and developers. Clients should allow interior designers to be involved from the early stages. Additionally, collaborating with personal shoppers and fashion stylists will help bring all design elements together. The public should also be educated on what interior designers offer,” says Aboagye.



For those looking to break into and thrive in the luxury interior design sector, she believes that ‘stickability’ is key for long-term growth.



&nbsp;“I think that we will continue to trend upward throughout 2024. Government-endorsed legislations like The Year of Return [in 2019] encouraged the diaspora community to return. We are continuing to see an upsurge in foreign investment and a demand for properties to meet a certain level of standards. There is a spotlight on Africa, and with this, I hope that we can see a boost in our economy and the opportunity for our people to spend and elevate our lifestyles,” says Aboagye.



Despite the increase in residential structures in the last decade, Ghana’s housing deficit is still around 1.8 million, according to the GIPC. The Ministry of Finance estimates that about 60% of Ghana’s urban population needs assistance in securing adequate homes.



However, this does present untapped opportunities for real estate entrepreneurs like Kofi Anku, who leads Pokuase Heights, a sustainably-built middle income housing development in Accra.



“We have over 200-unit townhouses which feature solar power, insulated walls and ceilings, biodigesters and water supply. Our two bed bungalows start from $42,000 whiles the three-bedroom shell homes go for $72,000. If you contrast this with the average home in the United States, which is $435,000 or the United Kingdom, which is $375,000, you realize just how much value you get with our homes,” says Anku.

Real estate agent showing new house to customers

Luxury Checks In: Ghana’s Real Estate Sector Sees Room For Improvement

Olushola Medupin wanted to stay away from the food business but now has a growing array of upscale restaurants selling West African cuisine in some of the world’s most dazzling cities.



For Olushola Medupin, his passion for food was a gift passed down generations, like a prized heir- loom. His mother ran one of the most successful restaurants in Kwara State in Western Nigeria, and before her, his grandparents too ran their own local outlets selling inexpensive, pre-cooked food to hungry customers.



Cooking, literally, is in his blood. “My mother was in the restaurant, cooking, when she had to rush to the hospital to give birth to me,” says Medupin. “The only life I knew from a young age was to go to school and from there, the driver would bring me to the restaurant because there was nobody at home. I was forced to stay in the restaurant all day.” That was his world growing up.



Food was such an integral part of the family dynamics that all five children competed as cooks and Medupin always won. From the tender age of five, he knew his way around the kitchen, mastering local dishes such as jollof rice, eba (made from dried cassava flakes) and pounded yam.



In addition to his natural affinity for the culinary arts, Medupin also discovered he had a passion for making money. In 1991, when his father traveled to India for six months and forgot to leave his cheque book at home, Medupin’s mother struggled to make ends meet. He helped by climbing orange trees and selling the fruit in the market. By the time he was 14, he was already a serial entrepreneur, renting out his BMX bicycle for transportation in the local markets, managing a rub- bish collection business, an internet business, a supermarket and a phone repair business.



His final venture before he left Nigeria for the United Kingdom (U.K.) was a car wash business which he sold in two months for three times the capital he invested. Medupin used the proceeds to fund his education in the U.K. where he stud- ied investment banking and securities. But he didn’t land the right opportunities.



“I wasn’t getting any major jobs apart from kitchen jobs in the U.K. In 2009, I said to myself ‘I am not working in the kitchen anymore’ and started a security job in Cardiff.”



But very soon, Medupin resigned and started looking every- where else for inspiration. He didn’t want to return into the restaurant business as he had done it all his life.



“It is a very hard industry to be in. You go through a lot of emotional trauma because you must put your heart and soul in the business. If people are not happy with the food, they tell you off straight away and when they do that, it gets to you. So, I didn’t want to do it again,” says Medupin.



The National Restaurant Association in the United States (U.S.) estimates a 20% success rate for all restaurants; but about 60% of all restaurants fail in their first year of operation, and 80% within five years of opening. As much as Medupin fought the idea of starting a restaurant, that was the only viable option before him. He finally decided to give in. He moved back to London, found a place for rent in Lewisham and started his first outlet. It was tough.



“In my first year, I wanted to sell the business. The guy who wanted to buy it from me offered me £300,000 ($375,400) and at the last minute, offered me £150,000 ($188,000) to still run it. It was a struggle initially, but we decided to push through,” says Medupin.



And he made it work. Along with his wife Eniola, also his co-founder, Medupin is today a certified restaurateur with 13 fine dining restaurants, branded Enish, spread across London, the U.S. and Dubai.



West African cuisine has its loyal patrons in London, evidenced by the popularity of Nigerian restaurants such as 



Akoko and Chishuru that earned Michelin stars recently. “Not only are African restaurants abroad scarce but also finding the ingredients to cook the food you grew up with can be very challenging in London and America. That is why Enish has such a strong fanbase. They are bringing quality Nigerian food to immigrants abroad,” says Michael Amusan, a financial analyst in London and frequent visitor at Enish Covent Garden.



Concurs London food critic Tola Ogun: “This shows you that West African food, especially Nigerian, is here to stay. Michelin stars were typically awarded to white-skewing restaurants and so for Nigerian restaurants to receive the highest honor in the food business is testament to how popular our food is.”



“For someone like me who is based in the U.K., this is amaz- ing. Nigerian cuisine is growing in popularity all over the world and I am definitely a big fan of Enish,” attests Florence Otedola, popularly known as DJ Cuppy.



Serving everything from pounded yam to egusi soup (made from ground melon seeds) with a side of lobster, Enish has managed to carve out a place for itself in the U.K.’s fine dining scene, and now also in Dubai, where there are multiple outlets.



“The management already knew our brand, so it made it easy to sell our concept. It cost us $4 million to open our first branch and during that year of building the restaurant, we still had to pay a monthly rent of $50,000,” says Medupin. He has invested a lot in each of these projects, such as spending £25,000 ($31,200) a month to rent the dining space on Oxford Street and £20,000 ($25,000) a month for the Knightsbridge location in London, he adds.



In Dubai, known as The Dwntwn By Enish and located near the Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest tower, Medupin’s outlet is a swanky 40,000sqft nightclub featuring two bars and several VIP lounge areas.



All the way from Africa to the Middle East, Medupin says he imports about 80% of all his ingredients, which presents its own unique challenges.



“You cannot buy egusi for six months at a time and there is an issue with the consistency of the products. Every time you order egusi or palm oil, it has a different taste. So, it’s up to you to use your experience to keep the taste consistent. So, it’s a big challenge,” says Medupin. But he is powering on with his vision to put Nigerian cui- sine firmly on the world map, one dish and one restaurant at a time.

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The Reluctant Restaurateur Serving West African Cuisine Abroad

Born in the United Kingdom, Nigeria-based Matopeda King, who has been at the forefront of fashion for 14 years, is using her atelier to empower women.



Matopeda Abiola King is currently experiencing &#8220;a full circle moment&#8221; with her fashion brand. As Creative Director for Matopeda Atelier, an international custom wedding dress design company, King has styled several high-profile celebrities in Nigeria and the United States (U.S.), establishing her brand as one of Nigeria’s notable fashion houses.



She says it is her care and attention to clients that have become her signature.



“I knew by [the age of] 30 or 31 that my calling was to work with women. A lot of the people I meet, our conversation isn’t just about the dresses, what I do is to build women up, I empower women. When a woman wears my dresses, they get the dream job, they feel confident, they feel like they can achieve anything,” says King.



When singer and actor Fantasia Barrino had the honor of paying homage to the late Tina Turner at the recently-concluded 66th Grammy Awards in Los Angeles in the U.S., she did so in a customized Matopeda dress. The hand-beaded corseted body suit for her performance was reportedly created in just 48 hours. Beyoncé also sported a Matopeda floral dress while celebrating her fifth wedding anniversary in Hawaii.



Her penchant for “empowering” her clients actually came from overcoming her own personal struggles, including a difficult childhood and a bad relationship. Born in the United Kingdom in 1983, her family had to move to Nigeria where they lived for three years, and then return to London when King was 10 or 11, where they began life as immigrants seeking asylum.



“We couldn’t afford rent so we had to move about 20 times [when I was between] 12 to 27 because we couldn’t find accommodation. We had to go to the council. Always moving houses was consistent. I don’t have pictures from my childhood because we were always moving. We didn’t even have a fridge at some point,” recalls King.



She picked up the essence of style from her mom but her real “eureka moment” happened when a bad relationship left her looking like a shell of her former self.



“I was really slim and I realized I was really sad. I wasn’t aware I hadn’t been eating properly and my eyes had gone in. I remember crying a lot, but I just didn’t realize how bad things were. I said I had to do something else,” says King.



That was when the brand, Frock it, Rock it, was born.



“Before that, I was the one who always styled my friends and the one that everybody called for birthdays, interviews etc. If somebody got a job, they would give me their card to say ‘go shopping for me and build a workwear wardrobe for me’. I knew I was creative with clothes, but I just didn’t know what to do. I thought it was styling at first,” says King.



Over the years, her brand has evolved from making outfits that provide the perfect silhouette for black women to breaking the mould when it comes to wedding gowns.



“Matopeda is fast becoming one of the most important Nigerian fashion brands simply because of the level of attention her creations get. Nigeria has a lot of talented designers but very few can boast the calibre of clientele Matopeda has, and that is testament to how unique her outfits are,” says Amanoshi Dania, a Lagos-based designer.



“I used to turn them (customers) down because wedding dresses were always covered up, no neckline, no shoulders, no beading, no crystals. I didn’t want to do that; I always want my customers to be the best-dressed and that is what we stand for,” adds King.



“So, we started custom-making our fabrics and started [embellishing] our dresses with crystals and beads. We started to show shoulders, [a] lower neckline and crystals, and a lot of clients in America started to pay attention because no one was doing that in America.”



That was the beginning of the rebirth of her brand, which then became Matopeda Atelier.



King is at peace with herself and her calling. Her experience of navigating depression and overcoming emotional trauma, coupled with her strong faith, has birthed an intuitive designer who pays attention to every aspect of the process, including the wellbeing of the women wearing her clothes.

Matopeda King; image suppliedz

From Designing For Beyoncé To Brides In Lagos, This Fashionista Is On A Mission

Ghanaian photographer Emmanuel Mensah Agbeble, who arrived in New York with just $50 in his pocket, is now weaving the Afrobeats genre into the global narrative with his creativity.



Emmanuel Mensah Agbeble was barely three years old when his&nbsp; father, who owned a photo studio in Ghana, handed him his first camera.



That would have been the obvious choice of career for a young Agbeble, but his sights were set on the basketball court. After his parents relocated from Nima, a slum community in Ghana, to the United States for greener pastures and a better life, Agbeble hoped his dreams of making it to the National Basketball Association (NBA) would materialize.



But destiny had other plans.



“I was playing basketball and Ghana is a football-[loving] country, so I wanted to go to America to try and be in the NBA. That was my dream. I had a full scholarship to come to America but unfortunately, I didn’t get the visa, so I could not leave. This shattered my dream, I was heartbroken,” recalls Agbeble.



But as the saying goes, when one door closes, a window of opportunity opens. He simply leaned on his innate skill-set.



“I would always shoot pictures of my friends and myself playing basketball and it looked really good. My best friend at the time said ‘why don’t you do this full-time’ and that is when I started taking photography seriously. I was always working with my dad in the studios, developing films, so I saw how the whole process worked. I learned from the ground up, because we didn’t have any photoshop or any editing tools like we have now, so we were always in the red room or dark room developing film,” says Agbeble.



Little did he know a flourishing career as a New York-based photographer awaited him. But Agbeble didn’t just want to emulate his father, his ambitions for photography went much further.



“My dad wasn’t doing gallery shows… I learned through other people and that has helped me grow. The vision is to be worldwide. I want to build a legacy. I want to tell stories the right way and inspire the world; spark somebody’s brain to be able to do what they love so much. Everything I do has to inspire the world,” says Agbeble.



When he started his journey as a photographer in New York, he only had a capital of $600.



Through his company APMWorld, Agbeble has now led campaigns for global superstars such as Africa’s very own Burna Boy, Davido and Wizkid, in turn, making his own contributions to the surge in global popularity of the Afrobeats genre.



“Photography has become increasingly popular in Ghana as a way for young people to start earning extra income but very few have actually been trained from the ground up from when they were able to walk. That is what makes Emmanuel unique. He is a true creative and one of the few Ghanaian photographers whose work is celebrated globally,” says Barnard Ashiadey, a journalist in Ghana.



Agbeble also attended the 2024 Grammy Awards, where he says he had a life-changing moment.



“When Burna Boy was about to perform, they put my cover on the screen and that was a wow moment for me because I am a boy from Nima, who had big dreams and got his NBA dreams shattered and came to America with only $50 in his pocket and is now sitting at the Grammys, a show he used to watch on TV. That was bigger than a dream. I don’t know how to explain that feeling.” This year, Agbeble is planning on expanding his story-telling skills by launching two books that will further seek to inspire the world.

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The Boy From Nima With The World On His Camera

British-Ghanaian radio and television presenter DJ Abrantee always knew the value and authenticity of Africa’s music scene. But how and when did this journey start? He shares his story – one filled with adversity and triumph.



Over the past decade, African culture and diversity has been celebrated, globally, through the musical genre of Afrobeats, a sound characterized by the infusion of infectious African rhythms, melodies and cultural nuances.



So notable is the meteoric rise of this genre that, for the first time in the history of music and pop culture, superstars like Burna Boy, Wizkid, Tems and many more are not only winning coveted Grammys but are consistently selling out global arenas and prestigious venues like Madison Square Garden in New York City, in the United States.



An unsung hero in this genre is British-Ghanaian radio and television presenter, Abrantee Boateng, known by the moniker, DJ Abrantee. Before global audiences had truly heard the unique African sound, Boateng, while in the United Kingdom (UK), persistently encouraged radio stations and executives to pay attention to African artists.



At 14, he already knew he was going to become a DJ, and was inspired by his uncle Henry, who was a DJ and hosted several house parties in the East London neighborhood where Boateng grew up with his father.



“I dabbled in so many things, but I always had a love for music. I joined [a] crew, which was made up of five members. We met in the 80s and carried on doing Ghanaian-based events in London. The idea was to support the Ghanaian community. We started doing the Ghana Independence [Day] events, but I stood out because I had a good voice and I wanted to do TV and radio,” says Boateng, on the phone with FORBES AFRICA for this interview.



He got his lucky break on the radio when he was called in to cover the graveyard shift – between 12AM and 6AM in the morning – on the UK’s Choice FM, now Capital XTRA.



“After the cover, I started the process of introducing African music to the station for consideration. But the radio station did not like the idea. They said UK audiences were not ready for a foreign sound like this, so it will not work,” he adds.



But Boateng was not dissuaded. He began doing bigger parties and events which showcased African artists who, at this point, had little to no exposure to the UK market. He spent his own money to fund local talent and conclude deals with them in Africa, so he could bring them over to the UK to expose their talent to mainstream media. Soon, his events started gaining traction in big venues like The O2 Arena and, slowly but surely, the executives at the radio station began to take notice.



“I saw this as an opportunity to help African mainstream artists get exposure on UK radio. Nigerians were calling their music Naija Beats and Ghanaians were calling theirs Hiplife. I knew it would be easier to market and promote the genre if we grouped everything under one umbrella, and that is where Afrobeats came in,” says Boateng.



His mixtapes started trending and became popular among the younger demographics.



“The radio station started taking note and finally said they would like the idea of trialing Afrobeats. I played it during the overnight shows and they monitored the responses. In 2011, they put on the very first Afrobeats-titled show in the world on Choice FM, anchored by me.”



“The reaction was massive and it trended everywhere. It was the first time that everyone could hear African music playing on a UK radio station and made the artists overnight success stories in the UK. Everything I sold to the artist was proven right. I knew that African music could be one of the biggest in the world and I decided that this was the genre of music I was going to sell to the world,” says Boateng.



This vision has become a reality. According to Spotify, about 43% of all music streamed on the platform is Afrobeats and the genre was streamed more than 13 billion times in 2022 alone. On Audiomack, Afrobeats averages 2.5 billion streams a month.



Boateng says he had a hand in artists at the time, like D’banj for his Oliver Twist hit, to gain international exposure. He believed in the power of this genre so much that he immediately began to trademark the words Afrobeats, Afrobeat Charts, Afrobeats Awards, etc with the goal of turning it into a global multi-billion dollar business by Africans for Africans.



“I remember when DJ Abrantee spoke to me about promoting my music in the UK on his Afrobeats mix tape and it was exactly the right push I needed at the time, because I wanted to be more than just a Nigerian artist in Nigeria. He gave my music exposure, and I secured a new fanbase for the first time in the UK,” says D’banj.



After securing Afrobeats on the UK charts, Boateng was asked by both Nigerian and Ghanaian governments in 2017 to use his brand to facilitate UK artists to come to Ghana and Nigeria in a bid to encourage the diaspora to return to Africa.



Then, tragedy struck.



“We were about to launch it properly with contracts signed and everything ready to go. I also had my TV show about to launch in July 2017 but, by August 2017, I had a massive stroke. I didn’t have any health issues prior to this. I went to bed after DJ-ing and didn’t wake up in the morning as myself and that’s when things changed for me.”



He was confined to a wheelchair and told by the hospital he would never be able to walk or talk again, effectively removing the prospect of becoming a DJ.



“I was told I would never be able to recover the right side of my body, arm and leg and I had significant injury to the brain. The prognosis was the worst-case scenario and they gave me and my family a choice of whether I should live and be in that vegetative state or we can turn the machine off and give me a peaceful death,” recalls Boateng.



Everyone had, collectively, decided he would be kept alive and since then, Boateng has undergone several life-threatening operations to repair and recover. He was able to open his eyes and slowly regain the use of one of his legs. He recovered some of the things they told him he would not be able to do, including the ability to speak.



Similar to how he overcame the naysayers and brought Afrobeats to global audiences, he is determined to continue his recovery and says he is “doing better everyday”. And if his determination in the past is anything to go by, Boateng is in poll position to overcome this experience and get back to his love of spreading Afrobeats to the world.

DJ Abrante Boateng; image supplied

‘I Knew African Music Could Be One Of The Biggest In The World’: How This DJ Played His Part In Promoting The Afrobeats Genre From A Decade Ago

Diverse photography can help challenge perceptions and fight stereotypes. When Amanda Esther Akokhia started her photo studio some five years ago in the United Kingdom (UK), where she grew up, she was not aware just how important this was. At the time, photography was a hobby but it soon began to give her life purpose and meaning.



“When I started working, I would leave work during lunch, take pictures and return to work, and that was how I started photography. I wasn’t really fulfilled doing my job, but photography made me really happy. I knew in my heart that this is what I wanted to do [for] a living. That led me to open my first studio at 24,” says Akokhia, born in the UK but whose parents are Nigerian.



She’s the owner of Green Studio and now has over a decade of experience in the industry. Through education and the consistent drive for representation, she hopes to use her photography platform, Amanda Akokhia Photography, to bring about much-needed change.



The British Journal of Photography found that, globally, about 70% &#8211; 80% of photography students are women but they only account for 13% &#8211; 15% of professional photographers. Furthermore, the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics also reportedly estimated that, although women account for half of all working photographers, they still struggle to get opportunities.



When Akokhia started cutting her teeth in the industry, she had already noticed the disparity.



“I knew I wanted to do photography, but I could not find any successful role models that looked like me in the industry to emulate,” she recalls.



This was before the Covid-19 pandemic. Despite this, she decided to fully commit – she quit her legal profession and opened her studio with £10,000 ($12,400), which she secured through a combination of savings and investment from her business partner.



“They believed in my vision and were eager to contribute,” says Akokhia.



In those days the vision for the brand was simple.



“I didn’t know what the industry was like, I just knew my dream was to shoot for big magazines and to see my pictures on billboards. I was really interested in beauty and fashion and my vision was to be a commercial photographer who shot for the big brands that I admired so much growing up. I didn’t know how I was going to get there but I knew that was what I wanted to see myself doing,” Akokhia adds.



Within two years of opening her business, Akokhia had already fulfilled her goals in photography, working with brands like BBC, Warner Brothers, Harper’s Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, Disney and Pantene, among others.



“I started thinking [about] what the new vision for me at this stage of my life is. And I started to imagine a world where everyone would feel seen and can be seen through my work and encouraging other photographers to capture everyone. Sometimes, when you look at magazines in the UK, you only see photographers of a certain type and color. I shoot everyone as I would shoot a model for a campaign shoot,” she says.



Akokhia has steadily grown her business from one that generated a monthly revenue of £5,000 ($6,200) to one that has secured individual commercial campaigns worth £15,000 ($18,600) by elevating her business and building relationships with prominent commercial brands. An important focus for her is representation in her work, both behind the lens and in front of it.



And, as a rising creative in the sector, Akokhia hopes to achieve her new vision for creating inclusivity through training and mentorship, where she teaches future photographers and creatives how to turn their passion into a business.

Amanda Esther Akokhia started her first photo studio at the age of 24; image supplied

The UK-Based Nigerian Photographer Using A Different Lens To Challenge Norms

Following the COP28 United Nations Conference in Dubai in December, the race is on to find tech-centered solutions to assist in achieving global sustainability goals, say experts.



Each year, world leaders and governments meet to have a series of high-level conversations about how to manage the growing impact of climate change under the auspices of the United Nations (UN). Late last year, COP28, the name given to this gathering, took place in Dubai and, like previous years, the discussion was around figuring out innovative solutions to help tackle the effects of climate change and take stock of the progress that has been made so far.



“For a long time, people were unsure or maybe not aware of the devastating action of the climate issue we have now. COP each year reminds people that there is an issue and to really understand the actual impact of climate change and how it is affecting your lives now and COP centralizes a lot of this information and allows it to be further disseminated afterwards,” says Adiam Gafoo, founder and COO of Arts Help, a global non-profit that uses art as a vehicle for social change.



With over 21 million followers, Arts Help is one of the world’s largest digital art publishers. They utilize their social platforms to convey different messages about social change, like climate action under the framework of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.


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The next wave of climate action plans is due in 2025. Organizations like Arts Help consider themselves non-traditional climate activists who aim to create a means of understanding the jargon around this through all art forms.



“One of the missions of Arts Help is to establish a digital climate library with the United Nations, which they are building over a period of five to six years. The Web3 component of this is for me to basically find innovative ways of how Web3 can build the infrastructure that is going to support it in various ways,” says Del Titus Bawuah, Founder of Web3 Accra and board member of Arts Help.



“The current state of climate change action is at a critical juncture. It&#8217;s evident that more aggressive and collaborative efforts are needed globally. The focus should be on implementing actionable strategies that go beyond discussions and lead to tangible results. It&#8217;s imperative that we see a shift from pledges to action, with a stronger emphasis on accountability and measurable outcomes,” says Eche Emole, co-founder of Afropolitan, a movement towards creating a digital nation aimed at enabling all Africans, both on the continent and in the diaspora, to live abundant lives.



“We are dealing with just the basic understanding and many people simply don’t understand the gravity of climate change because they do not see it in their day-to-day lives. So, it is very easy to dismiss this as something that is somewhere else. I think just the basic lack of understanding is the biggest issue facing climate change, so they leave it up to the policy-makers and government because it is seen as their job,” says Gafoo.



Bawuah has a different take on the issue.



“There is a lot of bureaucracy in my opinion with climate change and there needs to be a startup approach to climate change where people have an environment where innovation is the driving force. There is too much red tape and there is also a situation where it is seen as a ‘buzz word’ as opposed to a real-life problem. So, each day, things are not moving quickly enough to get better,” he says.



“I think one of the main challenges is the gap between commitment and implementation. Many nations and organizations pledge to reduce emissions, but actual progress is often slow. Another challenge is the equitable distribution of resources and technology, especially in developing countries that are most affected by climate change. Additionally, there&#8217;s a need for more public awareness and education to drive collective action at all levels,” says Emole.



These reasons have led many to look at innovative solutions like blockchain, for example. Its use is seen by many as revolutionary in tech and has been largely lauded as a tool to bring about change in archaic financial and supply chain management systems. The main proponent of blockchain that makes it unique is its decentralized record of transactions.



“How we approach the future in terms of digital infrastructure is key. In this case you think of the COP approach of understanding that climate change policies can no longer be held in physical documentation, especially if you are promoting things that are positive for the environment. It will be unwise not to consider technology when you are building the new infrastructure,” says Bawuah.



“Also, when you think of this kind of initiative through the lens of Web3, it is highly efficient to have things on blockchain because it is more transparent and it also holds leaders accountable. More importantly, it allows us to consolidate data about the environment in a much more efficient way than has ever been done before.”



So how can blockchain help combat climate change?



“Blockchain can play a pivotal role in combating climate change by enhancing transparency and traceability in carbon emissions tracking. It can facilitate the creation of a more reliable and efficient carbon credit market, ensuring that emission reductions are accurately recorded and traded. Blockchain&#8217;s decentralized nature also allows for more democratic and inclusive participation in climate action initiatives,” says Emole.



“Blockchain is the kind of infrastructure that can consolidate information transparently and distribute it efficiently. I think some institutions have made good strides but how do you access the data? How is data shared between one another and is that transparent? I think that blockchain as an infrastructure, supporting the data and the way we form [an] agreement between one another, is going to be central to changing the future in how we tackle climate change. Digital infrastructure is the way forward and that is going to reduce most carbon emissions,” says Bawuah.



There is still a long way to go in the fight against climate change and while blockchain has potential, it&#8217;s not without challenges. The energy consumption of certain blockchain networks is a concern.



“However, these challenges can be managed by adopting more energy-efficient consensus mechanisms like Proof-of-stake. Additionally, integrating blockchain with renewable energy sources can further reduce the carbon footprint associated with its operations,” says Emole.

The pollution hand and effective management with netzero symbols – renewable energy, reduced CO2 emissions, green production, and waste recycling in business, net zero carbon.

‘Need A Startup Approach’: Views From West Africa On Using The Blockchain And Even Digital Art To Combat Climate Change

Affinity Africa founder Tarek Mouganie is addressing the challenges of the unbanked in his country through digital finance.



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“As a result of having been excluded from financial services, small business don’t get created.&#8221;
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After dropping out of high school, Ibrahim Musa, a small business owner based in Ghana, has become somewhat of a serial entrepreneur. With stints in everything from cold stores, car sales and, most recently, selling electronic goods in Makola Market, the country’s busiest local market, his biggest challenge is actually in the digital sphere.



For years, Musa has faced a major snag when it comes to opening a bank account for his small business due to the many regulations involved.



“Every time I try and open a bank account, I am asked for so many documents that I simply do not have. After being rejected several times, I just decided to use mobile money for my banking needs but that is very limited because you cannot have access to the full range of services traditional banks offer and that is a real problem for entrepreneurs like me,” says Musa.



He is not wrong. The problem he speaks of affects over 500 million people across sub-Saharan Africa who do not have, amongst other things, proof of official identity documents. This is according to a 2017 article by the World Economic Forum. The knock-on effect of this problem is that it has led to over 350 million adults being financially excluded and expected to live on cash without the use of financial facilities, cited in a report by AfricaNenda.



For Ghanaian entrepreneur, Tarek Mouganie, the only way to tackle a problem like this is through the development of digital financial services. His solution, Affinity Africa, is a digital bank.



Mouganie holds an engineering degree from Imperial College London and PhD from the University of Cambridge. After working in the United Kingdom (UK) for a number of years, he decided to relocate back to Ghana to help solve the problems of the country’s unbanked and underbanked. It took Mouganie four and a half years to build the company and it finally launched in 2022.



“With no marketing spend, we have acquired 30,000 accounts just by word of mouth and, for 90% of our customers, we are their first-ever bank account. We have helped our customers save $23 million to date and have provided $13 million worth of loans as well. The average revenue of our borrowers has gone up by 500% and their employment base has gone by 3.5 times, so we are seeing growth,” says Mouganie.



The implementation of mobile money certainly is a silver lining for the future of the unbanked but according to Mouganie, it simply provides access. There is a deeper need to be addressed for small business holders.



“Our bank accounts are free, we don’t have any monthly charges and we provide interest across all accounts and that is a unique proposition. Our lending specifically focuses on small businesses which is what traditional banks don’t typically do,” says Mouganie.



He believes the problem is endemic to how African governments run their economies.



“If you look at OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries, the tax to GDP ratio is 33%. If you look at Africa, it is 16%. So, we are the lowest tax-paying continent in the world and for this reason, governments typically don’t have money which causes a huge amount of issues. But what is even worse is that a majority of our taxation is indirect –VAT, E-levy and other solutions that are quite regressive.”



“The reason that exists is because we have a huge informal sector and as a result of having been excluded from financial services, small business don’t get created,” Mouganie adds.



According to Mouganie, the reason why small businesses are important is because in developed countries, they employ about 60% of the population and drive about 50% of government revenue.



“In our part of the world, that is just not the case. So, to create employment and build resilient economies, we need to support small businesses, nurture them and encourage those new businesses to be registered, so that we can drive employment and socio-economic development,” says Mouganie.



This is, perhaps, what makes Affinity’s growth noteworthy.



The journey has been far from easy. The stringent process of obtaining a banking license has proven to be a challenge for many fintech entrepreneurs in the past. But Mouganie was so confident in his vision that he sold his house in London to invest in Affinity and set out to conquer the hurdle of regulatory approvals.



“Regulators exist because they are there to protect the consumer and who is the consumer? In our case, it is our customer and the regulator in Ghana wanted to support economic growth and support small businesses. We came up with a proposition of increasing financial inclusion in the true term and not just giving accessibility, which is what mobile money and digital money has done, but very much focus on affordability as well,” says Mouganie.



He founded Affinity with the aim to solve the problem of financial inclusion through digital finance and based on the growth Mouganie has achieved so far, the digital bank is ready to transform Ghana’s unbanked sector, one customer at a time.

Tarek Mouganie; image supplied1

The Ghanaian Entrepreneur Who Sold His House In London To Build The Dreams Of SMEs  

Ghanaian entrepreneur Alima Bello, the founder of Bello Edu, would have been toiling away in a greasy oil seed factory had she not chosen to ignite her passion for contemporary fashion design.



Fashion and art are often synonymous. Just ask Ghanaian fashion entrepreneur Alima Bello, who in 2014 launched a contemporary womenswear brand named Bello Edu.



“We describe the clothes we are making as canvases for women,” says Bello on her body of work.



And as with every canvas, this dream too started on a blank sheet of paper.



As creative director of the brand, humble beginnings preceded international acclaim, such as showcasing her work on prestigious platforms like the Portugal Fashion Week as well as being stocked in retail outlets across Africa.



The challenges included facing an industry that makes it difficult to raise capital to fund entrepreneurial dreams.



“Fashion is such a seasonal business, and a lot of traditional finance institutions don’t understand how it works. It takes time,” says Bello, reiterating the words of most startup founders in the fashion sector.



“The way the fashion cycle works; you get a loan, you do your samples, you start taking your photographs, start doing your campaign, start getting your pieces into retailers and that takes about three months before you start seeing any income from your designs.”



Bello had to bootstrap her dream by creating capital working several odd jobs. Her career also did not take a linear path.



Growing up in her hometown in Kumasi, Bello was expected to graduate with a degree in business management from the University of Ghana and promptly join the family business.



“As a first-born child to a Yoruba man, my father expected me to finish school and join him in the family business and he designed my life that way – go to school to study business management and then finish and come back and work in an oil seed factory where we were processing soya bean oil, palm kernel oil and refining as well.”



That would have been a slippery slope, but thankfully, serendipity came calling.



Bello was privileged enough to have her father fund her travels abroad during school breaks when she would indulge in her love of fashion. But after graduation and once she started working for him, he told her she must buy her own tickets to London because he was no longer paying for them. It meant she couldn’t shop abroad and had to relegate her fashion choices to the boutiques of Kumasi.



“[But] if I found stuff I liked, they wouldn’t have the color or size I wanted,” recalls Bello. 



The only alternative was to start making her own clothes. That interest transformed into a calling and with that, Bello managed to convince her father to let her follow her dreams to pursue fashion.



“It took me two to three years to convince him that I wanted to move to Accra to start my business. But when I moved, I couldn’t find a fashion job with any established designer or brand. So, I found a job with a furniture company that had an interior design unit.”



Bello’s thinking was if she could find a job and see how brands interacted with customers, it would give her a better understanding of what customers were looking for and see how the customer-facing side of the business worked. But that did not pan out well and she found a part-time job in an ad agency doing administrative work and spent her spare time “pattern-drafting”.



Although she was garnering interest with her designs and being invited to showcase her work on some platforms like other designers, Bello decided to take some time out and focus on building her brand.



“It took some time to define who the Bello Edu target is; who am I designing for and what my brand story is. I took my time to answer these questions; trying to flesh out the ‘why I want to do this’ and ‘for whom am I doing this’.”



After some soul-searching, she finally understood.



“The Bello Edu woman is 33 to 35. She is a hard-working woman and confident of who she is. She likes to splurge every now and then but is very conscious about where her money goes. She can buy a luxury bag and a t-shirt from Zara and pants from Bello Edu. She doesn’t take herself way too seriously and she takes life as it comes.”



And with that, came the biggest turning point in Bello’s career. She rented her first brick and mortar store in 2017 and that is when it became “real”. Then came the challenges. By 2018, Bello had depleted her entire life savings trying to keep the business afloat. Although the brand was attracting some sales, the money was not enough to sustain the business.



“I would get so stressed that my jaws would lock up. I had dried up everything and I had workers depending on me. We were not making enough to [even] pay for our overheads,” says Bello.



Then 2020 came and Covid-19 hit. What should have spelled the end of her business brought unexpected respite. “When the lockdown happened, along with the Black Lives Matter movement, there was a boost in sales for black-owned businesses. We got featured on certain platforms and there were more eyes on the brand and that is what helped to boost sales and keep as alive. We didn’t have a marketing budget and everything we have done today has been based on word-of-mouth.”



Today, the brand is in a much more comfortable space and the vision has evolved, she admits. “African fashion had become so popular, and the prints were so bold and in your face. My personal taste is very minimal when it comes to the choice of colors and prints. I wanted to create a brand that would serve as a canvas,” says Bello of her minimalist designs but maximum dreams.

Alima Bello; image supplied

What It Takes To Build A Fashion Brand In Ghana

The importance of agriculture to Africa’s economic output cannot be emphasized enough. Desmond Koney’s Complete Farmer is doing close to $10 million in revenue, and have just closed a funding round of $10.4 million. 



Agriculture has been lauded by many governments as the key to reducing poverty due to the sheer number of people that it employs. According to figures from the World Bank, agriculture contributes to about 65%-70% of Africa’s labor force as well as 30%-40% of GDP.



Furthermore, it estimates that agriculture is the most significant economic activity for about 70% of people on the continent who live in rural areas.



The Ghanaian agriculture sector, in particular, is characterized by smallholder farmers who farm on less than two hectares of land, according to the Ministry of Food and Agriculture in Ghana.



“Agriculture has been the principal sector for the development and growth of Ghana’s economy for decades and it still is a major contributor. It contributes somewhere in the region of about 30% to the GDP of Ghana. The main challenge is how we industrialize the process in order to scale and reap the fruits of the sector,” says Kwame Nkum, senior consultant at Nkum Associates.



This is a challenge Ghanaian entrepreneurs in the sector have been grappling with for years. On the one hand, the agriculture value chain is perhaps one of the longest in any industry. Also, there are interdependencies between one stage of the value chain and the next but, often, there is a lack of data between the two, which creates significant infrastructure challenges for the sector.



For mechanical engineer cum farmer, Desmond Koney, these challenges represent an opportunity to innovate and find solutions that help improve the sector. As the CEO and Founder of Complete Farmer, a crowd farming platform that facilitates easy sourcing of quality farm produce through an African online market, Koney is embarking on an ambitious journey to digitalize agriculture in Ghana.



“It is an exciting time to be in the industry and an exciting time to solve the problem the way we are solving it. Africa is producing close to $90 billion worth of produce and if you were able to build the infrastructure that captures that value, we can create a lot of wealth for local farmers,” says Koney.



The problem is that the farmers producing this are not able to sell their products to the people who need it and this is where Koney is hoping his innovative solution will make a difference.



“This presents an interesting opportunity to build global supply chains and ecommerce platforms. Once we can build this infrastructure, the opportunity of that $90 billion a year is something that should excite anyone,” says Koney.



Currently Complete Farmer is doing close to $10 million in revenue, according to Koney, and they have just closed a funding round of $10.4 million. That has led to the expansion of the Complete Farmer solution to Togo. The platform allows buyers from all over the world to order produce under the care of Complete Farmer.



“When a company makes an order, they put it up on the platform and make it possible for anyone who wants to be a supplier of the product to get on board by way of investment,” he says.



Like many great success stories, Koney’s journey was born out of adversity. Although his father was a pineapple farmer, Koney had opted for a life in the sciences with dreams of becoming an engineer for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Then tragedy struck.



“My father passed away suddenly when I was just about to write my exams in school, and it was a really difficult moment for me. One of my lecturers said this was going to be a defining moment for me and looking back now, I can see how it was. Suddenly, I had a little brother to take care of and I had to support my mother. I remember after my father’s funeral I had only GHC [Ghanaian Cedi] 10 in my pocket,” recalls Koney.



He decided to continue his father’s legacy as a farmer but first, he had to understand the challenges he went through. After working on his father’s farm, Koney realized the challenges were glaring.



“We realized that the agriculture industry has middlemen who purchase goods at a low price from the farmers to sell at much higher prices. This means farmers had no access to the market they were producing for,” says Koney.



With these invaluable lessons, Koney decided to utilize his engineering skills to build farms like factories.



“The initial vision was ‘how do we make agriculture like what China has done with manufacturing?’ In China, you will see people using their garages to set up factories… So, for me it was like ‘how can I bring that same energy and that same approach to farming?’ So, the vision was to really figure out how to build a farm like a factory and try and emulate how China has become a superpower in manufacturing,” says Koney.



The company designed an end-to-end process to solve the value chain issue by digitizing it. By doing so, Complete Farmer has become a bridge between both the demand side and the supply side which increases efficiencies in the entire value chain.



“It took us six years and we have had about three or four pivots to really figure out how we can create that factory to get there. Trying to raise funds, trying to figure out business model implications and trying to figure out the legal implications, and that is what we have been doing for the past six years to try and build this vision,” says Koney.



He is a firm believer in Africa’s ability to be the breadbasket of the world and, now, with Complete Farmer, it has become his mission is to make the rest of the world believe in Africa’s ability to feed everyone too.

Desmond Koney; image supplied1

‘Completing The Chain’: How This Ghanaian Is Bridging Gaps Through Agritech

Former legal professional Kemi Lewis stepped into the unknown with a belief in herself and her vision. She tells FORBES AFRICA about her journey to becoming a beauty entrepreneur.



It’s been around a decade since Kemi Lewis traded a thriving career in law to live out her childhood dream of making natural hair a norm for Lagosians, and she has never looked back. The success of her business, and the strength of her determination, has seen her go from two members of staff to 30 in three locations.



As she speaks from her first location in Dolphin Estate in the wealthy suburb of Ikoyi in Lagos, Lewis is still amazed at how far her dream has come. Growing up as the first and only girl out of four children, Lewis felt she had a responsibility to follow in the footsteps of her grandfather, who was a judge at the time.



“Law was intense in terms of the sheer amount of stuff you needed to learn to understand the cases. I did not absolutely love all aspects of the law but being the first-born child and a girl, you just get on with it and I thought I was going to give it my best. So, I studied it at the University of Lagos and went to law school in Abuja, and then got a Masters in International Business at the University of Dundee (in the United Kingdom),” says Lewis.



She was determined to take her legal career as far as she could but after securing a role with a public-private partnership company in Lagos as a legal advisor, she began to have second thoughts about her future.



“Back in 2013, I had a glowing feeling in my heart and I knew that I wanted to do something for myself. My heart kept saying something in the beauty and health sector but I was not sure what I wanted to do. A good friend of mine had opened a salon so I asked her for advice.”



“We had gone to college together so I’ve known her since I was 10 years old and she said to me, ‘you have always known how to do hair and right now, I’ve opened a salon and a lot of girls want to go with their natural hair’, so she said if you open a salon specializing in natural hair, it will do well. And it ignited something in me and the feeling in me was this is it, this is what I want to do,” says Lewis.



Her initial vision was to create a safe space where people who had natural hair would come and take care of their tresses. And this is how KLS Natural Beauty Bar was born.



“I wanted to create a space where when you come with your natural hair, you would be welcomed and your hair would be treated with the necessary care and respect, and you won’t be told to go and relax your hair. You would have the right products for your hair and, most importantly, you will have your hair styled according to your specific needs,” she says.



Until her eureka moment, natural hair in Nigeria was a hugely underserved demographic in the beauty industry which meant that Lewis had to overcome several obstacles to ensure her success.



“The initial reaction when I told immediate family was shock, horror and dismay. The question was, ‘what are you going to do with your law degree?’ Hair dressing was seen as a derogatory profession and for people who did not go to school. So, it did not have the prestige that my legal degree had and a lot of people thought I was making the wrong decision.”



The next challenge was getting the right space and, most importantly, convincing her stylists about her vision of working with natural hair. This is also why education and training is a big focus for her.



Lewis believed so much in her vision that she liquidated her life insurance policy and scraped together enough money to make her dream the success it is today. Ten years on and her lesson for entrepreneurs is rooted in what she learned in the early days of her business.



“Even if there are no laid-down steps to follow, if you want to do something, you just need to create your own steps and create your own market. Secondly, not everybody will believe in you and even if they don’t, as long as you have conviction in what you want to do and you believe in yourself, just give it 150%,” says Lewis.

Kemi Lewis image supplied

The Tress Test: How This Nigerian Entrepreneur Went From Law To Labor Of Love

Founder and creative director, Daniel Diyepriye has a goal in mind – to build a brand that will stand out amongst the rest. And while his start in the designer clothing business wasn’t conventional, he knows exactly where his journey is going to take him next.



The African luxury fashion segment is expected to reach $1 billion in 2023, according to market research company Statista. Jeremy Nel, Managing Director of South African-based luxury marketing firm, Luxury Brands, reportedly estimates that there are over 160,000 millionaires in Africa with a combined spending power of about $700 billion. These millionaires want the very best and are willing to spend top dollar when it comes to fashion.



“Louis Vuitton just got a market cap of $500 billion and Shell’s market cap is nowhere near that. Imagine a world where African luxury becomes a lot more lucrative than oil? That would completely transform the African continent and that is why I want to be a big player in this space,” says Daniel Diyepriye, founder and creative director of what he hopes to be Africa’s first luxury fashion house, Daniel Diyepriye.



Diyepriye is not wrong. With the over-reliance on oil and gas by most African countries, especially Nigeria, its largest economy, he may actually be on to something.



The eponymous brand, which launched just before Covid-19 wreaked havoc all over the world, pays homage to the legacy of his late father who epitomized elegance and class. He passed away during the pandemic following complications from a stroke he suffered when Diyepriye was just 14 years old.



Back then, the dream was not fashion but simply, finding a way to support his mother, who was now the primary caretaker of her paralyzed husband and their three children.



“I dropped out of university in my first year. I had to make money for the family and I felt that I had to take the responsibility to provide. I thought it was going to be five or six years before I made money from what they were teaching me in university and I could not wait that long,” recalls Diyepriye.



That is when he became a serial entrepreneur. At first, he took over a modelling agency called Lethal Model Management when he was 21 years old. He then moved on to buying and selling sneakers before transitioning into a car rental business, which he still manages today. The business focuses on renting smart cars for under a pound an hour.



“The name of the company is called SmartMove Car [Hire]. We took some investment, and we run a membership model. Sainsbury’s backed us and allowed us to put our cars in their parking lots so customers can take the car from one Sainsbury’s [store] to the other. But I needed to make a business that could scale because the problem with car rental companies is that when all your cars are rented out, you stop making money,” says Diyepriye.



After the death of his father in 2019, Diyepriye and his brother – who, sadly, also passed away last year due to a heart condition – decided that a luxury fashion business would be the best way to honor him.



“I got my flair from my dad. He used to always wear nice suits. The heritage is to honor my father and it means everything we do has to honor who he was, from the quality of our products and everything we say as a brand,” says Diyepriye.



His eureka moment for his signature brand, coincidentally, also came from his father.



“Me and my dad used to play with jigsaw [puzzles] and he always used to tell me that the jigsaw relates to patience, attention to detail and trying to see the bigger picture. I had an epiphany one day that it would be really cool to put a jigsaw on a bag. And that is what has become our signature look.”



Diyepriye taught himself design and learned how to use all the software applications he needed to make his creations come to life, in order to bootstrap the company and grow it organically.



With the help of influencers to get the word out, the brand was launched with £10,000 ($12,000) he made from his car rental business. Soon after launching, Diyepriye made the decision to focus on the United States (US) market due to the volume of orders they received from there.



“Till date, we have done about $500,000 in revenue and a lot of that money has gone back into the brand. The first tackle for us was validating luxury to say that this bag is luxury regardless of who it is made by. We use materials that fast fashion brands won’t and can’t use,” he says.



As far as Diyepriye is concerned, most of the founders spearheading European luxury fashion houses are men but when it comes to Africa, there is no one male fashion mogul dominating the luxury fashion scene. His goal is to take advantage of this first-mover position and evolve his brand into the Daniel Diyepriye Group, where similar to the LVMH family, he will also be able to launch and acquire other ancillary brands to become a billion-dollar fashion house.



Like many sectors in Africa, technology is providing a platform for the luxury fashion industry to leapfrog archaic infrastructure and scale rapidly. As a result, online stores and social media have provided a platform for the Diyepriye brand to carve out its presence in the industry in the space of only three years. With that in mind, who knows what the future might hold?

Author: Peace Hyde

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA