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It’s Thursday great minds, the day of the week when we mind you of the past achievements of Africans. Today we will be celebrating one of Nigeria’s finest and successful entrepreneurs Sim Shagaya, the Founder and CEO of Konga.com, one of the largest online shopping portal in West Africa and the Executive Chairman of DealDey.
Although Sim Shagaya had most of his education in the U.S, he was born and bred in Nigeria. He attended the Nigerian Military School and went on to serve in the Nigerian Army afterwards. Then he left the country to study Electrical Engineering in George Washington University, Washington DC. He proceeded to obtain a Master of Science degree in Engineering Management from Dartmouth College; he later obtained an MBA from Harvard University, Boston Massachusetts in 2003.
Sim moved on to South Africa to work in a bank in 2005, which he did for some years before working for Google, there he became Google’s head for Africa after leaving South Africa for Nigeria. Sim had always had a niche for creating business platforms on line. Even before Konga, he had created other websites and platforms like Alarena, Jobclan, Gbogbo and iNollywood . They however not do well and then in 2005 he founded E-Motion, a billboard advertising business located in Lagos.
Sim started DealDey in 2011 after successfully convincing the board of the billboard company he owned to invest in it and then on July 2012, he founded the groundbreaking Konga.com. He had to rely on capital from an outside source though and the Swedish investment firm- Kinnevik provided the needed capital.
Sim has been recognized across the globe and has been the recipient of some many awards. Amongst his numerous achievements includes: Entrepreneur of the Year Award at the CNBC/All Africa Business Leaders Award in West Africa, Forbes’ List of “10 Most Powerful Men in Africa” in 2014, Leadership CEO of the Year Award at the 2014 The Leadership Conference/Awards.
We celebrate this great icon!
