Sim Shagaya is is Nigerian entrepreneur and the founder and CEO of Konga.com- one of the largest online shopping portal in West Africa and the executive chairman of DealDey.
Background │Family
Although Sim Shagaya had most of his education in the U.S, he was born and spent the larger part of his life in Nigeria. He attended the Nigerian Military School and went on to serve in the Nigerian army afterwards. He is an alumnus of George Washington University, Dartmouth College and Harvard Business School.
Rise to Prominence
Sim Shagaya first worked for a bank in South Africa. He went on to work for Google and moved to Nigeria after he was made Google’s head for Africa.
He 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. E-Motion is a billboard advertising business located in Lagos.
He 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.
He also admitted to having been greatly influenced by Hakeem Bello Osagie.
Accolades
- He won the Entrepreneur of the Year award at the CNBC/All Africa Business Leaders Award in West Africa.
- He was listed on Forbes’ list of “10 Most Powerful Men in Africa” in 2014.
- He won the Leadership CEO of the Year award at the 2014 The Leadership Conference/Awards.
