Growing up in Aba, a city in southeastern Nigeria, Obiageli Okafor’s ambitions were shaped by the examples around her.
As a major trading and manufacturing hub, Aba offered her countless glimpses of entrepreneurship in action. Years later, those early influences would lead her to build a footwear company of her own in Lagos.
Four years ago, she moved to the United Kingdom, where a master’s degree in digital business management opened the door to a career in technology. Since then, she has held product management roles with companies across the UK and Dubai, building experience at the intersection of technology, business, and product.
Alongside her corporate career, she founded PMhelp, an edtech nonprofit created to help aspiring product professionals find their path into the industry.
She has also recently written a book inspired by the question she is asked most often: “How did you achieve all this in such a short time?”
In this conversation, she talks about orchestrating her success with a five-year plan, learning to network and volunteer, starting afresh in a new country, and the benefits of visibility in her career.
If your career were a movie, what would it be called, and why?
Audacity. I’ve always said that if I ever write a memoir, that would probably be the title, because so much of my life and career has been defined by having the audacity to punch above my weight.
I have applied for roles I did not completely feel ready for. I have entered rooms where I was one of the youngest people there, one of the few women, sometimes the only African woman, and still believed I had something valuable to contribute. I have moved countries and rebuilt my career in a new market.
I have also put myself forward for awards, speaking opportunities and leadership roles before I had any guarantee I would be chosen. Some of those decisions led to recognition like TechWomen100, one of Brummell’s 30 Rising Stars of London, one of She Inspires’ 100 Female Impact Leaders in the UK, and the first African woman to win the Women in Telecoms Champion Award.
To me, audacity is not arrogance. It’s being willing to ask, “Why not me?” before the world has necessarily permitted you to believe it.
Much of my career has come from doing things before I felt completely qualified, prepared, or certain of the outcome. Sometimes audacity looks like confidence. Sometimes it’s simply being scared and doing it anyway.
Read also: How Afolabi Sokeye 10x’d his income in one year
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Last updated: September 7, 2026
