For years, the loudest roles in African tech were “founder” and “software engineer.” Rightfully so, they build the foundation. But in 2025, as our ecosystem matures and funding becomes a ruthless pursuit of profitability, the spotlight is shifting. If the engineer is the builder, and the founder is the visionary, the Product Marketing Leader (PMM) is the Evangelist, the Strategist, and the ultimate Market Catalyst.
That’s why the Africa Product Marketing Pioneers (APMP) launched the inaugural APMP Top 20 Product Marketing Leaders Index in Africa. This isn’t just another list. It’s an overdue career map and a deep dissection of what world-class GTM execution looks like on this continent. For founders, this is your hiring guide. For aspiring operators, this is your career blueprint.
The PMM’s Silent War: CAC vs. LTV
In the current climate, your Product Marketing team is literally fighting the silent war that keeps the lights on. They define the value proposition, equip the sales team with compelling narratives, and, crucially, own the onboarding and retention strategies that drive Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).
The Index winners didn’t get there by running generic social media ads. They won by mastering three core African-specific skills:
- Cultural Translation: Taking a complex global idea and translating it into a hyper-local, trustworthy value proposition that resonates in a market with low tech literacy.
- Scrappy Data Synthesis: Operating with imperfect data and still delivering a hyper-targeted message.
- Cross-Functional Diplomacy: Serving as the “voice of the customer” to the Product team and the “voice of the product” to the Sales team.
Take the example of the Ogunseye tandem – Elizabeth and Israel – two of the ten Nigerian leaders featured in our Top 20.
Elizabeth Ogunseye’s success comes from her ability to build an entire PMM function that is ruthlessly focused on the post-acquisition phase. She focuses on minimising the ‘leaky bucket’ problem, the cost of building a great product, only to lose users to poor onboarding or confusing feature updates. “The best product launch is worthless if the customer can’t articulate why they should keep using it next month,” she was quoted as saying. That’s operational excellence in PMM.
Israel Ogunseye exemplifies market penetration mastery. His work shows that in Nigeria’s complex consumer market, you must focus on the ‘Aha! Moment, making the product’s core value so clear that the user becomes an advocate instantly. He’s a master of the concise, culturally resonant value proposition.
Several other outstanding leaders also made the index.
Adedamola Adeloye, who represents a new generation of African fintech product marketers shaping access at scale. His work redesigns digital banking experiences for underserved users, from agent-driven microfinance to inclusive private banking. “Technology narrows the gap between inclusion and opportunity,” he said. His expertise sits at the intersection of fintech, emerging markets, and user-led product growth, making him a valuable voice in global access-focused innovation.
Bolaji Anifowose is another standout, recognised for his depth in B2B SaaS marketing and his leadership in product marketing across Africa and North America. He pairs precise positioning with data-driven GTM systems that help startups scale with focus. His insights have appeared on HubSpot, TechCabal, and the SaaS Alliance, and he is regarded as one of Africa’s top GTM Engineering voices and an active contributor to Clay Club Lagos.
Another worthy awardee is James Praise, a product marketing consultant who helps B2B SaaS founders execute GTM and growth strategies. He is the founder of Marketing In Action (MIA), a growing newsletter and community used by more than 5,000 founders and marketers across Africa, the US, and Europe. He is also the co-founder of TITAJA. He has contributed over $10M pipeline, 15 successful product launches, and double-digit MRR growth.
Salimon Toheeb is another product marketing leader in Africa, known for transforming complex products into clear, relatable stories that drive real adoption. He has led GTM, positioning, and growth for cross-border payments, lending software, and stablecoin-powered financial tools across 40+ African markets.
Ebuka Chidube is one of Nigeria’s leading performance marketers, having managed over £1 million in ad spend across 20+ brands, including PiggyVest, Lenco, AltSchool Africa, and i-Fitness. Beyond his role leading digital marketing at PiggyVest, Ebuka is the founder of Exodigital Agency and runs the Ad Manager Community, a network of 920+ performance marketers. He’s become a go-to voice for data-driven marketing in Nigeria’s tech ecosystem.
Lade Falobi is a Product Marketing Manager and one of Africa’s most influential voices on tech marketing. She is the creator of Marketing For Geeks, a fast-growing newsletter and community where she breaks down the growth stories of African startups and teaches practical marketing frameworks through teardowns, deep dives, and case studies used across the continent. Named No-Code Tech Content Creator of the Year and listed as a Top 25 Revenue Maker in Africa, she works at the intersection of product storytelling, community-led education, and product marketing.
Kadijat Okeowo’s expertise sits at the intersection of product, data, and marketing, where she creates end-to-end growth engines that bridge acquisition to long-term retention. Her work focuses on removing friction at every stage of the customer lifecycle, improving how users onboard, experience value, and build habits around financial products.
Precious O’Dahunsi is among the first voices shaping how product marketing looks for African e-commerce SaaS and subscription-based products. Recognising the uniqueness of the industry she’s solving for, she says: “Fintech is hard, but the user behaviour, design biases, and product functionalities are often similar across different products: Save, Invest, Borrow, Withdraw.
Finally, Everest Nwagwu, a UK-based data-driven marketing technology expert and Product Marketing Manager at Procode Technology, underscores the need for sales enablement as a PMM function. As a leader in the B2B tech space, his insights underscore the vital role of PMM in driving the entire narrative engine that enables the sales team to close massive, strategic enterprise deals.
The new C-suite trajectory
For many young operators, Product Marketing offers the most direct path to a C-suite role, such as Chief Growth Officer or even CEO. It demands you understand:
- Engineering (what can be built)
- Finance (how much it costs to acquire and keep a customer)
- Human Behaviour (why people buy and retain)
The APMP Index is intended to inspire a new generation of talent. It is a signal to universities and career coaches that the Product Marketing Manager is no longer a side gig for a lapsed Content Writer; it is the strategic pivot point for African tech’s path to profitability. We are celebrating the proper drivers of scale who are proving that African innovation can go to market just as effectively as Silicon Valley, if not better, because they are navigating 54 countries and a thousand complexities every single day.
Article by Omolara Sanni, Founder, APMP
