How Treford is bridging the mid-level skill gap across Africa

For many mid-level tech talents across Africa, the promise of career progression can feel precarious. One moment, you’re riding high, trusted with bigger responsibilities that seem to signal an inevitable move up the ladder. The next moment, you’re staring down a project or challenge that exposes gaps you didn’t know you had, and suddenly, that next step feels further away than ever.

The imposter syndrome begins to take hold, but the skill gap is equally challenging, leaving talented professionals stuck between junior enthusiasm and required senior expertise.

This has become a systemic problem that’s threatening the growth of Africa’s startup ecosystem. Treford, an Edtech platform co-founded by Harry Enaholo and Toyin Olasehinde that has helped thousands of tech talents transition into tech, has recognised this crisis and is responding with their most ambitious pivot yet.

Treford’s journey began in 2019 with physical training focused on No-Code roles. Olasehinde recalls running sessions in Ibadan and Ile-Ife and planning expansions to other cities in 2020, until the pandemic hit. “We had plans to go to other cities in 2020—but then COVID happened,” he notes. The disruption accelerated Treford’s move into virtual learning. “We started our first virtual programs in 2020, testing with webinars before going all-in on fully virtual trainings. It allowed us to reach more learners and quickly adapt to different learning needs.”

Transitioning from entry-level to mid-level professionals

After five years of focusing on entry-level career changers, Treford is launching a comprehensive suite of accelerator programmes designed specifically for working professionals who need to level up fast. The shift comes as companies across the continent struggle to fill mid-level roles with candidates who can deliver results.

× Sponsored

“We’ve moved from a situation where the biggest challenge was getting people into tech, to one where companies need people who can move the needle,” explains co-founder Harry Enaholo.

Having run more than 50 cohorts and trained hundreds of product managers, content marketers, designers, and operators, the Treford team began to notice a shift. By last year, 70% of participants were no longer newcomers trying to break into tech, but established professionals looking to close specific skill gaps. 

Kayode Odesanya, a product manager at Busha, captured this shift perfectly: “I’ve been building products for a while, but I realised I needed to deepen my knowledge in strategy and scaling products in the market. The bootcamp curriculum piqued my interest, so I enrolled. The live product case studies from facilitators made the concepts click, and I immediately applied them to the product we’re building.”

The pressure on mid-level talents

The African tech ecosystem faces a peculiar challenge. Senior talents, seeking better compensation and living standards, increasingly pursue opportunities abroad where foreign currency salaries offer greater purchasing power. This exodus has created what Enaholo describes as “huge pressure on the middle”. Mid-level professionals are expected to step into senior roles without adequate preparation.

Simultaneously, startups are under pressure to achieve profitability and cannot afford extensive on-the-job training. “Companies don’t have the bandwidth to make mistakes where someone has to learn everything on the job,” Enaholo observes. “They need people who come in with a certain level of skills and experience.”

The existing upskilling landscape offers little help. International platforms charge thousands of US dollars for relevant courses, prohibitively expensive for many African professionals. Meanwhile, local education technology companies remain focused on breaking people into tech rather than helping them excel within it.

“When you talk about edtech in Nigeria or Africa, everybody is trying to break people into tech,” Enaholo notes. “But when you look at the actual work landscape and where the startup ecosystem has gone, you realise there’s a new problem people need to solve.”

Treford’s new learning architecture

Treford’s expanded offering spans three core verticals, each addressing critical market demands identified through stakeholder research.

Product Management leads with five specialised programmes: a Product Management Accelerator for advancing professionals; Technical Product Management for non-technical practitioners seeking technical fluency; a Fintech Product Management, an API product course developed in collaboration with Paystack; and an AI Product Management programme led by a Mindsmith veteran, Majana Havranek who has been building AI products long before the current boom.

Marketers receive equal attention with programmes covering Product Marketing Acceleration, Technical Marketing (MarTech), Performance Marketing, Advanced Email Marketing, and Search Marketing. 

Design completes the offering with a comprehensive UX Design programme. 

All these new courses are aimed at positioning African talent for global opportunities, building on an alumni network that includes professionals at Google and Microsoft.

How Treford develops programmes

Treford’s curriculum development methodology sets it apart from traditional educational approaches. Rather than starting with theoretical frameworks, the team begins with market realities.

“We do reverse engineering,” Enaholo explains. “We engage key stakeholders—founders, recruiters, and the talents themselves. For founders, we ask about their biggest talent problems; recruiters tell us which roles they struggle to fill, and we also learn directly from talent about the challenges they face in their current roles.”

Olasehinde adds that this process is dynamic and iterative: “Every year we assess what’s working and what’s not, and this year the shift in learner profiles meant we had to rethink certain modules entirely.”

This stakeholder-first approach, supported by what Enaholo describes as “the most robust faculty network of industry experts in the African learning and development space,” ensures programmes address immediate market needs.

The company applies product development principles to curriculum creation, with dedicated learning experience design teams and extensive research phases. “Our product isn’t just the learning management system, our product is also our curriculum,” Enaholo emphasises.

A three-phase learning methodology

Treford’s commitment extends well beyond programme delivery. It uses a three-phase learning methodology that maximises impact and career outcomes. The three phases are pre-learning, main learning and post-learning. 

The pre-learning phase allows prospective participants to engage with curriculum designers and ask questions about different courses. The main learning phase prioritises small class sizes to ensure meaningful facilitator-participant interaction. The post-programme phase includes weeks of mentorship and career support through partnerships with startups and recruiters who are actively seeking talent.

“We want to be the lifetime learning partner for non-technical talents,” Enaholo states. “We continuously stay in touch with our alumni base to understand what issues they’re facing at work.”

This comprehensive approach has attracted participants from Canada, the US, Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana, England, and Finland—all seeking industry-focused training that translates directly to workplace performance.

A logical evolution

As African startups mature and face increased pressure for sustainable growth, the demand for skilled mid-level professionals who can execute without extensive supervision has never been greater.

Treford’s established credibility in entry-level training provides a natural foundation for mid-level expansion. With recruiters already relying on Treford to identify non-engineering talent, extending this influence into professional development represents a logical evolution.

In an ecosystem where breaking into tech has been the primary focus, Treford is pioneering the next question: once you’re in, how do you thrive?