NaijaTalkTalk- Konga’s VP of Marketing, Onyeka Akumah Quits To Build New Start-up

Just when you’re probably thinking that the e-commerce space is the hottest place for anyone to be in right now, Onyeka Akumah, one of the leading influencers in the space is leaving Konga to build a not-an-e-commerce mobile news app.

A source told me that Gabriel Gab-Umoden who is the online retail company’s strategic marketing lead is likely to replace him.

Akumah, who until last week was the Vice President of Marketing at Konga, has a good track record in the Internet and e-commerce space having worked as Online Marketing Manager for Wakanow and Marketing Lead for Sabunta, now JUMIA Fashion.

“This was not an easy decision to make because of the many successes I enjoyed with the incredible marketing team I had built at Konga over the past one year”, he said in an email.

As a start-up guy who’s headed up top positions at these leading Internet companies, Akumah now seems to be keen on getting his hands dirty by building Internet solutions for Nigerian users. While working as a director at Rocket Internet’s Nigeria operations in December 2012, he designed QwikGist, a mobile news aggregator with Pelumi Aboluwarin, a software engineer.

“I didn’t expect the kind of growth the app experienced within 13 months after launch, growing to over 200,000 users with an average of 41% using it every day on BlackBerryalone,” says Akumah.

He is now focused on improving the user experience of the app through the feedback received from early adopters, with the goal of growing the user base exponentially.

Hopefully, Akumah would also need to focus on getting his recently hacked personal website back online, as he tells me that he’ll be writing a bit more about his experiences with Nigerian start-ups and some multinationals in the area of Internet and mobile technology.