Olumide Balogun is Google’s new director for West Africa

Johnstone Kpilaakaa -

Olumide Balogun, the former Google head of consumer apps for Sub-Saharan Africa, has been appointed as the company’s director in West Africa. Recall that Juliet Ehimuan stepped down in July after ten years of leading Google’s operations in the region.

Olumide is coming on board to continue from where she stopped. He joined Google in 2019 from HMD Global where he was the Head of Marketing, West Africa. Before then, he was the Head of Marketing for Microsoft in West Africa and held several positions at Nokia for over five years.

He is a graduate of Computer Science from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Olumide also has an MBA (Master of Business Administration) from Imperial College London and a Diploma in Sustainable Business Strategies from Harvard Business School.

Following his appointment, Olumide alongside other leading Google executives in the region paid a familiarisation visit to the Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), Kashifu Inuwa in a move to deepen collaboration between the two organisations.

“Coming here today is to identify the critical steps that we need to take to jointly actualise the Nigerian President’s initiative to drive one million digital jobs because Google cannot thrive in isolation,” Olumide said.

In the previous years, Google said it has trained six million people in Africa in digital skills, and 100,000 developers in web and mobile development skills, and has empowered over 200 African startups through the Google for Startups Accelerator program.

With over 150 active Google Developer Groups and 100 Developer Student Clubs in Sub-Saharan Africa, the new director will also work towards leveraging this network to push his mission for the company.

Olumide will also collaborate with local content partners to drive Google’s business. Currently, there are more than 6,000 YouTube content partners monetising on the platform, most of these partners are from Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa all have at least 300 channels with more than 100,000 subscribers and Nigeria has 45 with more than 1 million subscribers.