By RAY UMUKORO

Nigeria's maverick entrepreneur and Group Chief Executive Officer of Konga, Africa's fastest growing e-commerce powerhouse, Prince Nnamdi Ekeh, last weekend, made history for himself and the nation as he was honoured with two global awards of distinction by Forbes and EuroKnowledge.

The Oxford-trained Prince Ekeh who had the privilege of giving the fire-starter speech inside the House of Lords, London, venue of the event, was bestowed with the Distinguished Euro Knowledge Award for Emerging Leadership in Digital Transformation: e-Commerce, digital infrastructure and financial technology as well as the Forbes Best of Africa E-commerce Leadership Award 2025 for his extraordinary contributions to Africa's digital economy.

He is the first African of his age to receive such double honours in one night.

The upscale audience at the House of Lords, London, went rhapsodic when Prince Ekeh's illustrious profile was read that memorable day of October 25. Forbes had done a comprehensive due diligence on the young tech entrepreneur right from his early secondary school days during which his numerate skills began to manifest, earning him the second position in a National Mathematics Competition in Nigeria up to Switzerland where he completed his secondary education at Leysin American School, Switzerland (2008-2010); through his A levels/Foundation at Warwick (2010-2011); and then to University of Lancaster (majoring in Economics and Politics with a minor in Entrepreneurship) from 2011-2014, before capping his brilliant academic career with an MBA at the University of Oxford (2021-2022).

His leadership skill has received international recognitions, with features in Forbes Africa and his inclusion among the Top 100 Most Influential People of African Descent (MIPAD). Beyond business, he drives social impact through the Leo-Stan Ekeh Foundation which deploys digital infrastructure in educational institutions, offers scholarships and has improved the lives of over 250,000 people in Nigeria by extending to them access to education and digital inclusion.

Prince Ekeh was 19 and a student at University of Lancaster, United Kingdom, when he birthed the idea of Yudala, an ambitious e-commerce outpost and the first composite e-commerce company in Africa.

While back home to serve his fatherland under the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), Yudala had become a beehive of commerce employing over 250 staffers. An admirer of Elon Musk's unconventional business model, Prince Ekeh hails from a dynasty of wealthy but private digital entrepreneurs that has grown a startup into becoming the largest integrated tech group on the African continent; a family famed for innovations and has serially pioneered several digital products and services in Africa tech marketplace.

Prince is the first son of Dr. Leo Stan Ekeh, the tech mogul and founder of Zinox Group, an African conglomerate with operations in Europe, Asia and Middle East. His mother, Lady Chioma Ekeh, a maths whiz, chartered accountant topped with an MBA, is the Group CEO of TD Africa, the biggest tech distribution company in Sub Saharan Africa.

Prince's siblings are also strongly rooted in the Africa digital bourse. His elder sister and first child of the Ekeh digital dynasty, Mrs. Gozy Ijogun (Nee Ekeh), has turned around the mobile tech distribution sector. At 25, she launched TD-Mobile, Nigeria's first structured mobile device distribution company with a small team of young and highly motivated staffers that generated N38 billion in revenue in the first year of operation and securing partnerships with in-demand global brands namely; Apple, Samsung, and Nokia. She has since scaled up in the Group into becoming the CEO of Task Systems Limited in 2023 and driving growth at a pace far beyond her age.

A true chip off the old block, Prince is living the dream of a lineage with a rich history of entrepreneurship. His great grandfather, Mazi Ihentuge Ekeh, was one of the biggest merchants in Onitsha in his time. His paternal grandmother, a British-trained entrepreneur, designed the first galvanized dustbin ever to be used in Nigeria in those days during the Operation Clean and Green scheme. She supplied galvanized buckets and waste bins nationwide besides her chain of restaurants trading under the name Ato and Co Limited.

Despite his father's fat purse and the comfort around the family, Prince Ekeh has stayed humble, teachable and always given to hard work. After several years of switching positions and learning from the best professionals within the Zinox Group, the young Ekeh deployed his experience to engender growth for Yudala. To achieve this, he led his team to beat off competitors to acquire Konga in 2018 and has since turned the once floundering firm into the fastest growing e-commerce firm on the continent.

One of the highpoints of the Award night was Prince Ekeh's fire-starter speech which threw the audience in awe of a young African entrepreneurial genius who brilliantly connected the dots between conventional and unconventional business models to point the audience to a hybrid model that suits contemporary paradigms, builds trust, promotes best practices and inclusivity while creating measurable social impact. This model prompted him to create a composite e-commerce outpost that combines online shopping with physical in-store shopping thus giving clients plurality of options. This composite model is now being replicated around the world by other e-commerce firms.

He wondered how corporates can build at scale, create impact, and still fit into the world's definition of "responsible".

Hear him: "When we acquired Konga from Naspers, Africa's most valuable company and Kinnevik, a Swedish investment company and merged it with Yudala, we faced a similar dilemma. Do we build just an e-commerce company — or do we build infrastructure that can outlive us? We chose the harder path — to build the rails of digital commerce for Nigeria and, ultimately, for Africa. Because entrepreneurship that truly changes lives must solve real problems — not just build pretty apps.

"Back then, small businesses couldn't collect payments easily. Logistics was unreliable. Trust was scarce. A customer in Lagos couldn't confidently buy from a seller in Aba. So, we built KongaPay to enable payments. We built Konga Logistics to move goods. We built a hybrid retail model that connected online trust with offline reliability. And we built Konga TV and radio channels to add lifestyle and to connect it all — giving merchants, customers, and partners a voice within the same ecosystem.

"Today, over 200,000 merchants, 4 million customers and hundreds of logistics franchisees depend on Konga?s ecosystem. Every package delivered isn't just commerce — it's connection. It's a small business in Enugu selling to a customer in Kano for the first time. It's a logistics agent who now employs 100 drivers because of our franchise model. That's what scalable social impact looks like — technology turning potential into prosperity."

According to him, the Elon Musk "business model matters because it reminds us that the world's greatest innovations are usually not neat, or fully compliant with every framework — but they move humanity forward.

"In Africa, impact can't just be theoretical. It must be tangible - food on tables, jobs created, families lifted, systems digitized. At Konga, our belief is simple: True social impact is not charity — it's infrastructure for inclusion. When a merchant in Lagos has the same digital tools as a retailer in London, that's equality of access. When a delivery rider in Kano builds a franchise from one bike to 100, that's wealth redistribution powered by innovation. This is what it means to build a socially conscious business at scale — where every commercial success expands opportunity for others.

"And that's the future of entrepreneurship — especially in Africa: Build fast, build wide, but build with meaning. So, as we celebrate ESGs (Environmental Social Governances) and SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals), let's not forget the real 'G' that matters — GROWTH. Growth that includes people. Growth that lasts. Growth that transforms.

"The entrepreneurs who will shape the next decade will not be the ones who just fit into systems — but those who build new systems that fit more people in. That's what we strive for at Konga — what I call a commercial scale with a social soul. And if that's not good for business — then maybe we need to redefine what "good" really means," he wrapped up his speech to a thunderous ovation.

Dignitaries who attended the event included billionaire entrepreneurs, amongst them were Dragons' Den star, Richard Faileigh and Reebok Co- founder, Joe Foster who also received awards.

A powerful Nigerian contingent at the event included the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Alhaji Mohammed Idris; NAFDAC DG, Professor Mojisola Adeyeye; wife of Kwara state governor, Professor Olufolake Abdulrazaq; among others.

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