BIRTH NAME: Uchenna Jennifer Eze
DATE OF BIRTH: Blogger, writer, social media expert, entrepreneur
OCCUPATION: July 26, 1984
MARITAL STATUS: Married
NET WORTH: 2.6 million dollars
INTRODUCTION
Uche Pedro is a Nigerian blogger, writer, social media expert and entrepreneur. She is the founder of BellaNaija, an online entertainment, fashion and lifestyle magazine. In 2014, she was named in Forbes list of "30 Most Promising Young Entrepreneurs in Africa".
EARLY LIFE AND BACKGROUND
Uche was born and raised in Nigeria where she also finished her primary and secondary school education. She later moved to Canada where she graduated with a bachelor's degree in Business Administration from Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario, Canada.
BellaNaija was founded in July 2006 by Uche and began as a hobby. The idea for establishing BellaNaija came whilst she was studying at university in Canada. She had two weeks holiday and soon got bored. She had always loved Nigeria and Africa, and each time she returned to the country for a holiday or on visits from school or work, she saw how everything in Nigeria was growing - the fashion was more vibrant, the entertainment was more vibrant, more young people were getting involved in politics, business, etc and it was so encouraging. So she was inspired to start something that represented this exciting young vibe in the country - she began to blog about fashion and celebrity in Nigeria and BellaNaija was born. She started by scanning magazine articles, pictures and interviews of Nigerian fashion personalities and continued in a low profile way until her BellaNaija portal began to have over 1 million hits every month, at which time she unveiled the personality behind the portal to the media.
CAREER AND LIFE
Since that time, it has grown in leaps and bounds and today the BellaNaija portal has millions of unique visitors. When the portal was initially launched, a lot of our visitors came from around the world, from the diaspora, but now Nigeria is the number one country on the BellaNaija visitor list. It just shows that today, more people have internet access, and people are interested in what is going on around them. The site has visitors from around the African continent, from South Africa, Ghana and other countries.
On achieving commercial success with BellaNaija, Uche says: “In terms of the commercialization of the site, in the early days of BellaNaija, it was hard work to generate revenues but we managed to break even and saw the portal as a first step to building something much larger down the line.”
BellaNaija is also an
initiative with a social conscience and the site is used as a platform
for social activism and commentary on various political issues and
campaigns, such as the ‘Enough is Enough’ campaign which aimed to lobby
the government on the unreliable power situation and its high costs in
Nigeria.
In 2010 she won Outstanding Contribution to Fashion Communication Award and "The Future Awards Africa" for Young Media Entrepreneur of the Year in 2013 and many other awards. Uche Pedro was interviewed by CNN reporter, Isha Sesay on CNN i-List on September 28, 2010 on account of her enormous achievements. She also featured on the Oprah Winfrey show "Beauty Around the World", in February 2010 alongside Jessica simpson and Lisa Ling.
Uche is married to Bode Pedro, the founder/CEO of Veda Technology and the son of the former deputy Governor of Lagos State. They got married on Saturday June 16, 2012 in Lagos, Nigeria.
 |
| Uche and Bode's wedding |
AWARDS AND ENDORSEMENTS
Year
| Award ceremony | Prize | Result | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2010 | The Future Awards | Young Person of the Year | Nominated | |
| The Best Use of Technology | Nominated | |||
| African Fashion Week | Outstanding Contribution to Fashion Communication Award | Won | ||
| 2013 | The Future Awards | Young Media Entrepreneur of the Year | Won | |
| 2015 | Creative Industries Awards | Creative Industries Awards for Bloggers | Won | |
| 2016 | Kids' Choice Awards | Best African Blogger | Won |
SOURCES: lionessesofafrica.com,wikipedia.org,takemetonaija.com
SO WHAT DO YOU ACTUALLY THINK ABOUT THIS POST? WHY DON'T YOU SCROLL DOWN BELOW AND LEAVE A COMMENT FOR PEOPLE TO SEE...
Loading...
testin
No comments:
Post a Comment
What Do You Think About This Post?
Post Your Comments