….. and it’s Curtains Call
On the 6th of May 2019, I took the job to be Safeboda’s first-ever Country Director and the mission was clear, take Safeboda from an East African company to being a pan-African company starting with the expansion to Nigeria. Over the last 26 months, I have kept building to solidify that vision and today I hold my head high as I stepped down a week ago from the reins at Safeboda.
In over a year of commercial operations, with a 50+ people team, we have;
- Completed 1.5 Million trips across Ibadan
- Onboarded 5,000+ drivers
- Enhanced our embedded finance play with the launch of cashless payment, airtime and driver buy-now-pay-later offerings
- Built solid partnerships with companies like Imalipay, Paddycover, Allianz, and a host of others.
The journey wasn’t always easy and sometimes met with frustration, grit, and resilience but, nonetheless, it has been the most exciting journey of my professional career. Super thankful to Maxime Dieudonne and Alastair Sussock who gave me the opportunity to build an AWESOME team who are all Seyi from SafeBoda and I trust will keep advancing the mission until Safeboda becomes a household name across the continent and beyond. Also excited that a replacement was found internally and trust he will continue to lead the company to groundbreaking heights.
On what’s next? Well, I’m currently taking some much-needed family bonding time (shuttling Lagos — Ibadan wasn’t easy on us), enjoying a glass of whiskey with friends while preparing for what’s coming next. In the words of the contemporary poet known by his stage name as “Zinoleesky”- “extraordinary thing I’m doing, ordinary things no fit move me again, again no-no” so whatever it’s going to be, it will be EXTRA — WAIT FOR IT — ORDINARY.
Signed
Babajide Aka MC Oluomo with a MacBook
