By Chidinma Victoria Nnaji

This year, we are celebrating and spotlighting extraordinary Nigerian women in technology, women who have actively taken action to shape their careers and thrive in the industry.

Meet Ugochi Agoreyo, the Strategic Partner Development Lead for Sub-Saharan Africa at Google Search. She’s an academic scholar and a top-tier strategic partnerships executive who has made her mark at leading technology giants like Microsoft and SAP

Over the course of her professional career, she has held top-tier leadership roles, driving impactful partnerships and business growth in the tech industry.

A brilliant, down-to-earth, and truly inspiring woman, Ugochi opens up about her journey into tech, the pivotal decisions that shaped her career, and the invaluable lessons she has learned along the way.

Her story is one of remarkable clarity and direction, one that every woman in tech and beyond can draw wisdom from!

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Name and how did you start your journey in Technology?

My name is Ugochi Agoreyo and I started my journey into technology specifically in 2011 coming from a career in banking. So I started off as a strategy manager for a small tech firm in Lagos after completing an MBA in the UK. I worked there for nine months and then moved on to Microsoft to lead anti-piracy conversion for Microsoft Nigeria. Moving on from anti-piracy, I entered the channel strategy business working as a Partner Development Manager (PDM) at Microsoft overseeing Nigeria and Ghana.

From there, I moved on to SAP to lead Channel 4 SAP West Africa for eight years and after that, moved on to Google where I now lead Search Partnerships for Sub-Saharan Africa.

What sparked your passion for your career path and how did you take action to make it a reality?

So, my passion for working in technology stems from strategy, I started my career in banking and one of the things that I really wanted to do was to get hands-on experience in developing strategy. When I wasn’t sure if I could do that in banking, to get some clarity I decided to do an MBA, so I went to England and after returning to Nigeria I decided to work in a small tech firm who was starting up a strategy department.

One of the things I found when coming to the UK and one of the things we were always told in the MBA class, was that it would be difficult to move industries but it would be two-times difficult to move industries and roles at the same tome . So there are two things you can do in that situation, you can either decide to go with a smaller firm that is building out a strategy department or you go to a bigger firm and start from scratch , so obviously I took the first option and that was the way that I found I could get into technology.

Technology was a passion for me as well as strategy, so that opened up a path for me to move into big Tech. The first strategy that I built for the company was they needed to make an impact in building partnerships for OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturer) and becoming a major partner for some of the bigger OEMs and one of those OEMs was Microsoft and that's how I came across the Microsoft Team. This was the strategy I used to start my career in big Tech.

So you either start small to learn the ropes and then get that experience and apply it to getting a bigger role or you go to the bigger companies, say "I want to learn the ropes" then start from the bottom and build your way up.

As a woman in this field, what challenges have you faced, and how have you successfully overcome them to accelerate your growth?

I think if you are thinking about technology, one of the obvious things that you see is that there's a disparity between the number of male resources and the number of female resources in tech companies, and this might knowingly or unknowingly be a bias. I say this because we have to give some grace, there are situations where there is an obvious bias against women, but there are situations where it's just a problem of representation.

In technology, because traditionally it's been a male-dominated industry, there's not enough representation, and people say even when you're selling, people buy what they know. That's why the conversation around representation is very key when we talk about women representation in technology and because we've come from a history of a traditional male-dominated industry, there has to be an effort to even out that domination. When you see more women in a place, then you think, okay, so women can do this maybe we should give more women a chance to do it.

In technology today, one of the key things with hiring is networks. If you work in big tech, you know that it's a lot easier to get hired if someone refers you. People will refer people that they already know can do something. If it's been men doing it, and it's only men in that network, they will refer men. If there are women doing it and women have proven that they can do it, they will have more women to refer. What we need to do, is make sure that there continues to be representation. There's a part that is played by getting people who are excellent, women should strive to be excellent in these positions so that it encourages people to continue to bring women into the industry.

There's also a part that is played by making sure that we continue to drive representation, so organizations should ask questions. Why is there only one woman in this team? Shouldn't we have more women in the team? You can't say that there's no woman that can do this that we've interviewed. So should we make sure that there are more women on the team so that there's representation and organizations can continue then to bring women in. We've talked about the part of how do you get more women into the system. Then we should also talk about keeping the women there.

As a woman in technology, the number one thing that you should be thinking about is competence and excellence at what you do. When you work in any organization, whether it's technology, it's banking, or any organization, your manager or your directors or execs want to make profits, they want to deliver outcomes. You can say that someone is biased towards a male counterpart, but if that male counterpart is doing zero and is not delivering the bottom line or meeting targets. At some point, they have to let that person go because their performance will affect the rest of the team. Everybody wants a star striker on their team, so as a woman, your job is to make sure that you are THAT striker.

Make sure you are always competent, you're always excellent at what you do. That's the first thing that you should think about.

The second thing you should think about if you want to remain as a woman in technology is allyship, and I'll explain the difference between allyship and sponsorship. You have allies within the organization these are people that are not necessarily women, probably men, because they're the ones that are in the positions today. You should have people that are rooting for you, that are helping drive this gender equality that we're looking for. If women are not in the room, you should have an ally that is in the room that is going to help drive this conversation forward, and it's your job to look for those allies.

Now, the difference between "allyship and sponsorship" is you then have your person who will sponsor you through the organization and it's not a political conversation. It's like showing yourself to someone who appreciates your competence, your excellence, who is able to say, "I'm going to champion your cause" within the organization, and make sure that you're in the right rooms, you have the right roles, and people are actually talking about the work that you do.

Then I think the last thing is you have to be *flexible and continue to learn*. Every organization at every point in time has priorities and their priorities will change as the years go by. You should be able to understand what those priorities are and adapt your offering to what the priorities are because then, the organization will need you. So I think those are the three things I think women should keep in mind.

Ugochi Agoreyo

In a typical male-dominated industry, what do you think organizations can do to support the inclusion of women currently in tech and those considering a career in it?

For the parts of organizations, they play a big role. We've talked a lot about representation. It's easy for me to say we should have representation, but the people that will drive that are the systems and processes within the organization that should say there's not enough representation here. How do we make sure there is representation? It's not just talking about representation. The organizations need to put processes in place that encourage representation and will check for representation. If they come into a room and you have only engineers, we know that traditionally, engineering is a male-dominated course, but if you have only engineers in the room continuously, the organization should be able to say, Are there no women that can be good engineers that we can hire? Why are we not hiring those women?

So I think the first thing is organizations need to ensure that there are processes and checks and balances in place to make sure that you have representation within the organization, and then the organizations themselves have to evolve so that they are embracing differences. So this is not just about gender equality and gender differences. This is just about inclusiveness in terms of gender, in terms of disabilities, either physical for learning and in terms of understanding human beings and meeting them at the place that they are.

The reason that I say this is because there are lots of practices that are disadvantageous to women. If you look at men and women, we're not built the same way. Women will start a family. They will go away, they will have children, they will have responsibilities that sometimes differ from the men. So it will be unreasonable if you're not meeting the woman where she is to say that even though this woman has taken maternity leave, can we look at the periods that she was working to see the quality of work that she has delivered and not use her maternity leave period against her because this is a natural phenomenon that she had to go through.

These are the things that I refer to when I say we embrace the differences that people have and accommodate them. So I think if organizations do these things, they will promote and help the women inclusion and gender equality movement a lot faster

What emerging tech trend do you see as critical to shaping the future of women in tech and how can they get involved in it?

I think AI has been overflogged, but I think at this point, the conversation should be had around understanding what the priorities are and where things are moving to and how to adapt. I think the trend that is critical for women to jump on is AI.

This is simply because this is where the world is going. We've seen that with other technologies, maybe women were not positioned properly, the conversation was not as ripe as it is today about women's role in technology. Now, this is the point in history where maybe our opportunity is meeting preparedness for women, because we've had years of talking about how women can get involved in technology, and we've prepared women through training and mentoring to get to this point where they can seize the opportunity and that opportunity is here today.

So what do we need to do? Women need to understand what areas of AI they can get involved in. There's a lot of talk about the technology of AI, but there are lots of opportunities outside of the technology of AI. If you're not a technology person or in tech, there are other opportunities around AI that you can take advantage of.

One of the key discussions around AI today is how do we regulate AI? There are things like AI ethics, AI regulation, the frameworks for AI, you can get involved in that without being a tech person. You can understand what AI is, how to deploy AI responsibly especially for social good, as that's something that is a very hot topic today. There are also opportunities for you to join organizations, communities, as a way to join the discussion today.

There's also product development, where women are becoming very keen to get involved in technology. You can skew your interest in product development to AI product development. In that way, you can join the conversation of how do we build the technology?, because today we're in the building phase. People are building the technology today and how can you influence the build of that technology with AI? You can think about that.

Another thing you can't think about is business development. Today, people are concerned about building the technology, but the next stage is how do we use the technology? How do we create the growth and the sales opportunity within AI?

How do you embed AI? If people build the AI technologies, how are you embedding the AI so that it gets to users for the specific reasons that you want to?, that's where business development and sales comes about. Women are also in the era where they can key into the business development opportunities in AI.

So I think the one trend would be AI and you need to think about what your passions or your strengths are and how you can tailor that into building a career out of the AI trend that is happening today.

What's one book/podcast that you really love and has contributed to shaping your personal or professional growth, especially as a woman in tech?

So I read a lot from a lady called Luiza Javrovsky. She's one of the key voices in AI regulation and it’s framework. She's doing a PhD right now in Tel Aviv University, and has a newsletter that that she sends out quite regularly which touches all points of AI regulation, it’s regulation scenarios, AI ethics e.t.c.

She also has a book club that you can subscribe to, so if you're really interested in understanding how you can use AI with the right legal frameworks, and learning about its ethical frameworks, and what the progress is made around the world with putting together the AI technology, you can follow her. Either follow her newsletter or join the book club, so you can discuss issues with other people in the book club too.

With your impressive career achievements so far, do you still have a role model who inspires you? If so, who and why?

I wouldn't say I have one role model. I tend to just be inspired by strong women who are breaking boundaries against all odds. So, if there's a story of a woman who has excelled against many odds or who shows strong professional delivery, I'm inspired by that. Whether it's in my current organization or in places that I've worked, I am inspired by women who are trailblazing in other industries.

What’s one piece of advice you’d give to women who are looking to launch or scale their careers in tech.

I wouldn't say one thing, I'll say two things.

I think the first thing is engage with the community. So find tech communities, engage within the tech community. Like I said, for technology, the one thing that I realized is that networking is key in technology. People refer people, with big tech, the people referred get called first for interviews and opportunities. So engage with the community, know the tech community, go for community events, contribute to community conversations around technology, this is one of the quickest ways that you break into technology.

The second thing would be, to be open to learn new things because opportunities come with every single new trend and every single new technology that comes out. While people say that sometimes they are scared for jobs and scared of losing the skills that they have or the opportunity to display the skills that they currently have, what you should realize is that with every technology that comes in, you might lose some skills, but you gain some new skills, and there'll be new opportunities to excel with that technology. So always be open to learn about new things so that the more you know, the easier it is for you to plug in to that technology and understand where you fit in.

So I think those are the two key things if you want to break into tech, either existing tech or as a new person trying to break into tech.

Watch the Interview: Ugochi's Insights & Journey

Happy International Women's Day 💪