After a two years of stumbling, Afro is finally back in business. But the one who led it there has moved on. Afro’s mysterious board has announced an acting replacement in the person of Tayo Onadipe. Tayo is stepping into the shoes of the former general manager, Aniedi Udo-Obong who just left for Google.
Since he has been appointed in just an acting capacity, it’s not clear whether Tayo is standing in till a permanent replacement can be found. Before now, Tayo was Afro’s chief operating officer.
Afro’s biggest problem was its technology, which barely worked at the time the app made its debut in 2014. Under Aniedi’s leadership, Afro cancelled its original software licence, and rewrote the app from scratch. It now works. But that’s only the beginning. Whoever gets into the driver’s seat at Afro knows that they are going up against Uber in Nigeria. It isn’t in the news yet, but Uber is planning to expand to at least two other major Nigerian cities in 2016.
See the original statement from Afro’s board below.
Having led Afro as the General Manager through a number of logistical and technical challenges over the years, Aniedi leaves the company in robust health and ready to do battle in the next stage of our company’s journey. He has supervised product development and operations that we’re extremely proud of and has served the company with dedication over the last three
years.
Tayo Onadipe, an Afro veteran who has achieved remarkable work for the company as COO, will continue to oversee the operations with immediate effect. With Tayo in place, we can accelerate our growth trajectory and build aggressively on the momentum we’ve already gained. He will hit the road running and apply his rigorous high standards to all aspects of the company, looking to strengthen our marketing and product teams, as well as operations, and will also lead the rollout of Afro across new locations across the country in the coming months.
The position in which we find ourselves today is an exciting one; we have a great product on the market that is being refined and improved almost daily by our super-talented technology team, and we have the right team whose combination of expertise, passion and innovation will make for a compelling 2016. We are all braced for hard work, and the successes that will come with it.
