Thursday, March 28, 2024
Meet the Founder

Meet Uche Pedro, Nigeria’s Top Internet Mogul

Uche Pedro is a renown internet mogul, social media expert and the founder of Nigeria’s top fashion blog; BellaNaija.com who has successfully inspired young Nigerians into the blogging industry.

Her platform, BellaNaija is fully instilled with useful ethics and a guide in their publishing. There is a balance in the platform and it is not just for the fun of driving traffic.

Uche hails from the eastern part of Nigeria and had her primary and secondary school education in Nigeria before moving to Canada where she obtained her Bachelor’s in Business Administration.

Her major source of income is through Bellanaija; through Adsense earnings, direct advertisements on Bellanaija and sponsored post. She is a serial entrepreneur and have other business interest.

Uche started out with a post-graduation job with Shell Canada, then Cadbury Middle East and African Unit in UK and finally Cadbury In Nigeria.

She is a Nigeria Leadership Initiative associate and a Fellow of TEDGlobal. Uche is also a member, Board of Director of LEAP (Leadership, Effectiveness, Accountability and Professional) Africa, a nonprofit organization founded in 2002.

Each time Uche visited Nigeria during holidays, she could not help but observe the growing improvements in fashion, entertainment and business and she felt it would be a nice idea to showcase these improvements to the world and this marked the inception of her blogging career.

BellaNaija started on a free platform (www.bellanaija.blogspot.com) on the 1st of July 2006 before moving to bellanaija.com. By the time the site starting hitting millions in views in a month, Uche realized the potential of what she was building and she went ahead to improve the outlook of the business.

She started by registering a parent company, BainStone Limited. BainStone Limited is focused on developing and managing innovative and exciting online media contents for Africans. The company was among the 50 high potential SME’s chosen and awarded a British Airways Opportunity Grant.

Today, BellaNaija.com is one of the top sites in Nigeria with millions of views in a month and earns huge revenue from Google Adsense, direct adverts, sponsored post and wedding features.

Uche Pedro has been building and expanding the BellaNaija brand and ‘productizing’ different segments of the brand, for instance there is the BellaNaijaStyle.com.

Uche Pedro received an invite to The Obama Foundation Summit; a 2-day gathering of about 500 civic leaders from around the world. The BellaNaija team completed the Stanford Seed Transformation Program in 2017, a 12- month program where high potential leaders are challenged to assess their companies’ vision and redefine strategies.

In recognition of her impact on Africa’s blogging and fashion industry, she has received a few recognitions and awards. She was listed among 100 people that shaped the year by PUNCH 2008, featured on Oprah Winfrey Show ‘Beauty Around the World in 2010.

She also received an award for Outstanding Contribution to Fashion Communication Award at African Fashion Week 2010, she was awarded as British Council International Young Media Entrepreneur of the Year 2013, Young Entrepreneur of the year by The Future Awards Africa 2013, Forbes’ 30 Most Promising Young Entrepreneur in Africa 2014, Creative Industries Awards for Bloggers by Creative Industries Awards 2015, Best African Blogger at Nickelodeon Kid’s Choice Award 2016.

In 2017 Uche was named in YNaija Powerlist of Most Powerful Young People in Media and was Nominated for New African Woman Award in 2017.

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