Prince Nnamdi Ekeh, the Group CEO of Konga, was just honoured in London at the House of Lords. And not with one, but two massive awards on the same night: the Forbes Best of Africa E-commerce Leadership Award and the Distinguished Euro Knowledge Award for Emerging Leadership.
It’s a huge win, and it’s easy to look at the name “Ekeh” and think you know the whole story. It’s impossible to tell this story without acknowledging that name.
Prince Nnamdi Ekeh is the scion of Nigeria’s foremost digital dynasty. His father is the legendary Dr. Leo Stan Ekeh, founder of the Zinox Group. His mother, Lady Chioma Ekeh, is the CEO of TD Africa, the largest tech distributor in the region. His sister, Gozy Ijogun, launched TD-Mobile at 25 and reportedly generated ₦38 billion in its first year. The family is a certified tech-and-business powerhouse.
So, it’s easy to see this as a “rich kid wins award” story. But that’s the boring, surface-level take. The real story, the one that explains why he won, wasn’t in the awards themselves. It was in the “fire-starter speech” he gave. It was a speech that laid bare the entire philosophy that saved a failing Konga and turned it into a powerhouse.
When Prince Ekeh, who had already started his own e-commerce company, Yudala, at 19, led the acquisition of a floundering Konga from Napers in 2018, he faced a critical choice. He laid it out in his speech: “Do we build just an e-commerce company, or do we build infrastructure that can outlive us?”
This is the entire story.
He said they chose the “harder path.” They saw that the problem with e-commerce in Nigeria wasn’t a lack of “pretty apps.” The problem was a total lack of trust and infrastructure.
- Logistics was unreliable.
- Payments were broken.
- A customer in Lagos truly could not trust a seller in Aba.
So, while others were burning cash on marketing, the new Konga team put their heads down and built the “rails” to fix the core problems:
- They built KongaPay: A secure payment gateway to solve the payment problem.
- They built Konga Logistics: A first-party logistics company to solve the delivery and “I-got-a-rock-in-my-box” problem.
- They built a Hybrid Model: This was the genius stroke. They combined their online store with a network of physical, offline stores. This single-handedly solved the trust issue. A customer could now order online and, if they felt unsure, walk into a real Konga store to see, touch, pay for, and pick up their item.
This “composite” model is what he was awarded for. He didn’t just build a website; he built an ecosystem.
“Social Impact is Not Charity; It’s Infrastructure”
The second part of his speech was a direct challenge to the entire global idea of “social impact.” He admitted to admiring Elon Musk’s “unconventional” models, noting that the world’s greatest innovations “are usually not neat, or fully compliant with every framework, but they move humanity forward.”
He then applied this to Africa. He argued that in a continent with our challenges, “impact can’t just be theoretical.” It has to be tangible. It has to be “food on tables, jobs created, families lifted.” This is where he delivered his most powerful lines, redefining what Konga is actually doing.
“At Konga, our belief is simple: True social impact is not charity, it’s infrastructure for inclusion.” He gave a perfect example. A logistics agent who starts with one bike delivering for Konga can, through their franchise model, grow to employ 100 drivers. That, he argued, is “wealth redistribution powered by innovation.”
He then wrapped it up with a line that should make every development partner and NGO pause and think: “So, as we celebrate ESGs (Environmental Social Governance) and SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals), let’s not forget the real ‘G’ that matters — GROWTH. Growth that includes people. Growth that lasts. Growth that transforms.”
A 4th-Generation Entrepreneur
This philosophy of building rather than just trading makes perfect sense when you look past his parents and into his deeper lineage—a history Forbes apparently did their due diligence on. This isn’t just new money.
- His great-grandfather, Mazi Ihentuge Ekeh, was one of the most prominent merchants in Onitsha.
- His paternal grandmother, a British-trained entrepreneur, designed and supplied the first galvanised dustbins ever used in Nigeria for the national “Operation Clean and Green” scheme.
This is a four-generation story. From dustbins to desktops, from Onitsha market to a digital marketplace, the family business has always been about building the infrastructure for the next thing.
The awards in London weren’t just for building a successful e-commerce company. They were for recognising that to win in Africa, you can’t just make a “pretty app.” You have to build the roads, the banks, and the post office, all at the same time.
