Jumia Women Inspiring change Series 1- Meet Lara Awoyemi

“Women Inspiring change”

To celebrate International women’s day, Jumia Nigeria is introducing the women inspiring change series giving spotlight to the women in Jumia dominating and making a difference in the eCommerce space in their different roles.

Today we are having a chat with the youngest female manager in Jumia ‘Lara Awoyemi’ Head of Onsite as she talks about her role in Jumia and her career journey so far.

Meet Lara Awoyemi: Can You tell us about your background?

My name is Awoyemi Lara and I am a Technical person! Growing up in a family of 5 girls and a boy, I was the child who was always interested in computers, information in the tech world and witty inventions. How I love Technology!

I studied Computer Science for my Bachelor’s Degree, which gave me a good grasp of different aspects of Computing and data processing such as Data Structure, Networking, Programming, Ecommerce and Languages, all in their basics. With this type of foundation I garnered all kinds of skills giving me a sneak-peak into the world of Technology.

My Role in Jumia and A typical day at work?

My journey at Jumia started as a Business Intelligence Analyst and I moved across various roles which was really exciting for me. Being the Business Intelligence Analyst, I was responsible for monitoring of numbers from day to day, sales and marketing reports. Eventually, I was moved to the role of Product Management which I had special interest in. As a product manager, my focus was on the Jumia website and I doubled as a site merchandiser, managing the website as a product, making sure that everything worked accordingly and also maintained the technological support for the website to ensure customers are able to browse without difficulties, place orders as well as make payments with great convenience, as we see it today. Also, being a site merchandiser, I had to understand what kind of campaigns to implement as well as its appropriate target audience with a major task to manage a team of designers, developers and of course different personalities. I always have to make sure that every team member does his or her job in order for us to meet the team’s targets and achieve our daily goals.

Major Challenges I face working in a fast growing industry like Ecommerce? 

In my role, I do not see the challenges; I try to have fun all the way. Being in a fast environment where gender equality not an issue, there is always a lot to learn and this is one of the things I really love about the job. However, it is a lot of hard work as I have to work round the clock even after I have gotten home, sometimes. I also have to work by weekends because my job is to make sure that the website is functioning at all times and as a married woman, I have to combine all of these to create a balance in my work life and in my responsibility as a family woman. Nevertheless, I always embrace the opportunity to learn new things and be ready to move with it. Another thing I can say I find a bit challenging is the fact that I have to manage people with different personalities and backgrounds but in the end, it is always fun.

My motivation and How it helps me achieve my career goals..

I will refer to myself as quite an admirable singer and also a homely person. I love to cook and am a highly motivated person. Being young, I see what others like me have been able to achieve across the globe and I am really challenged to take every opportunity I get to achieve all I want to achieve at this young age of mine. At 35, I want to own my company, doing my own thing and I feel privileged to say I still have a good number of years ahead of me to achieve that. I look at the CEO of Yahoo and achievements of other young women across the world, and it gives me a lot of motivation as a woman.

The typical Nigerian working class woman and my Advise to Nigerian women>

Generally, I think Nigerian women are not all that career-driven. A typical Nigerian woman only wants to have something she is doing to get her busy, to support her husband and to contribute her own quota to her family and society at large, but not necessarily focused on career growth or holding positions of authority in organisations and being in charge. My advice to Nigerian women is that we should not see ourselves as limited because I have noticed that even men accord so much respect to women who are on top of their games and women who know their onions. Lastly, I will like to encourage Nigerian women to read because readers are leaders and knowledge is power and every woman should find her own expression wherever she finds herself.

To catch up with Lara Awoyemi, Check her out on Linkedin

Interview by Aisha Aburime

This article was written by Olamide Amosu