Onyekachi Ginger-Eke: A Brave & Dynamic Changemaker Redefining the e-Learning Space

Onyekachi Ginger-Eke is a seasoned management executive with a record of accomplishment in helping organizations design practical business solutions required to cope in a fast-paced business environment. She is a self-driven, result-driven, energetic, and dynamic manager/leader with strong research, analytical, problem solving, and interpersonal skills combined with effective leadership abilities.

As the CEO & Co-founder of EduTech Global Inc., a global EdTech Holding company, Ginger is responsible for shepherding the company as it expands globally. She leads the groups business, strategy, and growth in the education technology industry, – working with academic and non-academic institutions and organizations to transform education in the Middle East and Africa and recently as it makes its strides into North America and Europe, creating Access to Education through Technology.

Ginger has broad professional experience which spans multiple leadership roles across various industries. As a result, she can operate comfortably and confidently in the strategic/executive management space in various advisory and execution roles. She has attended various management/business training and she is Big 4 trained. She also has extensive experience in the fintech and financial inclusion space.

EduTech Global – Expanding & redefining the education industry.

EduTech Global is a global EdTech Holding company focused of transforming education in Africa and other emerging markets, offering services including Student recruitment, Student Support Services, Curriculum Development, Instruction design for online delivery, e-learning SaaS, and Education Financing. 

As a technology company, EduTech is focused on bridging the gap between demand for and access to quality education through the process of decentralizing the traditional method of learning. It provides, through its subsidiaries, EduTech, Vigilearn and Bursery, multiple services within the edtech space in Africa first and then other emerging markets.

Services by EduTech Global are provided by strategically partnering with organizations, academic institutions, and other strategic partners globally. The services and products provided to their target markets include eLearning software as a service (SaaS) to learning institutions, corporate and government institutions to enable both academic and corporate/workforce learning, student support/advisory and student recruitment services as well as education lending services.

Embracing the changing landscape of the e-learning space

The COVID-19 pandemic significantly impacted the education sector globally, resulting in a surge in demand for edtech products and services. Remote working and learning were heavily embraced and became the new norm, and this precipitated the need for eLearning for students and employees.

The trends and outlook of the global edtech space include personalized learning leveraging on AI (Artificial Intelligence), Gamification to make learning fun, especially for younger learners, Mobile first approach stemming from the growing use of mobile and smartphones, upskilling, reskilling and online credentials or certificates, and higher demand for microlearning. EduTech Global is poised to take on this challenge.

Reflecting on Ginger’s unconventional career path

Before EduTech Global, Ginger’s experience spanned across general and strategic management, designing, and deploying business and IT solutions, Human Resources, Project Management, Business and Academic research, business advisory etc. She worked in the Advisory (Business and Financial Consultancy, Technology), Fintech, GovTech etc. industries.

Ginger’s journey as a Business & Financial advisor gave her the length and breadth of experience across different industries before she went from designing and deploying solutions for clients as a consultant to executing the same as a service provider.

“All my experience built me up to co-found and lead a global edtech company with multiple subsidiaries and in multiple countries,” Ginger states.

A look at Onyekachi Ginger-Eke’s responsibilities

As the CEO & Co-founder of EduTech Global, Ginger leads the whole team in support with her co-founder who is also the CTO and the other management staff.

Her responsibilities, excluding the administrative and strategic leadership given across the whole company, are leading growth, strategy, business development & sales and marketing with business leaders who are also experts in these individual areas.

Her regular day is usually filled with back-to-back meetings – virtual and physical, including proposals, project and performance review meetings, strategy meetings and client meetings. Some days there are sprinkles of mentorship, performance appraisal, one-on-one sessions. Ginger’s work hours are a minimum of 12 hours daily, 5 days of the week and a minimum of 12 hours in total over the weekend.

Work-life balance: Perks of working remotely.

“Remote work has been kind to me and made it easy for me to achieve a balance in my personal and professional life,” says Ginger. Also, being in a leadership position enables her to plan her time without being ruled by external forces.

At EduTech Global, they micro-monitor the employees, instead of micromanaging them. Ginger says they do this so that everyone is driven by key results and not the activities that built up into the key results, and this is combined with regular check ins to ensure they hit the target. Coupling this with working remotely as a company has enabled everyone to manage their time effectively and have a healthy work-life balance.

Raising the bar in the edtech space

EduTech Global’s core values are Excellence, Growth Driven, Value Centricity, Innovation, Customer Focus. They ensure that their strategy, operations, people, technology, processes all embrace these core values.

At EduTech Global they have a culture that promotes winning together in whatever they get into, not focused on titles and staying humble and not afraid to show their vulnerabilities to each other, taking full ownership and being accountable for any task they face, ensuring they effectively communicate, confirming clarity at all times, with a clear vision on where the company’s journey is leading to, innovating every step of the way but not losing touch with their human side, armed with high emotional intelligence.

With these values and culture along with the excellent end-to-end edtech products and services, EduTech Global has built a deep experience over the years, that strategically positions them to carve a niche for themselves in the market and be very competitive in the edtech space.

Plans for the future: Personal & Professional

Future plans for EduTech include – expanding into more countries/markets, & onboarding more academic and other strategic partners globally. They want to ensure they are first recognized as thought leaders in the edtech space in Africa and other emerging markets.

“We aim to impact more lives with education through technology and content, creating access to education and its resources for both the academia leader’s, institutions, and students. We will be a voice in the quest to educate the world,” states Ginger.

Her personal goals as a business leader are to lead the future goals of EduTech Global and ensure that as a company they select the best team to achieve their goals, making EduTech Global an employer of choice. She plans to also impact education personally, by sharing and receiving knowledge.

Defining success and inspiring excellence

Success to Ginger is when you meet a set target, and this target can either be set by you if the goal is controlled by you or set by others if the goal is controlled by others. She insists that we need to note one thing when setting goals for success and that is to understand the phrase ‘Progress over Perfection’ and ensure the goals being set are not too high or too far, but instead we should recognize interim successes to drive motivation.

“Make goals short-term and long-term. Acknowledge your short-term achievements and wins no matter what, as they are all building blocks that show growth, progress, and lead to the long-term goals.”

Ginger agrees with the proverb – ‘what does not kill you makes you stronger.’ She strongly believes that roadblocks that arise in your professional journey can either make or break you.

Her two greatest challenges have been the subtle gender barriers she had to face professionally and raising a large family as she built her successful career. However, as a result-driven individual, Ginger ensures deliverables are achieved despite the challenges that come across her way. 

“The lessons learnt have made me stronger, more patient and calmer,” she states.

To influence change on the next generation, Ginger wishes to democratize EdTech, creating access to global and quality education for every African and those in emerging markets. “Ensuring that access, flexibility, and funding is not a barrier. This will enable them to be!”
she exclaims.

An inspiring message to aspiring leaders.

Ginger points out that leadership is all about making decisions. Making tough choices at times starts with taking the lead in various aspects of your life to leading teams. She advises: “Don’t be afraid to take decisions as a leader as your team is looking up to you to do this.”

Ginger advocates self-awareness. She encourages everyone to know your strengths and weaknesses and surround yourself with those who complement you and can make up for the areas you have less strength, so your team has diverse team strengths and wins at the end of the day.

“Leadership is about making decisions and not about making friends… Everyone will not agree with the decisions you take but are counting on you to make those decisions.”