At the 3rd African Women Awards in Addis Ababa, one of the continent’s most watched operating executives was named among Africa’s 100 most influential women
When The Business Executive Media Group gathered a hundred of Africa’s most influential women at the Hyatt Regency in Addis Ababa on 26 November, the guest list ran heavy with founders, ministers and financiers. Among them, representing the less-celebrated craft of actually running things, was Chifum Ann Ukadike — Group Chief Operating Officer of Terragon, and one of the new inductees into the awards’ She Achievers Network.
Ukadike belongs to a category of African business leaders that awards ceremonies have historically overlooked: the operator. She is the executive who took Terragon’s boldest bet — a system the Lagos-based company calls Africa’s first Communications Platform as a Service integrated with a Customer Data Platform — and drove it from concept to market, personally bridging engineering, data and commercial teams. The platform now reaches more than 50 million consumers across two banks alone.
The African Women Awards, now in their third edition after ceremonies in Cairo and Addis Ababa, name women whose achievements are independently verified before a jury. Held this year under the theme “Rethinking Gender Mainstreaming in Africa for Women Empowerment,” the programme is run by the publisher of the Accra-based The Business Executive magazine, whose reach extends across West Africa and beyond. “What we are really building is a network that keeps working long after the gala lights go down,” said Baroness Paulette Kporo, the group’s chief executive. Fellow organiser Dr Jennifer Risia called the honorees “women whose achievements are already reshaping their sectors.”
For Ukadike, the induction lands in a year already thick with recognition. She was honoured at the 2023 Nigeria Technology Awards for her work advancing women in the sector, and is now studying for an MBA at the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business on a full merit scholarship and a Forte Fellowship. Before that, she rose from Vice President of People and Culture to Group Chief Operating Officer at Terragon in one year, earning the internal nickname “Chief Executor.”
Her presence on the list speaks to a wider argument she has made repeatedly: that gender mainstreaming has to move from conference language into hiring, promotion and funding decisions. A mentor through Women in Management, Business and Public Service (WIMBIZ), she has moderated forums on women and young people in technology across Nigeria.
“Gender mainstreaming cannot stay a slogan; it has to show up in who gets hired, promoted and funded,” Ukadike said. “I want the women watching to know the room is not closed. There is space — and we are keeping it open.”
As African data businesses draw growing attention from global investors — Terragon was ranked 28th on the Financial Times’ 2024 list of the continent’s fastest-growing companies — the operators behind them are, at last, being named. For Ukadike, the She Achievers Network is a continental platform to match the reach of the systems she builds.
