Great things, they say often come in miniature packages. Think of the atom bomb, what was the code name for the atomic bomb? Oh yes, of course you remember: Little Boy! And, in one fell swoop, what did little boy do in once moment when he hit ground on Hiroshima? Destruction the quantum of genocide, a crime the developers and those who use it are yet to be called to account for: reduction of an entire Japanese city of 255,000 population into rubbles …with consequences three generations after.
That indeed, is the going of things that come in small packages. Even the ‘ordinary’ bullet; it’s so small; you hardly notice it when you handle a rifle. Yet, that’s the messenger or agent that does the destruction of inestimable degree.
Looking at her delectable mien you would easily pass Juliet Ehiamuan for a non-starter. But, you’ve got to get closer; dig deeper; listen keener; and, as the minutes pass by while you’re in her company, you begin to see a figure a million times larger than the physique standing before you.
Highlighted in the 20 Youngest Power African Woman list, conducted by Forbes, Nigerian-born Ehimuan has now taken a spot in the IT News Africa: Africa’s Leading Women in Tech 2015 feature. In 2011, Ehimuan was appointed as Google’s Country manager for Nigeria. As head of Google’s operations in Africa’s largest internet-user community, she is charged with the responsibility of representing the company in all its business development projects and partnership opportunities in the region.
Ehimuan started her career at Shell Petroleum Development Company as Performance Monitoring and Quality Assurance Supervisor. Following that, she worked as Program Manager at Microsoft UK for six years, initially managing Strategic Projects for MSN EMEA. She received the Microsoft ‘Ship-IT’ award for successfully launching the MSN online subscription business in Europe. She later became Business Process Manager for the MSN Global Sales and Marketing Organisation. She left Microsoft in 2005 to start SI Consulting Ltd UK, providing collaborative programs that connect African Business leaders with their global counterparts. In the last two years, Ehimuan worked as General Manager, Strategic Business Units at Chams Plc leading four major lines of business, and key nationwide government projects.
In driving the Google business in Nigeria, Juliet has been passionate about deepening ICT in Nigeria with focus on getting more Nigerian businesses online. In her words, “Nigerians are enterprising; they only just need that enabling platform. This is why we are speaking to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). We are talking to those who haven’t gotten online, yet believe that it’s very expensive and it’s complex, intimidating and daunting, they are not sure how to do it or how it will benefit them etc. With this campaign we are looking to create awareness around the benefit by showcasing success stories and providing e-tools that shows just how easy it is to be involved.”
According to Juliet, Google’s strategy in Nigeria is focused on three things and the first is access. “How can we get more people online, how we can remove the barriers in internet and for this we are in conversation with our partners. Here we have also kicked off projects in universities in Nigeria and see how we can get these learning institutions on line. In these universities you see large concentrations of people so those are communities we can really make large impact on. We have a program called Google app support universities where we can provide technical expertise for our universities. The programme intends to help them build their campus internet and other software infrastructure. We also provide grants, pay for international bandwidth for a period of time and also we provide free software” she said.
Juliet Ehimuan holds an Executive MBA from the London Business School, a Post Graduate degree in Computer Science from the University of Cambridge, UK; and a Bachelors degree (1st class honours) in Computer Engineering from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife. She is a recipient of the London Business School Global Women’s Scholarship, and at Cambridge University she received two scholarly awards – Selwyn College Scholar and Malaysian commonwealth Scholar. She is a Fellow of the Cambridge Commonwealth Society.
She is no doubt a perfect representative for the giant search engine in Nigeria. Obviously, the ICT industry and Nigeria as whole have a lot to benefit from this passionate and energetic amazon.