Konga Group chief executive officer, Prince Ekeh, has been honoured with two global awards by Forbes and EuroKnowledge for his role in shaping Africa’s digital economy.
The Oxford-trained entrepreneur received the Distinguished EuroKnowledge Award for Emerging Leadership in Digital Transformation – covering e-commerce, digital infrastructure and financial technology—as well as the Forbes Best of Africa E-commerce Leadership Award 2025. The ceremony took place inside the House of Lords, London, where Ekeh also delivered the fire-starter speech.
He made history as the first African of his age to receive both honours on the same night.
The audience at the House of Lords applauded as his professional and academic journey was read. Forbes had reportedly conducted a detailed review of his career, tracing his early achievements from secondary school where he earned second place in a national mathematics competition to his time at Leysin American School in Switzerland, the University of Lancaster in the United Kingdom, and later the University of Oxford, where he obtained an MBA in 2022.
Ekeh’s leadership has gained international recognition through features in Forbes Africa and his inclusion among the Top 100 Most Influential People of African Descent (MIPAD). He also drives social impact through the Leo Stan Ekeh Foundation, which has provided access to education and digital inclusion for more than 250,000 Nigerians through infrastructure projects and scholarships.
At 19, while studying at Lancaster, Ekeh founded Yudala, Africa’s first composite e-commerce company. By the time he returned to Nigeria for his National Youth Service, Yudala had grown into a bustling enterprise employing more than 250 people.
He later led his team to acquire Konga in 2018 and merged it with Yudala, transforming the struggling firm into one of Africa’s fastest-growing e-commerce platforms.
Ekeh comes from a family deeply rooted in technology and entrepreneurship. His father, Dr. Leo Stan Ekeh, is founder of the Zinox Group, a major African tech conglomerate with operations in Europe, Asia and the Middle East. His mother, Lady Chioma Ekeh, is Group CEO of TD Africa, the largest tech distribution company in Sub-Saharan Africa.
His sister, Mrs. Gozy Ijogun (née Ekeh), launched TD-Mobile at 25, Nigeria’s first structured mobile device distribution company, which earned ₦38 billion in its first year. She currently serves as CEO of Task Systems Limited.
Ekeh’s entrepreneurial roots run deep. His great-grandfather, Mazi Ihentuge Ekeh, was a prominent merchant in Onitsha, while his grandmother, a British-trained entrepreneur, designed Nigeria’s first galvanized dustbin and ran a chain of restaurants under Ato and Co Limited.
In his speech at the award ceremony, Ekeh reflected on the challenges and vision behind building Konga.
“When we acquired Konga from Naspers, Africa’s most valuable company, and Kinnevik, a Swedish investment company, and merged it with Yudala, we faced a similar dilemma. Do we build just an e-commerce company—or do we build infrastructure that can outlive us? We chose the harder path—to build the rails of digital commerce for Nigeria and, ultimately, for Africa,” he said.
He explained that the company created KongaPay to solve payment challenges, Konga Logistics to move goods efficiently, and a hybrid retail model that connects online trust with offline reliability. Konga also established television and radio channels to expand its ecosystem.
“Today, over 195,000 merchants, 4 million customers and hundreds of logistics franchisees depend on Konga’s ecosystem. Every package delivered isn’t just commerce – it’s connection. It’s a small business in Enugu selling to a customer in Kano for the first time. It’s a logistics agent who now employs 100 drivers because of our franchise model. That’s what scalable social impact looks like – technology turning potential into prosperity,” he said.
Ekeh described entrepreneurship in Africa as an opportunity to build meaningful impact. “True social impact is not charity—it’s infrastructure for inclusion,” he added. “When a merchant in Lagos has the same digital tools as a retailer in London, that’s equality of access. When a delivery rider in Kano builds a franchise from one bike to 100, that’s wealth redistribution powered by innovation.”
He concluded: “The entrepreneurs who will shape the next decade will not be the ones who just fit into systems—but those who build new systems that fit more people in. That’s what we strive for at Konga – what I call commercial scale with social soul.”
Dignitaries at the event included billionaire entrepreneurs such as Dragons’ Den star Richard Faileigh and Reebok co-founder Joe Foster, who also received awards.
Nigeria’s delegation featured the Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris; NAFDAC Director-General, Professor Mojisola Adeyeye, and Professor Olufolake Abdulrazaq, wife of the Kwara State governor, among others.
