Paul Okeugo

Paul Okeugo is the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Chocolate City Group. He is responsible for ensuring day-to-day business operations are efficiently and effectively run, from the stakeholder/management level down to the staff, and driving high-level performance across the board.

Starting out in research and analysis at the National War College, he moved into the exciting and demanding world of Sales and Marketing by joining the British American Tobacco (BAT) in 2003 as a Channel Development Area Manager (North and Middle-belt markets) with core roles in Marketing & Retail management of Dunhill Brands, Team Lead, Dunhill range and Dunhill Cigars (Middle Belt region), Media and Brand Communication/Consumer Event management, Product and Brand exclusivity management and Brand management of high-Value Brands (Dunhill Range & B&H) to ensure key business objectives such as brand equity, growth, market share and profit maximization, are met.

He was recruited by Nokia in 2008 and rose to the role of Senior Business Manager and Head of sales, looking after Sales & Retail for Nigeria, West and Central Africa, directly ensuring business and market share growth in over 5 countries. This also includes a planning responsibility for another 11 emerging and developing markets within the region. In his time there, he won numerous local, regional, and global recognition awards for his exceptional performances.

He joined Microsoft in 2015 as a Senior Business Manager, Nigeria, where he led and inspired the Sales team across West and Central Africa with a focus on Nigeria to develop and implement sustainable market growth strategies that deliver consumer-relevant value propositions while also meeting agreed business objectives.

His most recent role prior to his position as COO of Chocolate City Group was as a Senior Business Manager, Nigeria at HMD Global OY (Nokia), to support the re-emergence of the Nokia brand by developing and implementing sustainable market growth strategies that deliver consumer-relevant value propositions across a diverse market demographic.

Challenged by new opportunities with a keen eye for potential and diversity and fuelled by a strong passion for the arts, he is leading the operations of one of the best-known brands in the music and entertainment industry in West & South Africa. He is also a Board Director of COSON, Nigeria’s premier collection agency for entertainment content. Paul is also the founder of the Guild of Artist and Poets and a senior member of the Abuja Literary Society and the Association of Nigerian Authors (ANA), where, in 2000, he won the ANA Award for creative writing. He has also been Thrice Recognized (2001, 2002, 2003) by the International Library of Poetry (US Congress Library).

Paul holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science (Majors: Marketing & Psychology) from the University of Jos and a Post-Graduate Diploma in Marketing and Planning from the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Moorehall, UK.