Celebrating Nexford learner’s 4-year journey on our 4th birthday: Ezekiel Akpan’s story!

Ezekiel Akpan is one of our Nigerian learners residing in Ghana and who is on the cusp of graduating from Nexford University, something that he believes will help to propel his career through the stratosphere and lay the foundation for promotions and pay raises. This is a small part of his life journey, so we were curious about what he has been up to for the last four years and where he wants to be in the next four.

Ezekiel kicked off by saying, “Four years ago I was working with one of the leading commercial banks in Ghana and higher learning was not really on my radar. I was just focused on doing the best in my then job as a Computer Engineer. I was a technical guy with little business knowledge, and I knew that if I wanted to take the next step up, I needed an MBA to equip me with the vital business skills I needed to become a true entrepreneur.”

Four years down the line Ezekiel has transitioned from being solely ‘The IT Guy’ into looking at other areas of technology to add more strings to his bow in his job at KPMG. In fact, when we spoke, he told us that because of the business skills that he acquired at Nexford, he had an approach from a colleague entrepreneur and potential partner looking to grow the company by providing sought-after business solutions.

Speaking of his newfound business skills procured during his Nexford MBA, Ezekiel comments by saying, “Four years ago, when I would support the team to do a typical market entry survey, I never really appreciated what that meant. While going through my MBA program with Nexford, I began to appreciate more about market analysis tools and how they can be used to build a solid business case, to market products and solutions to a targeted customer audience. These learnings have guided me to where I am now and they will definitely stand me in good stead in the next four years of my career.”

Nobody has a crystal ball and Ezekiel can’t be certain just where he will be in four years’ time, but he certainly knows where he wants to be. At the moment he feels like he is in a sort of transition phase and says that he is exploring new technologies in the area of e-Commerce and other FinTech segments and measuring their impact on growing emerging markets. That means asking searching questions about just how he can contribute to growth in those markets and how his skills or experience in digital transformation and payment can help KPMG lead that growth.

Never one to stand still, Ezekiel says that post earning his MBA he will look to take some additional courses at Nexford University to expand his knowledge base. Watch this space to see what a success Ezekiel makes of that too.

We look forward to seeing him go from strength to strength in the next four years and hearing of his several new achievements in both business and life.

Watch his video below or on YouTube.

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