Meet the Female globally certified DevOps engineer and Customer Success Manager
Oru Leonard
Ekwutosi Cynthia Okeh a.k.a Lemonade
Ekwutosi Cynthia is a globally certified DevOps engineer , customer success Manager and seasoned IT consultant with over 7 years’ experience in technical support, research and analysis, after sales-support, account management and Product management. She is a Microsoft trained Scrum Master committed to ensuring maximum delivery at all times.
As a young female in a male saturated industry, Ekwutosi is passionate about helping women and girls gain tech skills in the fast growing African tech industry and has single handedly trained over 30,000 people in on demand tech skills necessary to compete globally in the IT industry.
She is the C.E.O of Digital Witch, one of Nigeria’s biggest IT Support community committed to training and equipping young Africans with the necessary tech skills needed to secure jobs in the global tech industry. She has built and maintained profitable relationships with cross functional teams and stakeholders and is fast becoming one of the most sought after tech influencer with a combined community of over 100,000 followers across social media.
Ekwutosi Cynthia Okeh was born in 1992, to Igbo Parents from Eastern Nigeria. The first of five children, she began her academic pursuits at the prestigious Markudi International schools in Benue State Nigeria where she was sent to live with an Uncle. After her primary education, She then returned back to her home town in Enugu state to attend St Catherine comprehensive College, Nsukka.
As a child, Ekwutosi dreamt of becoming a nurse, this dream would later change to include studying Economics at the university and becoming a world class Economist like the famous CBN governor, Charles Soludo but as fate would have it, she found a new love in reading poetry and literature books and eventually ended up studying Arts Education with a major in Literature at the prestigious University of Nigeria, Nsukka.
After graduation in 2014, she proceeded for the mandatory National youth service scheme and also secured admission to further her education as a Masters student but unfortunately, Cynthia lost her Dad at that critical moment and had to forego her dream of obtaining a master degree. Instead, she got a job and began supporting her siblings as the first child.
Ekwutosi’s journey into tech began After her youth service: She had just returned back from Bayelsa state where she was posted for her youth service, a close friend then invited her to relocate to Lagos State, Nigeria’s commercial hub. She got into Lagos State as a newbie and secured a job as an office assistant in a real estate company, a job she didn’t find too fulfilling as a young, ambitious lady.
In her words;
“ It felt like I was under-achieving, I felt I was smarter and could do more with myself than just sit down and respond to telephone calls “
Her Eureka moment came one weekend, whilst watching a youtube video, an advert about cloud computing popped up on her screen. She got interested in the ad and began watching the channel and thus began her journey into the technological world of cloud computing.
Convinced that this was the kind of career path she wanted, Ekwutosi reached out to a friend who worked at Jobberman, one of Africa’s biggest job hunting platforms. She told him she wanted a job in the tech space and luckily for her, he was able to help her secure an interview with Microsoft, a tech company which had just begun operations in Nigeria. Ekwutosi attended the Interview and passed it successful, thus cementing her foray into the IT space.
“Immediately I got into Microsoft, I saw the place as a training school for myself, so I started learning everything that I needed to become more tech savvy.”
Although Cynthia was from an arts background, she was employed as a Tech Support staff by Microsoft. At the office, she was surrounded by people who had vast experience and background in Engineering, computer science and tech related courses, so naturally, she felt the need to measure up and began to develop her tech skills to meet up with the job demands, improving her skills each day by asking questions and taking courses online. Gradually, her life was beginning to take shape as a young , African woman in Tech.
At first, it wasn’t easy for her considering the fact that Tech is a male dominated industry. But rather than get intimidated, Ekwutosi got motivated and pushed hard towards achieving her dreams of acquiring tech skills that will enable her compete favorably with the men in the industry.
“As a lady in a male dominated industry, I never felt intimidated, rather, I became motivated. I think a lot of women see challenges as a stumbling block, so they give up and back down. But I wasn’t brought up that way, my dad always told that men and women had the same number of hands and brain and as such, whatever a man could do, a woman could do same…that particular statement has always been my motivation, As a woman, I needed to pull my weight and work twice as hard as the guys to show that I merited that position, I didn’t limit myself, I kept improving my skills and learning as much as I could to improve my skill set and make me more employable”
By upskilling and equipping herself with the right tech skills, Ekwutosi soon became the best member of her team.
While she worked and earned good money in the tech space, Ekwutosi did not forget her root, like the selfless person that she was, she began thinking of ways she could pass on the knowledge she had gained to other women and young people seeking skills that would help them become financially independent. As a child from a poor background, Cynthia had experienced firsthand, what it felt like to be poor and financially dependent. She wanted to help other vulnerable people earn money, especially women and young girls. She thought of the best way to do this using 21st century approach and that was how DIGITAL WITCH Nigeria was created.
Ekwutosi founded Digital witch Nigeria with the sole goal of empowering women and young girls in tech by teaching them on-demand tech skills that will enable them earn good money whether they are stay at home mums, young people or workers in search of a side hustle. Digital witch was birthed with the aim of helping women become financially independent and employable in the global market but over time, due to demand from the male gender, it has now spread to include men and just about anybody desirous of financial freedom made possible by the vast world of technology. Digital-witch is now helping young people regardless of age; sex and color find employment beyond the Nigerian labor market.
In Ekwutosi’s words;
“Every day , new companies spring up, startup companies get founded by thousands of people across the globe and these company need a workforce, people that will work in various capacity. So, at Digital witch, we teach you skills that will prepare you for these jobs beyond the Nigerian labor market and show you how to land these jobs in the international market. By doing this, not only are we reducing poverty , unemployment and making more Nigerians employable, we are also bringing in foreign currency and gradually making Nigeria a tech hub spot for the international community”
When asked where she envisioned herself to be in the next 5 years, Ekwutosi had this to say:
“In just 3 years of our existence, we have trained over 30,000 people, some of which have gotten jobs abroad that have relocated them and their families. In the coming years, we hope to achieve more; we hope to build a bigger academy that will accommodate more trainees, maybe a physical academy, somewhere where we can teach practical, hands on tech skills that will ensure more Nigerians become equipped with the right skills needed to find jobs in the tech industry. In the next 5 years I see us having different sectors of the organization; Digital witch community- a community support group where we can interact with other tech people, share skills and ideas, Digital witch Academy- For training people, Digital witch Agency- where we can employ people and partner with other companies , recruiters and organization’s seeking to employ our trainees. As a matter of fact, I see all of these happening before the 5 years’ time”
It is right to say that EKwutosi’s Digital-Witch has enjoyed massive success despite it being barely 4 years old and Cynthia has attributed this impressive Success to loving her job.
“People always ask me about my success recipe, it is very simple to answer, I enjoy what I do. When you enjoy your work, and you have a passion for what you do then work becomes fun. I always look forward to having new students because I am passionate about teaching, each class gives me a fresh opportunity to network, meet new people and create new millionaires. You know that special feeling that you have when you help people create wealth that feeling just keeps me refreshed always. Of course there are times when I just want to stop, but the passion and the impact that I am making through digital witch just keeps me going.
So, to succeed at whatever you do, make sure you are passionate about it. Don’t just do it because everybody else is doing it, make sure it’s something you enjoy doing and trust me, you will excel.
When asked for an advice to other women and young girl seeking a career path in Tech, Ekwutosi gave a very unusual advice:
“My advice for women seeking a career path in tech, – I think a lot of people go into tech for the wrong reasons, chief of which is Money. If you are going into tech simply because you want to make money then you have already failed at it, which is a very wrong reason to want to go into tech. I think what anyone seeking a career in tech should do is to research; you have Google, research all the information you need before embarking on your journey. The research will help you streamline the particular part of tech you want to be in, something that interests you and you can easily connect with. Information Technology or Tech is broad, so broad that you cannot major in all. The first step is to make your research and decide which particular aspect you want to major in and then focus on making yourself an expert in that field. People fail in tech because they jump from one field to another”
Ekwutosi’s company is currently doing an amazing job in the human capacity development sector, and we strongly belief that with more people like her in Nigeria, our dear country will gradually become the center of technological excellence.
