The art of betting on yourself: Lessons from Ojoma Ochai

Ojoma Ochai has a habit of betting on herself. She’s the kind of person who sees an open door, or in this case, a post, and walks right through it.

In 2021, during a season of transition after leaving the British Council, she was scrolling online when a tweet caught her attention. 

It was from Jack Dorsey, then CEO of Twitter, announcing that he and Jay-Z were donating 500 Bitcoin to set up an organisation supporting open-source Bitcoin developers in Africa and India.

There was a link. A call for trustees. And a sense that something bigger was waiting on the other side.

“I saw a tweet, clicked on it, and filled out a Google form,” Ojoma recalls with a laugh. 

Her retelling is understated, but what stands out isn’t the coincidence; it’s her conviction. “You get 0% of the opportunities you don’t pursue,” she says. “I shot my shot.”

That mix of quiet boldness and deliberate action defines Ojoma’s journey. Whether she’s driving cultural policy, building creative ecosystems, or sitting on global boards, she moves with an instinct for possibility. 

Long before she became the Managing Director of CcHUB Africa and co-founder of its Creative Economy Practice, Ojoma’s life seemed destined for science. 

She holds degrees in chemistry and network engineering. Her first jobs were in Nigeria’s growing tech infrastructure sector, installing satellite links and internet systems.

Yet, something tugged at her. “I grew up in a creative home,” she explains. “My father was a theatre arts professor, so I was always surrounded by artists and writers. I loved science, but I was fascinated by how creative people could have so much talent yet struggle financially.”

That question, why creatives often lacked economic stability, became her lifelong mission. 

In 2006, she took a bold leap from tech into the arts by joining the British Council in Nigeria as an Arts Assistant. It meant moving cities and taking a junior position. But it also opened the door to a 15-year journey shaping Africa’s creative economy across literature, film, and music.

By the time she left, Ojoma was Regional Director for Arts and Creative Economy across Sub-Saharan Africa, leading projects like New Narratives, which sought to challenge outdated perceptions of Africa in the UK and beyond.

When she co-founded the Creative Economy Practice at CcHUB in 2021, Ojoma brought her two worlds, tech and creativity, full circle. The practice supports Africa’s creative entrepreneurs with data, policy, and innovation.

Today, as Managing Director of CcHUB Africa (which also owns Kenya’s iconic iHub), she sits at the intersection of technology, culture, and innovation, a space she describes as “where Africa’s next big shift will happen.”

Beyond CcHUB, she serves on the board of Btrust, the organisation set up by Jack Dorsey and Jay-Z to support Bitcoin open-source developers in Africa, India, and Latin America. 

She’s also on the advisory board of African Infiltra, which amplifies diverse African stories, and PixelRay, a film infrastructure development company for Africa and the Caribbean.

Additionally, she sits on UNESCO’s Global Expert Panel on the Creative Industries, helping countries like Nigeria, Jamaica, and Namibia design strategies and policies for cultural growth.

Despite her global footprint, Ojoma still lives in Lagos. “It’s a deliberate choice,” she says firmly. “If we don’t fix our countries, who will? No one is coming to save us.”

For her, development aid only works when it aligns with local priorities. 

“Help always has strings attached,” she notes. “I believe in operating where those strings overlap with our own interests; that’s where real progress happens.”

Her conviction goes beyond policy; it’s personal. Growing up, her father took her to plays and literature festivals, feeding her love for African storytelling. 

She read writers like Chinua Achebe, Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, Ama Ata Aidoo, and Ayi Kwei Armah, alongside the wildly popular Pacesetters series that portrayed African heroes in everyday life.

“If the only stories you grow up hearing are about people discovering your rivers and saving your people, you start to believe you’re less,” she reflects.

For Ojoma, the next frontier is storytelling. She believes that until Africans know their own stories, they can’t tell them authentically.

“We have to be curious about who we are,” she says. “Before we start telling stories, we have to know our own history.”

That’s why she champions archiving and documentation, citing Kenyan initiative Book Bunk, which is digitising national archives, and Nigeria’s Archivi.ng, which preserves historical media. 

“We need more of these,” she insists. “In 2014, I was shocked to find that the British Film Institute had better archives of Nigerian history than we did. That has to change.”

She also recently began writing her own non-fiction book, her first, though she keeps the details close. 

“I’ve decided to write it myself. I’m even taking a writing course,” she laughs. “I never thought I’d be here.”

Through all her chapters, scientist, technologist, creative strategist, and global thought leader, one thread runs clear: Ojoma Ochai bets on herself.

It’s the same courage that made her switch careers, lead pan-African initiatives, and click on a tweet that changed her life. 

And it’s that same courage she hopes more Africans will embrace, to act on curiosity, to tell their own stories, and to believe that every open door deserves a knock.