The first time Nnenna Onyewuchi took the stage as a public speaker, she was wearing heels, feeling sharp and ready to own the moment. But then she saw it. A long glass walkway to the stage.
In her mind’s eye, she could already see herself tumbling in slow motion, heels skidding, pride (and maybe her bride price) crashing alongside her.
“So I stopped, looked at the audience, and said, ‘Please, abeg, before I fall and they reduce my bride price, I hope you don’t mind if I take off my shoes.’ Big laugh. Shoes off. Talk delivered barefoot,” she said.
It was 2012 at the first TEDxLagos, and what began as self-preservation became something bigger. “Later, I realised it was something more, stripping away the distance between ‘speaker’ and ‘audience’. That’s how I do strategy. The best work isn’t about showing off; it’s about showing up.”
Nnenna calls herself The Barefoot Strategist, and the metaphor has stuck. “Data, research, and sharp thinking matter, but strategy lives in the human truth — the key that unlocks someone’s heart, mind, or motivation. Barefoot means cutting to the core. If you can’t explain your strategy on one slide, you don’t have one.”
Being barefoot made me human — and reminded me that the best strategy connects human to human.
The Yellow Brick Road Gambit
Years later, Nnenna Onyewuchi and her partner would rename their agency Yellow Brick Road, and the thinking behind that choice was as deliberate as any campaign they’d ever pitched.
“Most agencies position themselves as the Wizard in the Wizard of Oz: the all-knowing expert with the big solution hidden behind a curtain. But if you know the story, you know the wizard was a sham. The journey was the thing.”
Clients, like Dorothy and her crew, often already had the brains, the heart, the courage, and sometimes the way home within them. The agency’s job wasn’t to wave a wand; it was to walk with them and help them uncover what they already had.
From the start, they built around a triple bottom line: work that moves the mind, the heart, and the wallet.
“Love for a brand is great, but love without action doesn’t pay the bills. That focus on solving the business problem made us a worthwhile investment. Once the first few clients took the chance, results did the talking and the road paved itself.”
The magic isn’t in the agency. It’s in the brand; we just help them see it.
Nnenne says that Yellow Brick Road came to be after ZK Advertising lost 70% of its income overnight. “We started an agency in a hole. My co-founder saw opportunity; I saw flames. But he was right; we got to build the kind of agency we’d always wanted.”
Read also: Carbon at 10: Chijioke Dozie and Ngozi Dozie share experiences, insights at anniversary
Halo’s Moonshot Mission
Nnenna Onyewuchi’s career would eventually take an unexpected detour into fintech. “Joining Halo was a leap of faith. I’d never worked in tech, never worked client-side, and certainly never built a product from scratch.”
But Nnenna knew Nigerians. She knew how they thought about money, how they moved it, how they protected it. “Here, money is communal. We save together, spend together, build together. No safety net? We are the safety net.”
Most financial products tried to change the way people behaved. Halo flipped that. “We built around the way Nigerians already manage money. The winning play isn’t teaching people ‘a better way’. It’s showing them they’ve had one all along and giving them the tools to make it stronger.”
You don’t have to drag people somewhere new when you can make what they already do work better. Halo gave people a better way to do what they’ve always done.
The Cannes Lions Roar
Nnenna Onyewuchi didn’t just make her mark locally. She judged the Innovation Lions at Cannes, one of the most prestigious categories in the world.
“It was the 70th anniversary, the biggest year they’d ever had, and I was judging the Innovation Lions… a room full of global heavyweights… and me. But as my mother used to say, ‘Everybody enters their shokoto one leg at a time.’ Once we started, I realised I belonged there.”
Nnenna saw four-year projects, solutions that solved sharp human problems, and innovations that balanced creativity with measurable business impact. “The best work we saw started with a sharp human problem and ended with measurable business impact.”
The best innovation starts with a human problem and ends with a business impact.
Africa’s Storytelling Superpower
If there’s a soapbox Nnenna Onyewuchi will stand on any day, it’s this: African innovation isn’t catching up, it’s setting the pace.
“Mobile money? We did it before Cash App or Apple Pay. M-Pesa didn’t just change Kenya; it rewrote the global playbook. In Nigeria, we’ve been ‘texting’ money for over 15 years. Too often, our innovations are framed as charming, ‘local’ stories rather than the global game-changers they are.”
Nnenna is adamant that the so-called “global standard” shouldn’t be shorthand for “Western standard.” “We are the global standard. We’ve been the gold standard. It’s time we claimed that loudly, consistently, and unapologetically.”
Africa isn’t catching up; we’re setting the pace. We are the golden standard.
The Strategist’s Time Machine
Some lessons are burned into you. For Nnenna, one came in 2014 during a mobile money campaign. She borrowed tactics from FMCG, market storms, street activations, and built an ambitious plan.
Then the client asked: What’s the projected revenue per user? The cost per acquisition?
“That was my moment. I realised that in my excitement about solving the marketing problem, I’d built a beautiful plan that ignored the hard maths of the client’s reality.”
If you don’t know the numbers, you don’t know the strategy.
The Farmland Dream
If Nnenna could plant one seed for the next generation of women in business, it would be this: trust yourself more.
“We talk a lot about impostor syndrome, but in my experience, the world is set up to make you feel like you don’t belong. The proof that you belong is the fact that you’re in the room.”
She’s learned that even when challenges are new, the skills that got you here are the same ones that will take you further. “Trust the evidence of your own journey… seeds don’t question if they can grow. They already know they’re built for it.”
Trust the evidence of your own success; it’s proof you can go further.
The Loeries Leap
Nnenna Onyewuchi’s Loeries ranking may have been tied to her work on Omnicom’s MTN pitch, but she doesn’t believe in single defining moments. “It’s a series of choices, breaks, and battles that stack up over time.”
Her through-line? Preparation and people. “I prioritise people over titles, and that’s paid off; people I worked with years ago still call me when opportunities come up.”
Luck favours the prepared, and I’m always prepared.
The Tech-Hearted Visionary
Today, Nnenna Onyewuchi is at Carbon, one of Nigeria’s earliest mobile-first lenders, a company that endured where many didn’t.
“What struck me when I arrived was how far ahead they are, not just in Nigeria, but globally. I’ve seen things here that aren’t happening in other markets yet. And it’s not just tech for tech’s sake; at the heart of it is the commitment to helping people move smarter and live better.”
My job is to turn Carbon’s tech magic into a story the market feels.
The Mentorship Mosaic
Finally, Nnenna Onyewuchi shares the two truths she gives all her mentees. First: “Nobody knows what they’re doing… everyone’s figuring it out; they just do it with confidence.”
Second: “It will all burn down at least once in your career. Probably more. And that’s fine.”
Setbacks, she insists, aren’t the end of the story; they’re the start of the next chapter.
Nobody knows what they’re doing, and when it all burns down, you’ll still be fine.
Nnenna Onyewuchi’s journey, barefoot beginnings, yellow brick roads, and moonshot missions remind us that strategy isn’t about perfection, prestige, or power. It’s about showing up human, doing the work, and leaving every room, campaign, and company a little better than you found it.
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