Simi Nwogugu has combated unemployment in Africa for over two decades by leading efforts to equip millions of youths with financial literacy, entrepreneurship, and digital skills through Junior Achievement Africa (JA Africa). JA Africa is a member of JA Worldwide, one of the world’s largest youth-serving NGOs and Nwogugu is its CEO.
Many young Africans are unemployed and lack the skills needed for the modern workforce. According to the African Development Bank, more than one-third of African youth aged 15 to 35 are without jobs, a situation worsened by over 60% of sub-Saharan Africa’s population under 25. By 2025, Africa will be home to 25% of the world’s youth population, with insufficient jobs for the working population.
Through JA Africa, Simi Nwogugu is playing her part in fixing this problem and helping the youths beat unemployment in Africa. She has helped the organisation expand its impact to 900,000 young people annually across 20 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including Angola, Burkina-Faso, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, DR Congo, Eswatini, Ghana, Madagascar, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Nwogugu moves to transform Africa
Simi Nwogugu was introduced to Junior Achievement when she started working at Goldman Sachs in New York. Inspired by its mission, she quit her job at the age of 24 to bring JA Africa to Nigeria in 1999, becoming the founding executive director of JA Nigeria.
Nwogugu led JA Nigeria for 21 years, impacting over one million Nigerians in 5,000 schools. In 2020, she was appointed CEO of JA Africa, a role she has held for 5 years and counting.
Junior Achievement Africa is one of Africa’s largest and most impactful youth-serving NGOs, with a presence in 23 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The organisation collectively reaches over a million youth in more than 3,000 schools annually.
JA Africa teaches financial literacy, entrepreneurship, and digital skills to help young people start businesses and manage their finances effectively. Their programs bridge the gap between what children learn in school and what they need to know to be successful adults in the workplace.
“My JA experience in Nigeria introduced me to my love for finance, businesses and start-ups. As CEO, my team and I developed a magazine, publishing articles contributed by students and selling them to students, parents and professors”- shared Yvonne Okafor, a Nigerian impacted by the JA program.
With Nwogugu leading as CEO, JA Africa expanded from ten countries in 2020 to 23 countries by 2024, with a mission to expand to 20 more countries by 2025. The organisation has 33,396 volunteers and has reached 3.5 million students across 26,145 schools.
Empowering African girls and women
Nwogugu is particularly passionate about empowering girls. She has launched initiatives like the Leadership, Empowerment Achievement & Development (LEAD) Camp for Girls, which has inspired over 2,000 young girls to become leaders. Her goal is to empower 10 million African girls by 2050.
On the 8th of March, 2025, in Accra, Ghana, Simi Nwogugu launched the 10 Million African Girls (10MAG) Campaign to equip 10 million girls across Africa with entrepreneurship, leadership and advocacy skills. This 10MAG campaign is part of Nwogugu’s Aspen Global Leadership Network (AGLN) fellowship. It is designed to raise funding, eliminate extreme poverty, reduce gender-based violence and raise support for multiple programs aimed at empowering young girls and women in sub-Saharan Africa.
