African businesses are waking up to a pressing reality: compliance is no longer optional. With the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation (NDPR) setting clear standards and imposing stiff penalties, up to ₦10 million or 2% of gross annual revenue per breach, the stakes are high. Yet for many organizations, staying compliant remains a complex and costly challenge. This is where professionals like Urenna Ukonne are making a difference.

One of the biggest issues African businesses face is the lack of standardized data protection infrastructure. While the NDPR has laid the foundation, many companies, especially small and medium enterprises, struggle to interpret the regulation, let alone implement it. For them, the rules often feel abstract, the processes overwhelming, and the financial burden discouraging.

Adding to the complexity is the manual nature of most data audits. Typically conducted through spreadsheets, in-person interviews, and disconnected systems, these audits lead to delays, errors, and incomplete reporting. For growing digital businesses, such inefficiencies put them at regulatory risk and distract from core operations.

Compounding this is a general lack of awareness around ethical data practices. In the rush to digitize, many companies launch products without fully considering how user data is collected, stored, or shared. The result is often weak privacy policies, non-compliant apps, and exposure to security breaches. Without proactive systems, most organizations remain reactive, addressing issues only after violations occur.

It’s at this critical intersection of regulation, operations, and innovation that Urenna Ukonne has carved out her impact. As a Data Protection Analyst and Product Manager at Taxaide Technologies Limited, she co-led the development of a data protection audit automation tool tailored to Nigeria’s regulatory landscape. This tool simplifies the audit filling and compliance process by offering a centralized platform where companies can self-assess compliance, identify risks, and generate NDPR-aligned reports, all without requiring deep technical expertise.

“Many companies underestimate the operational complexity of data protection until a breach occurs. Our goal was to make compliance not only accessible but sustainable,” Urenna explains.

The result? A 40% reduction in manual audit time and a scalable pathway to compliance for over 50 clients across finance, energy, real estate, and tech. This innovation streamlined documentation and allowed businesses to shift from reactive to proactive data protection.

Beyond tools, Urenna has also driven awareness. She organized Taxaide’s annual Virtual Data Protection Conference, reaching over 2,000 attendees globally and sparking cross-industry dialogue on privacy, AI ethics, and African digital sovereignty.

Her work highlights a vital truth, compliance is not a checkbox, it’s a culture. By embedding ethical principles into product design and strategy, Urenna is helping define responsible innovation in Africa’s digital era.