Catherine Uduba’s journey from Nigeria to Manila and the United States, working with major global organizations, has shaped a leadership perspective she believes is especially relevant for Nigerian managers and startup founders navigating growth and scale.
With experience spanning financial advisory, management consulting, and operations planning at a leading technology company, Catherine has observed firsthand how effective leaders operate across diverse business environments. She holds an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and specializes in operations planning and business strategy.
One of the most important lessons Catherine emphasizes is that strong leadership is grounded in discipline rather than access to extensive resources.
“In my financial advisory work, I conducted due diligence for companies managing millions of dollars in assets,” she explains. “The distinguishing factor between consistently successful firms and those that struggled was not the amount of capital available to them, but the discipline applied to decision-making, performance measurement, and accountability.”
She believes this principle applies directly to Nigerian startups. “Accountability does not require sophisticated systems. It requires consistent processes, clearly defined expectations, and the discipline to execute and follow through.”
Drawing from her consulting experience analyzing large-scale markets, Catherine stresses that data-driven decision-making is relevant at every stage of organizational growth.
“Many early-stage companies rely primarily on intuition or prior experience,” she observes. “The most effective leaders integrate intuition with evidence. They track meaningful metrics, test assumptions, and adjust their strategies when data indicates a different direction.”
She advises companies to begin with fundamental metrics such as sales trends, customer behavior, and cash flow. “Advanced analytics are not a prerequisite. What matters is developing the discipline to regularly review performance data and interpret what it reveals about the business.”
Catherine has also observed that high-performing global organizations intentionally reduce barriers between functions.
“In operations planning, outcomes depend on close coordination among sales, finance, engineering, and supply chain teams,” she explains. “When functions operate in silos, critical risks and inefficiencies often go undetected.”
For Nigerian startups, she recommends establishing regular mechanisms for cross-functional communication. “Sales teams should maintain active dialogue with operations, and finance teams should have visibility into customer feedback. This level of coordination improves alignment and accelerates decision-making.”
Another leadership capability Catherine highlights is the ability to manage uncertainty, a skill she developed through forecasting work involving tens of millions of units.
“Uncertainty is inherent in every significant business decision,” she says. “Effective leaders do not attempt to eliminate risk; they seek to understand it and prepare for a range of possible outcomes.”
She encourages founders to adopt probabilistic thinking. “Rather than asking whether an initiative will succeed, leaders should evaluate potential scenarios and determine how the organization can perform effectively across each of them. This shift in perspective significantly strengthens decision-making.”
Ultimately, Catherine believes Nigerian startups are well positioned to succeed by applying proven global practices with strong local execution.
“Nigerian startups do not need to reinvent established approaches,” she concludes. “They need to adapt what works globally and execute it with rigor in their local context.”
