Jumia CEO Massimiliano Spalazzi will step down in December 2023, after serving as CEO of an e-commerce company for 11 years.
The CEO of Jumia Ghana, Sunil Natraj, who was hired last year, will take over from Spalazzi, one of the company’s original staff members.
Jumia Group CEO Francis Dufay made the announcement of Natraj’s employment during a press conference held in Yaba, Lagos, Nigeria on Tuesday.
Jumia aspires to be a Nigerian business, not a Lagos-based one. At the function, Natraj stated, “Jumia wants to be a Nigerian company and not a Lagos company. We want to continue what Spalazzi started,”
He revealed Jumia’s intentions to grow into other Nigerian cities. Jumia is thinking about two cities: Akure and Ilorin. In the first quarter of 2024, the e-commerce company is also considering Benin, Warri, and Ibadan.
The overarching goal is to construct a network encompassing the whole nation. He clarified that Ghana, Cote d’Ivoire, and Senegal had found success with this kind of expansion. Nigeria is Jumia’s largest market, he continued.
According to the CEO, the company has faced its fair share of difficulties. One of those difficulties was the company’s employment reduction in the fourth quarter of 2022 and the 73% drop in its advertising spend in the third quarter of 2023.
