Voices of leadership
Empowering Girls at Scale: Simi Nwogugu’s Vision for a Safer, Stronger Africa
Q&A with Simi Nwogugu
Simi Nwogugu has dedicated her leadership to empowering Africa’s youth — especially girls — to build the futures they deserve. A social entrepreneur driven by purpose, she is pursuing an ambitious vision: to equip 10 million African Girls (10MAG) with the education, confidence, and economic power they need to transform their communities by 2050.
“You don’t wait for someone to come save you. You save yourself.”
This belief fueled Simi’s commitment to standing with young girls who face violence, exclusion from school, and the absence of basic protection. Through their stories, she saw that leadership often begins in the hardest places — in the moment a young girl decides her voice matters, even when the world tells her otherwise. Simi has made it her mission to help nurture that spark, ensuring girls develop the courage and skills to advocate for themselves and shape the environments they live in.
Simi’s journey began on Wall Street, where an encounter with Junior Achievement (JA) New York sparked a call. Convinced that entrepreneurship education could unlock opportunities for Nigeria’s underserved youth, she brought JA to the country in 1999. Today, as CEO of JA Africa, she leads an organization reaching more than one million young people annually across 23 countries.
Simi is a Fellow of the Africa Leadership Initiative – West Africa, Class of VI, and member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network. We caught up with her at the 2025 Resnick Aspen Action Forum to reflect on how she continues to champion young African girls — equipping them with the agency, advocacy skills, and opportunities they need to drive lasting social change in their communities.
Answers have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
What has been your biggest learning in your leadership and impact journey?
The biggest learning of my leadership journey so far is the realization of the statement “nobody’s coming to save us.” I work with a lot of young people across Africa, and the conditions under which they operate sometimes is really deplorable.
We are building young leaders who can develop solutions to their own problems and to develop the skills to become leaders that create the change that the society needs. If I see something that makes me angry, I don’t complain about it — I do something about it. That learning has really shaped my thinking of leadership and building the young leaders that will cultivate that.
We work with a lot of young girls who come to us and say they’re being raped every day. They’re pulled out of school against their will. It’s really tough to be able to show these girls that they can be leaders in their own lives. They can push back against some of these forces working against them. It’s really about advocacy — the skill of understanding who you are at the core and what you have, that your voice is your power. You don’t wait for someone to come save you. You save yourself.
What problem are you committed to solving, and how are you taking action?
With the Africa Leadership Initiative, we were asked, “What problem do you want to solve?” The notion of “nobody’s coming to save us” stayed with me. I need to equip these girls at scale to solve the problem, create the social safety nets missing in their communities, and build leaders who determine community policies and laws.
So I started a venture under the Africa Leadership Initiative – West Africa called 10 Million African Girls (10MAG). The goal is to go into communities and ensure girls get educated, receive entrepreneurship training that builds confidence and economic power, and learn leadership and advocacy skills. That’s what I’ve focused on this past year. We launched on International Women’s Day, aiming to engage girls across diverse communities. We don’t always have to give a scholarship for a girl to leave her home — we can empower them at scale right where they are.
What sparked your commitment to empowering girls through entrepreneurship and leadership?
When I started with Junior Achievement, I brought it to Nigeria and took our entrepreneurship program to schools across the country. Young people were excited about entrepreneurship. The boys especially loved the idea of making money, freedom, and independence. The girls were timid at the beginning, but by the end of the six-to-nine-month program, when they competed for the best business in their region, we saw the girls rise. They helped their companies overcome challenges, gained confidence, and often led their teams to win.
I noticed we were building girls’ confidence by teaching them entrepreneurship, leadership, advocacy, and the courage to speak for themselves. So we developed Lead Camp — Leadership Empowerment, Achievement and Development Camp — bringing 50 outstanding girls across Africa to strengthen that newfound confidence. Watching them come in as girls and leave as women was amazing.
But there were always one or two who said, “I don’t want to go back home. I’ve got an uncle who rapes me — and because he’s the benefactor of our family, my parents turn a blind eye.” Sometimes it was the biological father. I always felt terrible sending them back to the hell they came from, because I couldn’t keep them longer than the one week I had permission. There were no social safety nets in their communities where I could call a policeman and say, “Go arrest this man.” It just didn’t exist.
What do you wish more people knew about leadership?
A lot of people wait until they get a title or they get a rank. Leadership is a personal conviction that this thing makes me angry, and I’m going to do something about it. If more people understood that, they would realize the power that they can make change in their communities.
If you could write a letter to your younger self, what would it be?
You are enough is what the letter would say. It’s not about the schools you go to or the company you keep — it’s about what you carry in you. I’m a very deeply spiritual person, and I realized that later in life. So I think I would tell myself to seek God earlier. It would have given me more confidence to know who I am, what I carry and who I belong to.
About the Aspen Global Leadership Network
The Aspen Global Leadership Network (AGLN) is a dynamic, worldwide community of nearly 4,000 entrepreneurial leaders from over 60 countries. Spanning business, government, and the nonprofit sector, these leaders share a commitment to enlightened leadership and the drive to tackle the most pressing challenges of our times. Through transformative Fellowship programs and gatherings like the Resnick Aspen Action Forum, AGLN Fellows have the unique opportunity to connect, collaborate, and challenge each other to grow and commit to a lifelong journey of impact.
More from 2025 Resnick Aspen Action Forum
In July 2025, over 500 leaders across the Aspen Global Leadership Network (AGLN) community gathered for our largest Action Forum to date. Joined by nearly 100 young leaders, AGLN Fellows from more than 30 countries returned to the enduring questions first posed at at the founding of the Aspen Institute 75 years go: What does it mean to lead with purpose in times of profound uncertainty?
Explore more inspiring content on leadership and change-making from the 2025 Action Forum here.