Five men and women in the U.S.-based African Diaspora are among the 2014 recipients of The Network Journal’s 40 Under Forty Achievers Award.
In its 17th year, the award recognizes Black professionals and entrepreneurs who are outstanding in their career or industry field, and who also demonstrate commitment to the wellbeing of their community. The annual list of honorees is one of the most highly anticipated of its kind, particularly in the Black business community.
The five African awardees for 2014 are:
* Anita Ogbara (pictured above, far left), director of corporate ratings at Standard & Poor’s, McGraw Hill Financial. Ogbara is the daughter of Nigerian immigrants.
* Uzoamaka N. Okoye, Esq., an associate at Gibbons P.C. Okoye hails from Liberia and Nigeria.
* Justina Omokhua, vice president-Strategy at Erwin Penland. Omokhua is the daughter of Nigerian immigrants.
* David Yaw Barima Osei, Ghanaian-born co-founder and former CEO of Dropifi Limited. At 27, Osei is the youngest of the entire 2014 class of honorees.
* Jonathan Rogers (pictured above, far right), executive MS (multiple sclerosis) sales specialist at Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. Rogers was born in Sierra Leone.
“Many people have worked hard so that I can have the opportunities I have today. So I pay it forward by being very involved in community service and serving on boards of not-for-profits,” says Okoye.
Omokhua attributes her professional achievement to the lessons of her “first” experiences. “First job, first mistake, first interview, first success. All of these ‘firsts’ shape direction. Either it was something that worked and I repeated it, or it was something that didn’t work and I changed it,” she says.
The five will join their fellow honorees at an Awards Gala on June 12 in the Broadway Ballroom at The Crowne Plaza Times Square Manhattan, 1605 Broadway (between 48th and 49th streets), New York City. Each of the honorees is profiled in the Summer issue of The Network Journal (TNJ), a leading New York-based business publication targeting Black professionals, business owners, corporate decision makers and policy makers.
TNJ was founded in New York in 1993.
Along with African-Americans, Black professionals and entrepreneurs with recent roots in Africa, the Caribbean, Latin America and Europe typically are among the recipients each year of The Network Journal’s “40 Under Forty Achievers” and “25 Influential Black Women in Business” awards.
African Diaspora “40 Under Forty” honorees from previous years include Amini C. Kajunju (2005), former CEO of Workshop in Business Opportunities (WIBO), a New York-based nonprofit service provider to small businesses, currently president and CEO of The Africa-America Institute; and Chamberlain S. Peterside (2001), Ph.D., founder and CEO Emeritus of New Era Capital Corp, an investment advisory firm on Wall Street, currently finance commissioner in Rivers State, Nigeria.
