Former Uber West Africa Manager Joins Netflix As Director Of Payments

The former Uber West Africa manager, Ebi Atawodi has joined Netflix as its Director of Payments for the EMEA region.

Before her new position, she spearheaded Uber’s arrival and growth in West Africa. Now she is at Netflix and she is taking the same attitude and vision to Netflix.

Ebi Atawodi announced her new position at Netflix via her LinkedIn and described her six years as Uber’s West Africa Manager as ‘a ride of a lifetime’.

Her time at Uber was an explosive one. As the general manager of Uber she was responsible for leading the company’s expansion in Lagos and eventually other cities in West Africa. Abuja became Uber’s 400th city while she served as Manager.

In 2017, after making those worthy achievement and spearheading series of successful operations, she became the company’s Head of Product (payments) in February 2017.

Although she’s switching industries; from ride-sharing and logistics to entertainment, her position still remains in Payments.

‘Anyone who knows me knows I’m obsessed with Netflix – the culture, the product, the impact it has had on the art of storytelling. Excited to be joining Netflix as Director of Payments, [Europe, the Middle East and Africa] and can’t wait to do the best work of my life’, she shared via her LinkedIn.

Netflix has become one of the global companies to reckon with. It added 8.5 million new subscribers in Q4 of 2020, and was the perfect companion during the lockdown periods of 2020.

By the end of 2020, Netflix had a total of over 200 million paying subscribers. No other streaming platform in the world has as many subscribers as Netflix.

Most of the company’s subscribers come from Europe, the Middle East and Africa (abbreviated as EMEA). About 66.7 million of Netflix’s subscribers are from these parts of the world and the numbers are expected to grow astronomically in a short time.

Ebi Atawodi’s new position comes with the onus of managing payment dynamics to make sure Netflix stays ahead of its competitors. Quite a number of them are beginning to show up.

Ebi Atawodi has once worked at Etisalat which goes by 9mobile now. She was the Head of Corporate Communications and Sponsorship.

Her position at Netflix comes at the same period Dr. Ngozi  Okonjo Iweala becomes the Director of the World Trade Organization. She leads the world body as the first woman and African to do so.