City People Magazine has bestowed its prestigious 2022 Tech for Good Award on Oyinomomo-emi Emmanuel Akpe, recognising him as one of Nigeria’s foremost champions of industrial resilience and data-driven innovation. The honour highlights his groundbreaking work in applying digital technologies to manufacturing and logistics, achievements that continue to set new performance standards across the sector.
The annual City People Awards are widely regarded as one of the most credible platforms for recognising professional excellence across Nigeria’s industries. Each year, the programme celebrates individuals whose work pushes boundaries and delivers measurable results. The 2022 edition was one of the most competitive to date, drawing more than 100,000 nominations from across the country and abroad. Winners were selected after a thorough review process by City People’s editorial team, senior analysts, and external advisors who assessed nominees based on innovation, leadership, integrity, and proven impact. Emerging as the winner in such a demanding category placed Akpe among the most outstanding professionals honoured this year.
City People’s editorial board described the choice as an easy one. “Oyinomomo-emi has proven that digital transformation is not just a buzzword but a discipline,” said senior editor Wale Lawal. “His projects consistently deliver results, from predictive maintenance to ERP integration, showing that Nigerian industries can achieve resilience by trusting in data-driven strategies.”
For Akpe, the recognition is both humbling and affirming. Speaking after the award ceremony, he offered a glimpse into his philosophy: “Digital tools only deliver when they are married to strong processes and clear ownership. I design projects so that people can use the data, auditors can trust the trail, and managers can make faster, smarter choices. That’s how transformation becomes sustainable.”
Those words echo a career built on merging vision with execution. Trained in business administration and information technology, and currently pursuing a PhD in Project Management, Akpe is not only an academic but also a practitioner who thrives at the coalface of industry. His trajectory tells a story of someone who understands that technology must serve people, processes, and profit in equal measure.
At BEEGO Waters, where he serves as Senior Technical Program Manager, Akpe has redefined what digital transformation means in a local manufacturing context. Since joining the company in 2019, he has overseen a series of ambitious projects that have delivered tangible business value. Among them is the deployment of an IoT-based operational intelligence system that reduced downtime by 38 percent and lifted plant throughput by 21 percent. In a sector where every minute of downtime translates to lost revenue and customer dissatisfaction, such improvements signal not only efficiency but also resilience.
He also spearheaded a $1.2 million SAP Business One ERP rollout, streamlining operations in ways that boosted order accuracy by 44 percent and cut fulfilment lead times by 3.5 days. Similarly, his GPS-based fleet optimization platform brought fuel costs down by 27 percent and raised on-time deliveries from 81 percent to 95 percent, an achievement that speaks volumes in Nigeria’s challenging logistics environment.
Behind these headline figures lies a consistent approach to problem-solving. Akpe does not chase technology for its own sake. Instead, he treats systems as enablers of operational clarity. At BEEGO, he redesigned warehouse workflows through barcode scanning and dashboard integration, which raised inventory accuracy to 92 percent while slashing stockouts by 35 percent. His predictive maintenance program, powered by machine learning, reduced emergency breakdowns by 62 percent. Meanwhile, audit-ready documentation strengthened compliance, reduced insurance claims, and gave regulators confidence in the company’s systems.
Akpe’s business-intelligence framework, built on Tableau, consolidated production, logistics, and insurance metrics, creating a single source of truth for executives. By enabling leaders to act on real-time signals rather than outdated reports, data-driven decision-making grew by 33 percent across the company. This blend of foresight and pragmatism has become his signature.
Even before rising to senior management roles, Akpe demonstrated a flair for executing capital projects with scale and discipline. As Project Manager at BEEGO Waters from 2018 to 2019, he led a bottling-line upgrade that expanded production capacity by 40 percent while reducing per-unit bottling time by 22 percent. He also introduced supply-chain planning systems that reduced raw-material stockouts by 35 percent and shaved three days off delivery cycle times. By overseeing projects totaling more than $1.2 million in investments, he established himself as a leader who could manage complexity without losing sight of cost, time, or quality.
Colleagues say what sets him apart is not just technical competence but systems thinking. He sees digital tools as part of a wider fabric of governance, sustainability, and compliance. He digitized quality control and compliance functions using SharePoint and Power Automate, a shift that achieved 100 percent audit readiness and cut paperwork by 90 percent. Where many leaders see regulatory requirements as obstacles, Akpe integrates them into the heart of digital transformation, demonstrating that efficiency and compliance are not mutually exclusive but mutually reinforcing.
That philosophy is not confined to the workplace. Between 2020 and 2022, he published peer-reviewed studies exploring business-intelligence adoption and data governance for underserved SMEs and energy programs. His research highlights his conviction that theory and practice must reinforce each other. By engaging academia while leading in industry, he helps bridge the gap that too often separates Nigerian businesses from cutting-edge management science.
His journey also reflects a personal commitment to building resilient industries in a country where infrastructure gaps and economic volatility can easily disrupt supply chains. For many Nigerian manufacturers, bottlenecks in logistics or system downtime can mean not just operational headaches but existential threats. By embedding intelligence, predictive upkeep, and compliance in their operations, Akpe helps shield organizations from fragility.
This resilience was put to the test during the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic, when global supply chains faced unprecedented stress. BEEGO Waters, like many companies, confronted risks of downtime and shortages. According to colleagues, it was Akpe’s initiatives, particularly predictive maintenance and data-driven logistics planning, that enabled the company to keep operating smoothly while competitors stumbled.
The award, therefore, is more than a personal milestone. It reflects a broader narrative about what is possible in the Nigerian industry when leadership, technology, and discipline converge. For City People, recognising Akpe also sends a message that innovation is not limited to Silicon Valley start-ups but is alive in factories, warehouses, and logistics corridors across Africa.
Looking ahead, Akpe’s ambitions remain rooted in impact. His ongoing doctoral research in project management aims to refine frameworks for scaling digital transformation in emerging markets. He is particularly focused on how small and medium enterprises can leverage affordable digital tools to achieve resilience. In a country where SMEs form the backbone of the economy, such insights could be transformative.
At the award ceremony, attended by industry stakeholders, government officials, and fellow honorees, Akpe struck a tone of responsibility rather than celebration. “Recognition is good, but the real reward is seeing systems work better, people’s jobs become easier, and industries grow stronger,” he said.
As applause filled the room, it was clear that his words resonated. In an era where supply chains can be disrupted by everything from global pandemics to local fuel shortages, leaders like Akpe are more than innovators; they are anchors of stability. His career illustrates that resilience is not abstract but measurable, not distant but immediate, and not optional but essential.
For City People, honouring Oyinomomo-emi Emmanuel Akpe with the 2022 Tech for Good Award is a celebration of more than one individual. It is a statement about the kind of technological leadership Nigeria’s industries need and the kind of future that can be built when vision meets execution.
