Our Woman Crush Wednesday, Mariyah Acka’a has an interesting and diverse background. Born in Nigeria, she was raised in Manhattan, New York but presently lives in the United Kingdom. Due to her early exposure to a diversity of cultures, she is a multilingual person who understands six languages namely French, Spanish, English, Tiv, Yoruba and Hausa to varying degrees.
She began her career in retail and has subsequently worked in the oil & gas, water utilities, and financial services sectors. Currently, she works for Microsoft, one of the largest tech companies in the world and is responsible for global analytics, and insights into technical support experience across 170 countries. With the global COVID-19 pandemic, she formed part of an elite virtual team that helped internal colleagues and external customers navigate the impact of the disease outbreak and its crisis. This earned her an internal recognition and award for the work done to stabilise business operations for her team and customers.
Mariyah prides herself in developing strategies for delivering exceptional customer experiences and leadership of teams. This is her source of greatest energy. Over the years she has used her substantial experience in change management to lead multiple large-scale digital and change transformation programmes of work. Mariyah has also initiated and delivered voice of the customer (VOC) service improvement initiatives, and executed successful operational management strategies across multiple industry verticals. She has spent her career leading teams to deliver exceptional results for customers, and her expertise and commitment have been recognised, including through a National UK Customer Service Manager of the Year nomination in 2010.
Mariyah briefly attended Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria before leaving for career pursuits. However, she is currently about to complete her Master of Business Administration from the University of Wales Trinity Saint David. She is a member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD), and holds other professional accreditations in ITIL, Prince 2, and PROSCI.
Mariyah is well-travelled. From her early childhood, she has been desirous to explore and experience the world on new levels. Nursing that aspiration, she has so far visited 40 countries. Having meals with Tuaregs in Tunisia, visiting Shiva in India, snowboarding in Norway, scuba diving with sharks in Dubai, playing football at midnight in the Amman desert, and learning to drift and race cars in the UK, Mariyah has seen and done these and more.
Mariyah is a mom of two, an altruist, and a warrior for others at heart. With a firm belief that Africa can and should take more ownership of its own destiny, she pursues this cause through involvement in youth empowerment, gender equality, and social justice initiatives. She was named The Gambian Women Ambassador for the Association for Child Education 2008-10. During the pandemic, she contributed her voice to the Black Lives Movement movement through lobbying the African Union on social media until the AU Spokesperson confirmed their action and response to the shooting of George Floyd. In this same period, she mentored the younger generation through the YPAfrica platform endorsed by the Vice President of Nigeria, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, and organised by Wale Adenuga; as well as lent her experience to business start-ups at various levels of maturity through the 1000 Black Voices platform. Finally, despite the COVID-19 pandemic and against all odds, in less than a year, she established her start-up in Nigeria. When her business was officially launched, it was predicted to be the largest home-grown enterprise in its sector owned by a woman.
Mariyah is committed to lifelong learning to meet her curiosity level. Her philosophy is to live in power, purpose and courage, and derives great pleasure in enabling others. We deduce from Mariyah’s story of resilience, adventure, continuous learning and rewards that nothing is impossible for a woman with a vision and on a mission.