Uzoma Dozie is a banker, financial inclusion advocate and tech investor who was born on November 2, 1969 in United Kingdom. He is the CEO and Founder of Sparkle, a financial technology community and ecosystem. Prior to launching Sparkle in 2019, he was the GMD and Bank CEO of Diamond Bank from 2014 and successfully implemented a merger with Access Bank Plc in 2018. While at Diamond Bank, Uzoma also served as Executive Director of Corporate Banking and Executive Director of Regional Business Lagos & West Regions.
Uzoma Dozie Background & Career
Uzoma Dozie is the first son in a family with five boys, his father Pascal Dozie (PGD), the founder of Diamond bank. He was born in England in 1969 but soon after, his family moved to Uganda as a Statistician to Ugandan Government and then back to Nigeria during Idi Amin’s regime. In 1971 his father, Pascal Dozie, founded the African Development Consulting Group (ADCG), his consulting company.
His secondary education took him across three schools, the Lebanese Community School (LCS), Yaba; Government College, Owerri, and Command Secondary School, Kaduna.
Uzoma Dozie went to the University of Reading where he studied chemistry. After that, he went to the University College London to obtain a master’s degree in organic chemistry. He worked hard with a team to develop products that would help fight a number of diseases.
Uzoma Dozie worked as a sales representative for a pharmaceutical company in the UK for a couple of months before relocating to Nigeria.
After his time in the Nigerian banking sector, Uzoma Dozie launched Sparkle, the mobile-first platform, which is focused on Nigeria’s retail sector and will tackle how retailers achieve their daily objectives and scale their businesses. In addition to the typical current and savings accounts, the platform provides a suite of innovative lifestyle services such as inventory management, invoicing statements, foreign exchange services and a POS-via-mobile function.
He is also known for investing in a number of Nigerian technology start-ups through his angel fund, Black Knights.
Dozie sits on the Board of Women’s World Banking; and has spoken at several events around the world on the issue of technology and financial inclusion.
He also launched TechFest in 2018 bringing together leading dignitaries of Nigeria’s technology and business sectors.