Uche Pedro is a Nigerian blogger, writer, social media expert and entrepreneur who is the founder of BellaNaija, an online entertainment, fashion and lifestyle magazine.
Early Life And Education
Uche was born and raised in Nigeria where she also finished her primary and secondary school education. She later moved to Canada where she graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario, Canada.
How BellaNaija started
BellaNaija was founded in July 2006 by Uche and began as a hobby. The idea for establishing BellaNaija came whilst she was studying at university in Canada. She had two weeks holiday and soon got bored. She had always loved Nigeria and Africa, and each time she returned to the country for a holiday or on visits from school or work, she saw how everything in Nigeria was growing – the fashion was more vibrant, the entertainment was more vibrant, more young people were getting involved in politics, business, etc and it was so encouraging. So she was inspired to start something that represented this exciting young vibe in the country – she began to blog about fashion and celebrity in Nigeria and BellaNaija was born. She started by scanning magazine articles, pictures and interviews of Nigerian fashion personalities and continued in a low profile way until her BellaNaija portal began to have over 1 million hits every month, at which time she unveiled the personality behind the portal to the media.
Since that time, it has grown in leaps and bounds and today the BellaNaija portal has millions of unique visitors. When the portal was initially launched, a lot of our visitors came from around the world, from the diaspora, but now Nigeria is the number one country on the BellaNaija visitor list. It just shows that today, more people have internet access, and people are interested in what is going on around them. The site has visitors from around the African continent, from South Africa, Ghana and other countries.
Today, the BellaNaija portal is one of the top 100 sites in Nigeria and continues to grow its visitor base, attracting fashion savvy audiences who want to spend time on a portal that understands fashion, trends, music and celebrity red carpet action. It has a young team of bloggers and reporters who create over 90% of the content uploaded to the site. BellaNaija is now a viable commercial social media brand, a household name and a new media force to be reckoned with in Nigeria.
Personal Life
Uche is married to Bode Pedro, the founder/CEO of Veda Technology and the son of the former deputy Governor of Lagos State. They got married on Saturday June 16, 2012 in Lagos, Nigeria. She delivered a set of twins in 2015.
Awards And Recognition
In 2010 she won Outstanding Contribution to Fashion Communication Award and “The Future Awards Africa” for Young Media Entrepreneur of the Year in 2013 and many other awards.
Uche Pedro was interviewed by CNN reporter, Isha Sesay on CNN i-List on September 28, 2010 on account of her enormous achievements.
She also featured on the Oprah Winfrey show “Beauty Around the World”, in February 2010 alongside Jessica simpson and Lisa Ling.
In 2013,Uche won The Future Awards Young Media Entrepreneur of the Year.
In 2015, she also won the Creative Industries Awards Creative Industries Awards for Bloggers.
More recently in 2016, she was awarded with the Kids’ Choice Awards Best African Blogger.
The post How Uche Pedro Turned Her Hobby Into Making Nigeria’s Leading Online Magazine, Bella Naija appeared first on Nigerian Celebrity News + Latest Entertainment News.
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