Tope Awotona, a Nigerian-born entrepreneur, has become the wealthiest immigrant and Nigerian American living in the United States.
Forbes reports that the 42-year-old, born in Lagos, Nigeria, has a net worth of $1.2 billion. He moved to the US as a teenager.
Forbes reports that Awotona is the founder and CEO of Calendly, a company specialising in scheduling software, that helped him become a billionaire.
He founded the company to address the difficulties he had with time-consuming email exchanges required for meeting arrangements, having previously worked as a salesman for tech companies such as EMC (now Dell EMC).
For years, Awotona is reported to have self-funded Calendly before getting a $350 million investment in 2021, boosting the company’s valuation to $3 billion.
Before launching Calendly, Awotona tried her hand at various enterprises, including projector sales and a garden tool company that failed. The majority of his fortune, however, is derived from the software he developed.
Awotona holds a Bachelor of Business Administration from the University of Georgia and lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with his family.
Calendly, the software startup he established, provides a business communication platform for teams to seamlessly arrange, prepare for, and follow up on external meetings.
