Ayo Megbope is an entrepreneur and the CEO of “No Leftovers Nigeria” catering services. She grew up in Lagos with her family and had rough education due to sexual abusethat messed up her psychology. She wasn’t able to go to the university due to her poor educational background but ended up in a typing and shorthand school.
She was a trained confidential secretary, who worked at the Corona Schools, in Lagos, Nigeria, for nine years. After working with Corona for so long, she decided to quit her job to start a playgroup. Ayo then enrolled for a six months Montessori program to understand everything about the business. But by the time the program had ended, she lost total interest and was no longer motivated to run a play group.
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In an effort to keep herself busy, Ayo Megbope started cooking for her sister-in-law. She would make all kinds of meals from soups to stews, and a lot more. Then one day, her sister-in-law visited her, only to meet her family having a meal of Moi-Moi (baked beans) which Ayo had prepared from the last 1,000 Naira they had in their home, given to her by her husband to prepare dinner.
The tasty Moi-Mois became the order of the day for her sister-in-law and her friends and colleagues who started placing orders for the Moi-Mois from Ayo Megbope. In about three months from selling her Moi-Mois to family and friends, her monthly turnover was already between 30,000 to 40,000 Naira. She also started selling her moi moi at her former school (Corona School, Lagos).
Ayo’s big break came when United Nations team came to Nigeria to invest in women-owned businesses. It was a partnership between Goldman-Sachs and the Enterprise Development Centre (EDC) at the Pan Atlantic University, to empower about 10,000 women entrepreneurs. She was one of the participants and after the 5-months long program, she learnt how to structure her business, organise her finances, build great communication skills, and improve her customer service experience.
By the end of the program, she now formed her business called No Left Overs Nigeria Limited with nearly 50 staffs, including temporary workers. She went from a one-product business to becoming a full-on catering outfit, servicing thousands of people.
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Ayo Megbope’s success was so remarkable that she was invited to the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the Goldman Sachs, was on the panel of the Turkish Prime Minister’s Global Summit on Entrepreneurship, and has held meetings with former American first lady Michelle Obama and former American president Bill Clinton.
She is married to Olufemi Megbope and their union is blessed with lovely children.
