From the gritty streets of Ajegunle to the helm of Nigeria’s space ambitions, Jane Egerton-Idehen is not just redefining leadership in tech, she’s revolutionizing it. Today, she serves as the Managing Director and CEO of Nigerian Communications Satellite Limited (NIGCOMSAT), Nigeria’s top agency responsible for managing its communications satellite infrastructure. Her journey from Lagos’ urban slums to the rarefied world of aerospace leadership is as audacious as it is inspiring.
Earlier this year, Jane was named the Most Outstanding Female CEO of 2024 by the 5th Business and Excellence Awards, and also earned the INWED Women Impact Leader Award, further cementing her status as one of Africa’s most formidable tech voices. Her story is not simply one of professional milestones; it is a stirring testament to grit, vision, and the refusal to settle.
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Jane’s entry into the world of engineering wasn’t planned. She recalls overhearing her mother lamenting how tough engineering was for another student and immediately took it as a personal challenge. “Everybody was failing out,” she said. “That’s when I knew I wanted to do it.” Upon graduation, Jane had her sights set on Nigeria’s booming oil and banking industries. But a game-changing internship at a British satellite firm in Nigeria shifted her orbit. Working as a teleport engineer, she quickly immersed herself in shift work, learning the intricacies of satellite operations firsthand. “I used to work 24/7 shifts because I was single and wanted to learn everything,” she says. That hunger for mastery soon led her to Ericsson, where she traded higher-paying jobs for the opportunity to build long-term expertise, a move that reflects the deliberate, growth-first mindset she’s now famous for.
In an industry still heavily dominated by men, Jane’s early years were punctuated by systemic biases. Maternity leaves slowed her promotions. Meetings were scheduled at times that ignored the realities of motherhood. At one point, her daughter was closer to the nanny than to her, a painful realization that made Jane reassess her priorities. Instead of walking away, she recalibrated. “I threw everything at it,” she says, describing how she reconnected with her child through daily rituals and presence. The breakthrough came one night when her daughter, waking from a nightmare, instinctively ran into Jane’s room instead of the nanny’s. “That’s when I knew I had won her back.” These human moments of triumph and vulnerability define Jane’s brand of leadership, intentional, empathetic, and unafraid of the hard conversations.
The private challenges of navigating a male-dominated space soon gave rise to a public mission. Jane began organizing mentorship calls and sessions for women at her workplace raw, honest spaces where women could discuss maternity discrimination, career stagnation, and workplace bias. As interest swelled across countries and companies, the initiative grew into Women and Career, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting women and girls in their career development.
Before joining NIGCOMSAT, Jane held several executive positions that took her across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. She led sales and business operations for Meta (Facebook) in the Middle East and Africa, served as Country Manager and Regional Sales Director for Avanti Communications, and managed technical and leadership roles at Ericsson and Nokia Siemens Networks. In every role, she proved herself not only as a strategist but as a builder of teams, culture, and capacity. Her rich global experience is backed by academic credentials from University of Nigeria, Nsukka, a master’s degree from Warwick Business School, and executive training from Harvard Business School and Yale School of Management.
As CEO of NIGCOMSAT, Jane is championing one of Africa’s most under-celebrated tech assets, Nigeria’s communications satellite, NigComSat-1R. While the country’s first satellite failed in 2007, the second launched in 2011 has remained operational and is now fully managed by Nigerian engineers. “We should be proud,” she asserts. “Only a handful of countries in Africa like Egypt, South Africa, and Morocco have this capability. Ours is entirely run by Nigerians.” Under her leadership, NIGCOMSAT is repositioning as a central force in driving broadband connectivity, especially in hard-to-reach areas like rural regions, ships, aircraft, and digital broadcasting. Despite past stumbles, Jane believes the opportunity is now ripe. “Whenever you wake up, it’s your morning,” she says, echoing a popular Nigerian proverb.
With broadband penetration in Nigeria still under 50 percent, Jane sees NIGCOMSAT playing a pivotal role in closing the digital divide and expanding Nigeria’s digital economy.
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In 2020, she published her bestselling book, “Be Fearless: Give Yourself Permission to Be You,” drawing from over 15 years of experience in Africa’s tech corridors. The book hit seven Amazon bestseller lists, becoming number one in categories like Business Ethics and Knowledge Capital. Through its pages, Jane offers a playbook for women daring to break into male-dominated sectors, especially STEM.
Whether she’s speaking on international stages, mentoring young professionals, or pushing Nigeria’s satellite agenda forward, Jane Egerton-Idehen embodies a rare fusion of technical mastery, leadership elegance, and unapologetic authenticity. Now in a position to shape Nigeria’s future from orbit, Jane remains grounded by four non-negotiables: faith, family, career, and impact. When any of them slips, she is quick to pause, recalibrate, and fix it. “Success is knowing what matters and refusing to let it go,” she says.
From Ajegunle’s dusty streets to the stars above, Jane’s story is not just a personal triumph—it is a national inspiration.
