My Tech Transition: How Aderinsola Ogunbiyi went from Human Physiology to Marketing

Aderinsola Ogunbiyi is a Marketing Specialist at Tanzania Development Trust, where she now works after holding marketing roles at Vella Finance and Turaco Insurance.

My Tech Transition is a monthly ConTech series that shines a spotlight on Africans who have successfully transitioned into tech.

Written by David Onugha.

From building from scratch at Vella Finance to working as a Product Marketing Manager at Turaco, an insurtech with operations in four countries, Aderinsola Ogunbiyi has spent the last few years growing in tech marketing. Now based in the UK, she works as a Marketing Specialist at Tanzania Development Trust, a nonprofit focused on grassroots development.

She talks to us about moving from tech to the nonprofit space and why tech still feels like home.

What is your current role, and how long have you been in it?

I'm currently in the UK, leading marketing for a nonprofit organization called Tanzania Development Trust. I’ve been there for about a year and a half.

Before working with the nonprofit, what were you doing as a marketer?

Prior to this, I was a marketing lead for Turaco in Nigeria. Then, I moved to the UK to pursue my master's degree in digital marketing, and that's when I switched into my current role. Turaco is an insurtech in Nigeria with a presence in four countries, so I also had to lead marketing for Nigeria while working across other countries.

Moving from tech to the nonprofit space, what would you say you enjoy most about working in the nonprofit sector? If you had a choice, would you rather work in tech or would you pick a nonprofit?

I’d definitely pick tech. I love how fast-paced it is and how well it aligns with the way I work—independent, yet collaborative. My marketing career actually started in tech, so it feels like a natural fit. Everyone’s focused, getting things done without delays, and that energy really drives me.

I would not focus my career on the nonprofit space to be honest. While I care about impact and have a personal passion for it, especially on the side, my focus is on tech, where you can build things, see results, and watch how products transform businesses and influence consumer behavior. That’s where the excitement is for me.

Was it a big change for you moving from tech to a nonprofit? And if it was, how were you able to navigate this move?

Yes, it was a big shift moving from tech to a nonprofit. One of the first things I had to do was lead a fundraising campaign, which I’d never done before. Coming from tech, I was used to working on products, strategy, social media, content, and everything around the product itself. Fundraising was completely new territory for me.

But with my marketing background and being an all-rounder, I already had a working knowledge of many things. Plus, I’ve done a lot of work with strategy, so I leaned into that experience to figure out the best approach to the fundraising campaign.

I came up with a plan, and thankfully, everyone loved it and, more importantly, it delivered results. We were supposed to raise a certain amount of money within one week. By the third day, we had already hit our target. The rest of the week was spent surpassing it, which made the process even more exciting.

Switching from human physiology to chasing marketing KPIs is quite the plot twist. What was that shift like, and when did you know marketing was where you really wanted to be?

I studied Physiology for my undergraduate degree and started my Master’s in Physiology at UI in 2017. Around that time, someone I knew from school introduced me to Fiverr, and I started exploring the kinds of services people offered there. When I discovered social media as a possible space to explore, I was curious. I started by posting on WhatsApp Status, then moved to Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. That curiosity marked the beginning of my journey into marketing.

Back in 2020, I didn’t even know it was marketing. I just thought it would be fun to write funny captions that matched different pictures. I didn’t always know the full story behind the photos—I’d just look at an image and build a story from it. That was what I was doing, and I found it really interesting.

At the time, I wasn’t thinking of a career in marketing. I was simply doing it to pass the time, but by 2021, I decided that I wanted to do more. So, I joined an online community that gave me hands-on experience in social media management. It started as a volunteering opportunity, but through that community, I learned everything—content calendars, content design, strategy, all of it.

Fast forward to the end of that year, and I got my first tech role as a Social Media Manager for Vela Finance. I started out managing social media, but quickly transitioned into other roles covering content and product. That’s where I learned most of what I know now. From there, I moved into a product marketing role at Turaco.

You’ve moved across very different industries, from physiology to tech marketing and now to nonprofit work. What soft skills have consistently helped you navigate these transitions?

I would say communication, verbal or written. I don’t pretend to understand what’s going on. I ask a lot of questions. In my first week or first month, I’m constantly asking questions. When I don’t understand the product yet, I ask questions. Even when I think I understand it, I still ask to confirm.

Secondly, being proactive. I like to think ahead. That’s something that has helped me stay ahead in the organizations I work with. I know what’s expected of me based on the questions I’ve asked. I’m not just sitting and waiting to be told what to do. I take the first step.

Communication, being proactive, and staying organized are key. In marketing, you’re doing so many things, and if you can’t show value through how you structure and present that work, people may not see the impact. So, I’d say those three skills have helped me stay on top of my game in most of my roles across marketing.

What's a job search hack that you'd say has proved useful to you every time you apply it?

I would say it's community and LinkedIn. I really value LinkedIn because you can network with so many people. And community, because that’s where I started out. It gave me access and helped me connect with the right people.

I got my job at Turaco through someone I met in a community. I mentioned that I was leaving my job and looking for new roles, and when the opportunity came up, they reached out to me to know if I was interested.

I’ve also gotten opportunities through LinkedIn by positioning myself the right way and connecting with people in the industry. I’m probably connected with more than 50% of marketers in Nigeria, and now that I’m in the UK, I’m building that network here as well.

That’s my job search hack. I wouldn’t say just keep applying randomly across platforms. The job you need is something someone already knows about. So it’s about knowing people, not necessarily being in their face all the time, but just knowing who has access to what, or who knows what.

What is the most interesting campaign you’ve worked on in your marketing career so far?

One of the most interesting campaigns I worked on was during my time at Turaco. Turaco was a B2B company focused on partnerships, and part of my role involved leading partnership launches with the new partners we brought on board.

The most interesting one was with AFEX, an agritrade business. We were looking to insure their customers, and I led the marketing launch for that partnership. One of the things I introduced — something Turaco had never done before — was hosting an event. The goal was to drive attention, build trust, and attract more customers. Because Turaco operated across multiple countries, I had to be very strategic with reporting to the head office while also understanding what worked locally in Nigeria. That meant staying in sync with the AFEX team as well.

Thankfully, the day went smoothly. Communication with the AFEX team was on point, and everyone was ready. I managed the rollout, and the event ended up being a huge success. We hit the target of covering 10,000 farmers and even surpassed it by about 13%.

The CEO of AFEX personally commended the Turaco team, and the partnership overall went really well. What made it so interesting was that it was Turaco’s first time hosting an event, and it ended up being a turning point — even other country teams began to see the value in events after that. So yes, that campaign really stood out for me.

Before Turaco, I worked at Vella Finance, a fintech startup that was bootstrapped, and I was one of the first hires back in 2021. I handled everything from social media to content to product—basically wearing multiple hats. Then in 2023, the company got acquired by Carbon, and that’s definitely one of the things I’m proud of.

In the first six months, we had over 10,000 signups already. I was managing social media at the time, and we’d built a community of over 5,000 members, which really helped with customer acquisition. It honestly felt like building the company from scratch — growing the social presence, building trust online, just setting the foundation across the board.

By the end of the first year, Vella had exceeded their acquisition target by over 100% and this was without raising much funding. We were basically doing things the hard way — managing resources super tightly, running campaigns only when necessary, and just making sure we were getting the most out of everything. One thing that really worked was collaborating with nano influencers, just to drive awareness and make sure people knew we were building something real.

Email marketing was another thing I handled. Honestly, I wore so many hats in that role. I started out as a social media manager with a focus on building our presence, but ended up doing content writing, product marketing, and even sharing ideas with the team.

These are just a few things off the top of my head, but they really make me proud as a marketer.

How did you navigate learning the skills you’d need for your evolved role? Did you take any courses, or was it more of a learn-on-the-job experience as you worked through each role?

I’d say I learned most of the skills on the job, but I was never too far from marketing to begin with. I already had a strong writing background, I was organized, and those things helped.

I took Google’s Digital Marketing course early on. Then, while I was transitioning into content and later into product marketing, I also took some HubSpot courses. Those definitely helped me move between roles within the same organization. They gave me a clearer understanding of what was expected and how to make the most of each opportunity.