Progress Udoh: Making it big in China

Currently living in the Guizhou province, China, Progress Udoh laments about his journey from Nigeria, his marriage to a lovely local lady, starting a family, and the building of what he hopes will be a successful business that he will become the global CEO of one day.

You have to start somewhere

With about four years under the belt in China, Progress is a relative newbie to the burgeoning Chinese marketplace, but it might surprise that his pathway to the country was not actually business related. Initially, he came over to China through the Chinese language program, but then fairly quickly spread his business wings in the import/export industry. This progress, no pun intended, was indeed thanks to his industry related studies at Nexford University.

Progress muses about learning at Nexford saying, “The courses that Nexford offers are very high quality and they do gear you up for the real business world. It’s because all the courses, milestones, and the final project do in fact cover actual business case studies. So, it’s not just theory, although there is a bit of that. There’s a particular course, Micro and Macro Economics, which I loved so much because it talks about the GDP of a country and its economy. It describes how its GDP works, what they import, what they can produce, and what they cannot produce at all.”

It seems pretty obvious really that a fledgling businessperson in the import/export arena would benefit from these courses at Nexford. Progress says that after completion of his BBA, he was suddenly full of amazing business ideas and began putting that inspiration to good use in his business. Soon he had developed a clear roadmap of how his newly learned skills could best be used to drive his business forward.

He pays homage to the Product Management with Agile and Lean course, saying, “The course was really good, because I learned a lot of things, including how to create websites by physically doing the web design. But it taught me so much more. I can’t say enough about how Nexford really gave me a leg up.”

Why take the traditional path?

That’s kind of the result of his studies with Nexford, but he says it all began quite by accident. Due to Covid, Progress could not get out to perform physical studies at a traditional brick and mortar university, so he decided to go online to see what his options would be.

“When I checked on Facebook, I saw Nexford University. I said wow, it really looks good, let me just give it a try. I thought since I didn’t have anything going on during lockdown, I would apply and at least do something meaningful with my time. In double quick time I was thrilled to have been admitted to study at Nexford. Result!”

It pays to specialize!

Because he wanted to succeed in the Asian marketplace, Progress decided to choose some specialization courses which revolved around doing business in Southeast Asia, namely Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Laos, and Cambodia. He also elected to study courses that also covered Sub Saharan Africa to ensure that he was not tethered to only the Southeastern Asian market.

Progress added so many strings to his bow doing the BBA saying, “The Branding and Creative Direction course was very good because it talked about creating your own brand, which was highly important to me in launching my business. I liked the fact that the course talked about Richard Branson and the building of the Virgin brand. It was an amazing assignment to work through, as I also consider myself to be an ambitious entrepreneur.”

But Progress realizes that you can teach an old dog, or in his case, young dog, new tricks. He mentions that you can never stand still in business, or you will be swallowed up by the chasing pack. He recognizes the absolute necessity to be constantly upskilling and reskilling.

Progress really does have his ducks in a row and has even set out a five-year plan that includes an MBA with Nexford, and maybe even a doctorate too.

So, is he going to drop roots and stay in China forever? For now, maybe, but in the future he is not ruling out relocating to Canada or maybe the UK. He believes that those markets will give his business a more global feel and open up new possibilities that would not be available by staying where he is now.

Dream big

So where does Progress draw all his inspiration from?

“That’s an easy one,” he says. “It has to be Aliko Dangote the mega businessman and the richest person in Africa. Seeing what he has achieved, I want to emulate that. It’s what gets me out of bed in the morning. He started his business from the scratch and even though he came from a relatively poor background he never let that stand in the way of his dreams. He now has loads of successful companies ranging from oil and gas to consumer goods, and manufacturing.”

At Nexford we love welcoming learners that have get up and go and loads of ambition through our virtual doors, then, after they have graduated, track their progress in the business world. Progress is no different. We see him really going places and fulfilling his dream of becoming the CEO of a range of his own world-class companies. He seems to have it all mapped out. We wish him success and look forward to hopefully welcoming him back in January 2022 to start his Nexford MBA.

Looking to kickstart your career? Our programs are precisely designed for early career professionals like Progress who are ready to build essential business skills. Discover Nexford’s Bachelor of Business Administration