Remi Dada (born 15 February 1986) is a

Nigerian Nigerians or the Nigerian people are citizens of Nigeria or people with ancestry from Nigeria. The name Nigeria was derived from the Niger River running through the country. This name was allegedly coined in the late 19th century by British jo ...

architect and entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of Spacefinish, which designs innovative workspaces and offices.

Early life

Dada was born and raised in

Lagos State, Nigeria Lagos State (, ) is a States of Nigeria, state in South West, Nigeria. Of the 36 States of Nigeria, Nigerian states, Lagos is the second List of Nigerian states by population, most populous state but the List of Nigerian states by area, smallest ...

, in the family of Dada Gbolahan. He attended St. Savior’s School, Ebute Metta, followed by Atlantic Hall Secondary School, both in Lagos. He earned a Bachelor of Science degree in architectural studies from the

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC, U of I, Illinois, or University of Illinois) is a public university, public land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Champaign–Urbana metropolitan area, Illinois, United ...

. He then obtained a master's degree in business administration from

Howard University Howard University is a private, historically black, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity" and accredited by the Mid ...

in Washington D.C.

Career

Dada worked as an architect for the Illinois-based architectural firm Cordogan, Clark & Associates from 2006 until 2009, when he was recruited by NIA Architects in Chicago. He briefly worked with Chick Fil-A, where he redesigned the restaurant's space to transform the user experience.

Google

In 2012, Dada moved back to Nigeria, where he was appointed the product marketing lead for Google. During his time there, Dada and his team were tasked with tailoring Google products to the Nigerian/African market, localizing products such as

Google Search Google Search (also known simply as Google or Google.com) is a search engine operated by Google. It allows users to search for information on the World Wide Web, Web by entering keywords or phrases. Google Search uses algorithms to analyze an ...

and

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

into Nigerian languages. After attending a business management training at the

Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania The Wharton School ( ) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia. Established in 1881 through a donation from Joseph Wharton, a co-founder of Bethlehem Steel, the Wharton ...

, he became the B2C Product Marketing Head at YouTube for

Sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lie south of the Sahara. These include Central Africa, East Africa, Southern Africa, and West Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the list of sovereign states and ...

, a position he held for over a year.

Spacefinish

After leaving YouTube, Dada founded Spacefinish, which he registered in 2018 as a design/build company specializing in office interior architecture. The company worked on the Vibranium Valley Project, commissioned by Ventures Garden Group. The project, which was inaugurated by the Vice-President of Nigeria, Professor Yemi Osinbanjo, has been described as the largest tech hub in sub-Saharan Africa. Spacefinish designed and re-designed office spaces for major corporations in Nigeria, including Google Nigeria, Andela, Stanbic IBTC Bank, Sterling Bank and RenMoney.

References

{{morecat, date=September 2022 1986 births Living people