Nigerian startup Gokada promotes Nikhil Goel as CEO
Gokada, a Nigeria-based last mile delivery, logistics and transportation start-up has appointed Nikhil Goel as its new CEO.
- Goel first joined Gokada in 2019.
- Gokada lost its founder Fahim Saleh in July 2020.
March 17, 2021: Gokada, a Nigeria-based last mile delivery, logistics and transportation start-up has appointed Nikhil Goel as its new CEO.
The company is continuing to evolve from a riding-hailing company to becoming the leading food delivery, parcel delivery, and last-mile ecommerce fulfillment solution in Nigeria. Goel first joined Gokada in 2019.
He served as general manager, India of Zomato, and then as head of new verticals at SafeBoda in Kenya.
In the past 12 months, Goel has helped Gokada increase its revenue by 10X and grow its delivery order volume by 100X, enabling the company to reach profitability.
The company uses a ‘Business-in-a-Box’ approach to empower its drivers to build their own enterprises, which in turn provide key services in Lagos.
Commenting on Gokada’s current business model, Goel said, “Gokada now serves thousands of individuals and businesses across Lagos. Our range of delivery solutions now span across a number of sectors such as food delivery, grocery delivery, parcel delivery, ecommerce fulfillment, and more. What makes me so proud of Gokada is the company’s Never-Give-Up attitude. Even in the midst of the pandemic which shortly followed the ride hailing ban, we were able to bring most of our pilots back to jobs while in parallel launching reliable logistics solutions to support businesses in Nigeria, which allowed them to continue to provide their services to their customers.”
With a growing fleet of over 1,000 pilots and thousands of SME customers, Gokada plans to expand across other states in Nigeria in 2021.
Goel’s transition to CEO is a natural progression as he has been responsible for leading the company since Gokada lost its founder, Fahim Saleh, in July 2020. Last year, Gokada has had to contend with the okada ban in Lagos, the untimely death of its founder, Covid-19 restrictions on movement and the ‘EndSars’ protests in October 2020.
“It is a real honour to continue Fahim’s legacy as CEO of Gokada.” continued Goel, “Fahim’s passion for entrepreneurship in Nigeria was infectious and inspiring. I was fortunate to have worked very closely with him. Together with Fahim’s family and Gokada’s investors, our incredible team here in Nigeria will continue to build the vision Fahim created to make a great impact on businesses and lives in Nigeria and beyond.”