Swipe away on Martha Kingsmike’s Instagram tales, and also you would possibly catch her mid-workout—legs splayed in a precarious cut up, stretching earlier than or after a grueling gymnasium session. You maintain your breath, half-expecting her legs to buckle. They don’t. Spend two hours speaking to her, and it’s clear: that’s how she lives—pushing her boundaries, testing her limits.

Take 2024, when she juggled three jobs like a high-wire act: full-time product advertising affiliate at PiggyVest, Nigeria’s fintech darling; social media guide for GoLemon, a fast-rising grocery supply startup; and a five-month viewers engagement contract with openDemocracy. By the top, she was working on fumes, however the high quality of her work by no means suffered, she claimed. Once I ask what fuels this relentless multitasking, she says, “Ardour and cash.” 

The openDemocracy contract, now mercifully over, outpaid her full-time gig at PiggyVest on the time, but it surely was boring. PiggyVest, then again, retains her sharp and on her toes. She’s both turning the chief advertising officer’s scattered sparks of concepts into full-blown methods, chasing down designers to maintain content material on schedule, or crafting high-stakes influencer campaigns—all whereas guaranteeing PiggyVest’s on-line persona stays witty but protected, by no means spooking customers who’ve hundreds of thousands saved on the financial savings platform.

In the meantime, at GoLemon, she will get to play. The budding startup lets her viewers engagement methods lean into the chaotic humour that might be dangerous at PiggyVest however stimulating for customers. It additionally permits her to experiment extra with out the paperwork typical of late-stage startups. One evening, in an ADHD-fueled dash, she shot 30 movies for a 30-day problem—and attain elevated sevenfold.

With 9 years of selling and viewers engagement below her belt, Kingsmike has constructed a status that retains job provides rolling in, all of which she has been declining prior to now yr. 

“I’m not being cocky or something,” she says throughout our digital interview, “however I’m nice at what I do.” 

In her LinkedIn header, she describes herself as “superhuman.” However she wasn’t at all times this assured.

Founder mode

Kingsmike started her profession at Okada Books, a now-defunct digital publishing startup, touchdown an internship after college. With a literature background and expertise selling her personal weblog, the content material advertising position suited her completely. The CEO referred to as half-hour after she utilized, providing a better place attributable to her robust resume, however missing formal expertise past a one-off gig, she selected the content material advertising internship as an alternative. Nonetheless, three weeks in, she was promoted, and three months later, the then-five-year-old startup began going through critical challenges.

Launched in 2013, Okada Books disrupted publishing with immediate creator funds and joined Google’s 2018 Launchpad Accelerator alongside PiggyVest (then PiggyBank, the place Kingsmike now works) and three different Nigerian startups. As on the time she joined, key employees members, just like the social media supervisor, had been quitting with out replacements. Kingsmike stepped up, studying on the fly and leaning on teammates to fill  technical gaps essential to maintain the content material advertising machine working. 

“I’m not the kind of individual to return into an organization and simply do my job. I attempt my arms at every part. I’m like a sponge—I take in every part round me,” she stated. 

This excessive company mentality is one many within the tech ecosystem describe as ‘founder mode’—working with the depth, adaptability, and problem-solving drive of a startup founder—to get issues finished.

By late 2019, exhausted and dissatisfied, Kingsmike left Okada Books. 

“I believed possibly it’d get higher or I needed higher pay, but it surely wasn’t concerning the wage—I knew it was time to go.” 

Kingsmike joined Massive Cabal Media shortly after, the place she labored to spice up its on-line presence, balancing humorous viewers engagement with credibility. After three years, having labored throughout each TechCabal and its sister publication, Zikoko, she moved on once more when the position now not impressed her.

Rising with Piggyvest

Looking for a much bigger problem, Kingsmike took up an viewers engagement administration position at Pocket, a fintech platform acquired by PiggyVest. 

“It opened me as much as a complete new world of fintech the place issues hardly stayed the identical and the place I might transfer out of my bubble to realize perception into how shoppers truly behave with cash,” she stated. 

Like her time at Okada Books, she arrived throughout a interval of transformation. Pocket, a current acquisition of Piggyvest, initially constructed as a social funds app, was evolving, and so was her position. Although employed as an viewers engagement supervisor, because the platform shifted, she transitioned into product advertising. 

When her group lead left, Kingsmike crammed the hole simply as she had finished at Okada Books, saying she “needed to maintain the group in rhythm and ensure we stayed on monitor.” 

This possession mindset has outlined her profession and has reworked her from a believer in switching jobs each few years into somebody who now sees the worth of rising inside an amazing firm.

“I noticed somebody on LinkedIn who began working at Microsoft in 2001. They’ve had 15 roles, however they’re nonetheless there. That made me assume: Simply discover a good firm, stick there, and develop. I believe I’ve discovered that at PiggyVest.”

Whereas just a few startups, together with the Stripe-owned Paystack, have gained consideration for top worker retention, excessive churn is extra frequent, pushed by layoffs, shutdowns, poisonous work tradition, and extra. The thought of spending half a decade in an organization you haven’t any fairness in is sort of radical in Nigeria’s tech ecosystem, the place job-hopping isn’t simply ambition however survival.

Kingsmike acknowledges her privilege. 

“It’s unhappy how fortunate a hardworking individual must be to discover a place the place they will work for a very long time,” she stated on a name. 

Nevertheless, she believes there are indicators for recognizing such corporations: a considerate analysis can present whether or not an organization fosters an surroundings the place high-performing folks thrive.

“You don’t have to attend till you’re employed to determine an organization’s progress trajectory,” she defined. “My analysis on PiggyVest, [before joining the company] confirmed that many mid- and high-level workers began as interns. Some started in a single division and later moved and grew into one other.” 

She believes these might sign the ambition of a startup and the way a lot progress alternatives an organization can present its employees.

However it’s not all roses on the fintech, Kingsmike acknowledges. She remembers having to cope with high-stress conditions typically. Lately, throughout PiggyVest’s December 2024 campaigns, Kingsmike juggled a number of activations and social listening classes whereas guaranteeing her group stayed motivated via the season’s chaos. Managing a group, there may be hardly room to take a look at, she says. 

She’s discovered to take breaks when she will, to tempo herself and take care of her psychological well being however the actuality is that the work by no means actually stops.

“It’s scary however thrilling. I like it,” she stated, beaming.