Mark Essien is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Nigeria-based Hotels.ng, an online hotel booking agency which is the first and largest of its kind in Nigeria.

As Nigeria begins to actively diversify its economy from an oil-based one, tourism has emerged as a promising sector, contributing 3.2% of Nigeria’s GDP in 2014, a figure that is expected to double by 2024. Hotels.ng continues to maintain its position as the largest market share holder in the Nigerian hotel booking sector, and is in the process of expanding across the rest of Africa.

Since establishing Hotels.ng in 2013, Mark has overseen the growth of hotel listings on the platform from just over 100 at launch to over 7,000 hotels in 21 regions of Nigeria, with millions of transactions in 2014 alone.

Mark was born in Nigeria and holds a Bachelor of Engineering (B.Eng), Computer Hardware Engineering, from Beuth Hochschule in Berlin, Germany. He also holds an MSc degree in Computer Science from Freie Universität, also in Berlin.