SEEMA KHINDA JOHNSON Co-founder and COO Nuggets
Booking.com Technology Playmaker of the Year 2020 Entrepreneur Winner Tell us about you and your business/career. I’ve built my strategic experience with several companies, including Skype and Microsoft. I’ve led teams and delivered commercialization of products and services on a large scale. These went on to be hugely successful across regions and cultures, achieving major user engagement and acquisition. That was the perfect grounding for cofounding Nuggets, which I did in 2016. I’m now the COO. Nuggets is a payments and digital ID platform that’s redefining online privacy and security. You can pay, log in or verify your identity without having to share your data with anyone – including Nuggets itself. I am delighted to see my hard work for Nuggets be rewarded after winning the Entrepreneur category at the Booking.com Technology Playmaker of the Year 2020 awards.
How did you decide to go into Tech & Security? My career’s grown fairly organically. I began as a production coordinator at an agency, managing technical and creative teams, and progressed into leading and managing delivery and operations. After that, I found myself building larger teams, and leading product and go-tomarket for global businesses and start-ups. What did you learn from your biggest failure? There’s always a lesson and a reason why. You can’t see it at the time but it becomes crystal clear as you move forward. I’ve learnt to roll with the punches.