Charlotte Obidairo Crafting a Legacy

Mrs Charlotte Obidairo has been operating in the Nigerian market with luxury Danish furniture brand for a decade. Despite the peculiar economic challenges faced by businesses, the CEO of BoConcept Nigeria, tells Vanessa Obioha that Nigeria remains a land of opportunities

It’s difficult not to be endeared to Mrs. Charlotte Obidairo’s warm personality. Whether meeting her for the first time or not, her bubbly spirit easily embraces you and puts you at ease, just like it did on a recent morning. Her face beamed with smiles and her voice bubbled with excitement as she appeared on screen during our video conference call.

Part of that excitement stemmed from BoConcept Nigeria celebrating its 10th year of operations. Married to a Nigerian, the Danish business expert always wanted to set up shop in Nigeria and had tried a few ventures before establishing the luxury Danish furniture brand in the country. Despite hearing horrifying tales of companies folding up in Nigeria, unable to crack the survival code, Obidairo remained dauntless. She introduced Nigeria to the luxury brand with an elegant launch attended by many business and art world bigwigs. That was 10 years ago.

Against all odds, Obidairo has remained in the Nigerian market. The company recently marked this milestone with an exclusive reception where it acknowledged organisations and partners who have been instrumental in their journey. She attributed the company’s success to the resilient spirit of Nigerians.

“The resilience of Nigerians is one of the traits I admire the most,” she said. “We are resilient and industrious, and it is not just in Nigeria but everywhere we go. Our workforce in BoConcept is our biggest asset, hands down. When compared to other African nations, Nigeria always comes on top because of their resilience and their drive to succeed against all odds.”

Obidairo always had a knack for designing, largely due to her formative years in her home country Denmark.

“I grew up in an environment where we were surrounded by architecture and designers and you know, I had Lego building blocks as a child and Pandora jewellery later on, fashion brands, Bang and Olufsen and many furniture brands including BoConcept. Those influences and exposure over the formative years made me appreciate and love clever designs.

“I like designs and enjoy designs where designers have been thinking of the end users and that is in everything, whether it’s in designing a water solution, cleaning water for poor, impoverished communities, to high-end furniture where there’s clever storage, or it’s designed in a way that it can be used into different functions. That’s something that I love;  just the joy and appreciation of somebody having thought through that. I guess I have applied that  in my business philosophy as well – it needs to make sense for the user.”

With this background, it was only natural that when the opportunity came to launch the Danish brand in Nigeria, she jumped on it.  BoConcept is renowned for its contemporary designs, minimalist aesthetics, and Scandinavian influences.

“Our designs are smart and functional. Customization is another unique trait of our brand. We have more than 120 leather and fabric options that people can choose from. So even though you see a sofa in one house, and you go to another house, you may not even recognize the same sofa because now it has a different colour or fabric, making the composition unique. One of the things we want to ensure is that the furniture represents who you are and not just what’s available. So while we are trendy, we’re classic. It will remain with you for a lifetime.”

Fitting the Scandinavian style into Nigeria’s distinct cultural taste was initially challenging for Obidairo.

“When we came in 2014, we realised that you can’t apply the cookie cutter. As a franchisee, you are expected to install all the products, accessories, and galleries in a certain way. So we had a lot of customers coming and going and we didn’t make sales for months and I was obviously starting to get very nervous. But then I decided I needed to listen to the feedback. Generally, people loved the furniture’s functionality, and amazing design, amazing. And then came the ‘but’. ‘I don’t see how this is going to work in my home that only has African furniture, artefacts, and ancestors’ artworks — more of a traditional African home.’”

Taking that feedback, Obidairo launched the ‘Art Meets Design’ concept.

“It’s really taking African or Nigerian artists and their artworks, emptying the walls of the BoConcept traditional gallery and putting the art and artworks amongst the BoConcept furniture and just showing how it works. And it works really well. So the muted colours of the Scandi living is now amplified and the art stands out more because it has more space to breathe with the Zen of the Scandinavian furniture. Immediately we started doing that, people saw that it worked and that became a major turning point in business.”

In 2023, Obidairo and her team introduced the Nomadic Art Gallery to attract more customers.

“It is a separate space where we showcase artists, but it’s also now a space for events and activities that speak to Nigerians, getting them in to see the furniture and their functions while also doing other things that have now become more of an activity space for culture, art and design.”

Despite the hurdles in the business landscape, Obidairo firmly believes that Nigeria is a land of opportunities.

“There are so many business opportunities. It is the land of opportunities. I don’t even know what country offers as many opportunities.”

It often baffles her when internationals suddenly close shop during difficult times. Noting that the economy is challenging now, Obidairo, who described herself as someone who loves challenges, believes that everything worth doing is hard.

“The harder it is, the more worth doing.” In her opinion, companies who remain in Nigeria during economic downturns embody Nigerian resilience the most.

“You cannot just reap the many opportunities that the country offers, and then just simply pack up when it hurts a little bit. When the going gets tough, the tough gets going and that speaks to Nigeria’s resilience and its youth who are constantly trying to pave the way and make things better.”

Although Obidairo started in Nigeria, the brand now has a presence in different African countries including South Africa and Ivory Coast. “We used the experience from Nigeria as a springboard to go into other markets.”

Beyond furniture, the company is also big on interior design.

“We would like to do interior designing more in the future,” she said. “It is one of the things that we pride ourselves in and we would want to make sure that we offer our customers. I am a firm believer that interior design services should not be reserved for the selected few. If we are in this space, we need to offer that service. Whether it involves going to your home, taking measurements, creating a 3D design with you, coming back into the store, and looking at samples and fabric. That should be accessible to everybody.

“Or you can also go online. We now have a feature on our website where you can sit in the comfort of your home and design your furniture, choose different colours and fabrics, and see the price as you go along.  You can also have an architect present the floor plans and we will do the full setup.”

Sustainability is at the core of BoConcept’s manufacturing process. From sourcing to production to distribution, Obidairo said that they strictly adhere to the company’s sustainability ambitions.

“Our philosophy in Nigeria is to get customers to buy fewer items but better items.”

BoConcept Nigeria is just one of the few ventures Obidairo pursued. In 2011, she founded the Youth Development and Empowerment Initiative (YEDI), an organisation that educates, empowers, and inspires youth and community development in Nigeria, covering health and development skills. Through YEDI, she advocates for equal opportunities to be given to youths, irrespective of their gender. So far, about 400,000 youths in Nigeria have been trained.

“Gender is one aspect but the opportunity to play on equal footing is equally important,” she said, adding that all the managers at BoConcept Nigeria are female. “They all worked their way up and improved themselves because they were given equal opportunities.”

As the company looks forward to the future, Obidairo anticipates more involvement in interior design and attracting more commercial businesses and partners.