She Took a 47% Pay Cut. Now She Leads Marketing at Pesa

In 2020, Cassandra Collins made a choice that looked like career suicide. She walked away from ₦150,000 a month as a content director to take a customer support job paying ₦80,000 at Busha, a crypto startup.

She saw what others didn't. The job came with a MacBook, remote work flexibility, and something priceless: a foot in the door of Nigeria's tech ecosystem.

Collins had trained as a microbiologist, completing her degree at 19 and interning at Lagos University Teaching Hospital. But industrial training shattered the dream when reality didn't match her expectations of lab work.

She didn't panic. She explored smoothie businesses, competed for Miss Nigeria, and worked various gigs while figuring out her path.

When COVID-19 shut down her smoothie business in 2020, she needed income. A friend mentioned the Busha opening. Collins took it, even at nearly half her current pay.

Customer support wasn't glamorous, but it gave her proximity to how startups actually worked. She freelanced on the side, managing social media for fashion brands and building skills she didn't know she needed yet.

Why This Inspires

Collins' journey proves that career paths don't need to be linear to be successful. Her secret wasn't having it all figured out. It was saying yes to opportunities that made sense, even when they looked like detours.

Eighteen months into Busha, she got an offer from Mainstack as a community manager. She initially said no, wanting to complete a year at Busha. When they returned with a part-time offer, she juggled both startups simultaneously.

The real test came in February 2021 when Nigeria's Central Bank banned crypto transactions. Collins worked a non-stop weekend, closing over 800 support tickets in 72 hours.

She calls it one of the worst experiences of her life. But it became her benchmark for handling pressure, teaching her that if she could survive that chaos, she could handle anything startups threw at her.

From Mainstack, she moved to Grey as lead social media manager, then to Pesa in the same role. In April 2025, she earned her promotion to Marketing Manager.

Her trajectory tells a different story than traditional career advice suggests. Customer support associate to community manager to social media lead to marketing manager, each step building on the last.

Collins now manages teams, runs influencer campaigns across continents, and operates a fashion business on the side. None of it came from following a predetermined path.

For young Nigerians navigating uncertain career landscapes, her advice is simple: take every legitimate opportunity that comes your way, figure out if you like it, and drop it if you don't. The "wrong" job might be the exact right step you need.