Joy Adesanya does not describe herself as a woman who simply runs businesses. She describes herself as a woman who serves — and who found her purpose in helping other women feel confident in their own skin, their own hair, and their own lives.
As Group Managing Director of AJ Skylar, she leads a group whose brands include Sshhh Lingerie Boutique and The Braiding Vault, with locations across Nigeria and London. But the story behind those brands did not start with a business plan. It started with what she saw — and did not see — when she returned to Nigeria.
It started with body image
“My area of speciality is the beauty industry, hair to be precise,” Joy says. “But I started off with body image, because I felt that when I relocated back to Nigeria, there wasn’t a lot of positive body images being shown in women.”
So she started with lingerie — not as a luxury for its own sake, but as a way to redefine sensuality.
“In Nigeria, they never had nice lingerie stores,” she explains. “It was usually like a bend-down-select that you would go to in the marketplace. So there was nothing like a Victoria’s Secret or a Marks & Spencer.”
She brought that experience into the market. And from there, the business grew in a direction that felt natural to her: hair.
Confidence starts from the head — and underneath
For Joy, hair is not just hair. It is where confidence begins.
“I realised very quickly that a woman’s confidence really does come from her head,” she says. “How she carries herself, how she presents herself — everything starts from two things: her hair, and what she’s wearing underneath.”
That is the thread that runs through everything she has built in Nigeria: the seen and the unseen, both treated with the same care.
“I got into this because I love service,” she says. “I believe that my purpose is to serve. And I’m able to serve through various businesses by connecting with women from all over the world, understanding their pain, their pressure points, and then turning that into something beautiful.”
The hardest parts were funding — and being heard
Joy is honest about what doing business in Nigeria cost her, especially at the start.
“The most difficult thing for me in business would be being in Nigeria,” she says. “It’s a very dog-eat-dog territory.”
First, there was money — or the lack of access to it.
“Number one, you don’t really have access to funding, so it makes it difficult for you to kick your business up,” she says.
Then there was something harder to put a price on: being taken seriously as a woman.
“Number two, because you’re a woman, you’re always second-guessed on everything,” she says. “If they don’t hear a man’s voice first, then it’s always a problem.”
Those two things, she says, were her biggest challenges when she first started: having her voice heard, and having the money to really do what she needed to do.
“I didn’t pick Nigeria. Nigeria picked me.”
Ask Joy why she chose Nigeria, after coming from the UK, and her answer stops you in your tracks.
“I didn’t pick Nigeria,” she says, smiling at how strange that sounds. “Nigeria picked me.”
She has now been there for 14 years. Her love for the country began much earlier, on a first visit when she was just 16.
“I instantly fell in love with the people, the environment,” she says. “It was very different from what I was seeing on the news in the UK — very fond of putting Africa as an impoverished country or continent. So when people see it from abroad, they always feel like Africa is poor and Africa needs help.”
What she saw was different.
“But when I came here, I saw opportunity, I saw resources, I saw wealth,” she says. “And I wanted to be a part of that. I wanted to be a part of giving back to my people and making a difference.”
Fourteen years on, she is clear about where she stands: “To be honest, I don’t think I’m ever going back.”
Her proudest moment went in the opposite direction
Joy’s proudest business moment is not a store opening in Nigeria. It is a store opening in the UK — four years ago.
“It was a proud moment for me because I took something that I built here in Nigeria back to the UK,” she says. “And usually it’s the other way around.”
That reversal matters to her. So much of the story told about Africa is about things arriving from elsewhere. Joy’s story is about something built in Nigeria, strong enough to travel back the other way.
Who inspires her
Joy does not name a single hero. She names a pattern.
“I draw inspiration from many people. I don’t have one particular person that inspires me,” she says. “Mel Robbins inspires me. Oprah Winfrey inspires me. Tara Durotoye inspires me. These are women that have built businesses from nothing, that motivate, that give back.”
More broadly, she says, she draws inspiration from “anybody that is ambitious and driven and has been able to change their story and their narrative.”
In other words: people who did not accept the story they were given — and wrote a new one.
What she would tell her younger self
At the end of the interview comes the simplest question, and the simplest answer.
What would you tell your younger self?
“Don’t rush,” Joy says. “Everything will come at the time that it’s supposed to come.”
It is advice that fits the whole conversation: a business built patiently, a country chosen slowly, a confidence that was never rushed — just grown, one woman at a time.
