Tope Awotona was born in Lagos, Nigeria, to a microbiologist father and a mother who worked at the Central Bank of Nigeria. When he was 12, his father was shot and killed in a carjacking — a loss Awotona has said drove a lifelong desire to complete the work his father never finished. He moved with his family to Atlanta at 15 and later earned a business degree from the University of Georgia.
After a sales career at IBM, Dell EMC and other technology firms, Awotona started several ventures that failed, including businesses selling projectors and garden tools. Frustrated by the endless back-and-forth of scheduling meetings by email, he poured his life savings and maxed out his credit cards to build Calendly in 2013.
Awotona bootstrapped Calendly for eight years before accepting outside investment in 2021 at a $3 billion valuation. The scheduling platform now serves more than 20 million users worldwide, and Awotona is one of very few Black billionaires globally.
- Founder and CEO of Calendly, used by over 20 million people worldwide
- One of the few Black billionaires in the world
- Bootstrapped Calendly for eight years before any outside investment
- Named on Forbes' list of America's Richest Immigrants
- Solve the problem that frustrates you personally — it likely frustrates millions of others too.. Calendly began as Awotona's own solution to endless scheduling emails.
- Fail at several ventures before the one that works — and keep going.. His projector and garden-tool businesses both failed before Calendly succeeded.
- Go all in when you finally believe in the idea.. He put his entire life savings and maxed-out credit into Calendly's early development.