Joseph Ajiodo didn't set out to build a company. In 2005, he picked up a paintbrush and went to work, learning on real walls, in real houses, the way most tradesmen in Nigeria still do — through repetition, through mistakes, through getting it right the second time when the first coat wasn't good enough.
For years, painting was the whole job. But somewhere along the way, standing back to look at a freshly finished wall stopped feeling like the end of the work and started feeling like the beginning of a question: what else could this room become? That question eventually sent him back to school — this time to study interior design formally in Nigeria, to put a name and a method to instincts he'd already been building with his hands.
Today, as founder and CEO of Ajis Interior Creations, Joseph leads a team that paints, plasters, screeds, panels and dresses homes and offices from Choba, Port Harcourt, out to Lagos, Abuja, Ondo State and Osun State — still running on the same thing that got him off the ground in 2005: showing up, doing the unglamorous prep work properly, and caring more about the finish than anyone's paying him to.
Talk to Joseph