Shegun Otulana followed his brother to Birmingham from Nigeria in 1998. After arriving in Birmingham, he knew he wanted to build something big. Just recently Shegun Otulana’s startup Therapy Brands sold in a $1.2 billion acquisition. 

Following that success, Otulana is dedicated to scaling the next round of Birmingham-based startups with Harmony Venture Labs, his newest venture. This idea came to him by being part of the startup ecosystem—building startups, failing, building products and succeeding, and looking at the companies he's invested in.

He wants to create a flywheel that helps grow the startup ecosystem here in Birmingham. Birmingham is his home and where his family is. It’s also where he's been fortunate to have a lot of people help him. It’s where his kids are growing up, and it’s a fantastic place to live. There’s a lot of good about Birmingham.

His teams have been able to bring startups to life, and the people on those teams have gone on to lead and grow other startups. When you focus on growing people rather than companies and then those people go on to found other startups, that's where Otulana finds success.