At 19, I dreamed of becoming a Nursing Professor. Now I make a living filming videos on my phone — Nancy Umeh

FNA NEWS | Lifestyle | 29th October, 2026

At 19, Nancy Umeh already had a picture of the professional she wanted to become.

She wanted to build a career in nursing and, eventually, become a Nursing Professor.

More than a decade later, her career looks very different from the one she imagined as a teenager.

Umeh is a non-practicing registered nurse and public health professional. But alongside healthcare, she has built a career in entrepreneurship, food, digital content creation, lifestyle and personal branding.

Today, she can make a living creating videos with the device millions of people carry in their pockets: a smartphone.

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Her journey is a reminder that a nursing career does not always have to follow a single path. For Umeh, nursing became the foundation for a much broader professional identity.

From nursing school to first-class graduate

Umeh’s academic journey began in Lagos, where she attended Command Children’s School, Ojo Military Cantonment, before proceeding to Command Day Secondary School in Ojo and Ikeja Military Cantonment.

She later enrolled at the School of Nursing, Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), where she graduated at the top of her class in 2009.

Her ambition did not stop with her nursing qualification.

Umeh moved to the United Kingdom and attended the University of Sunderland, where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Nursing with First-Class Honours in 2012. She followed this with a Master of Science in Public Health in 2013.

Her academic record established her firmly within the health profession.

But it was the combination of nursing, public health and an interest in food that would eventually open another door.

When nursing met public health and food

Umeh’s professional interests gradually moved beyond conventional nursing practice.

As a public health professional, she became increasingly interested in the relationship between food, health and family wellbeing. She began sharing healthy recipes and practical health information online, particularly around nutrition, children’s eating habits and healthier cooking.

Her content was not simply about food.

She used her nursing and public health knowledge to explain issues to families in a way that could be understood outside the hospital environment.

In one of her cooking videos, Umeh described her family’s approach to food by saying that they “eat our medicine”, linking healthy eating with her broader public-health message.

That intersection of professional expertise and everyday communication would become an important part of her digital identity.

The health experience that changed her business direction

One of the defining moments in Umeh’s entrepreneurial journey came in 2014.

According to the history published by Radiance Cookware, Umeh experienced a serious asthma attack that prompted her to investigate the possible relationship between cookware and health. She began researching cookware options and eventually sourced cast-iron cookware after finding that suitable options were not readily available in Nigeria at the time.

She shared what she was learning through social media.

Friends and family began asking her to source cookware for them.

What began as information-sharing gradually developed into a business.

Umeh founded Radiance Cookware in 2016, while the company says it formally began commercial sales and distribution in Nigeria in 2018. The business has since grown around cookware, healthy cooking education and lifestyle content.

The story is significant because it demonstrates how one professional experience can create an entirely new opportunity.

For Umeh, a health-related experience became the starting point for an entrepreneurial venture.

From posting recipes to building a digital career

Umeh’s early online presence was closely connected to food and health.

Over time, the content became much broader.

Food remained important, but Umeh increasingly shared aspects of family life, motherhood, entrepreneurship, lifestyle and personal development.

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That evolution mirrors a wider change in digital media.

Social platforms are no longer simply places where professionals promote their businesses. For many entrepreneurs, they have become publishing platforms, educational channels, marketing tools and businesses in their own right.

Umeh’s career reflects that shift.

Her current professional profile describes her as a registered nurse, public health consultant, professional chef and lifestyle influencer. It says she shares content across YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and other platforms, with a combined audience of more than two million people.

Her Instagram profile now places particular emphasis on helping people build sustainable personal brands, alongside her nursing qualification and Radiance Cookware business.

A family connection to Nigeria’s creator economy

Umeh is also the older sister of Nigerian dancer and digital creator Korra Obidi.

The sisters have developed different public careers, but both have become recognisable figures within Nigeria’s wider digital-creator ecosystem. TheCable has identified Umeh as Obidi’s older sister, while reports have documented Umeh’s involvement in her sister’s public life.

Interestingly, Korra has also publicly described Nancy as an early influence on her own dancing. In a 2023 social-media post, Korra referred to Nancy as her “first dance inspiration.”

Their careers have ultimately taken different directions.

Korra became known for dance, music and entertainment, while Nancy developed a public identity around health, food, family, entrepreneurship and digital education.

Together, their journeys illustrate the increasingly diverse ways African professionals are using digital platforms to build careers and businesses.

A nurse who built beyond the hospital

Umeh’s story is particularly relevant to nurses because it challenges the idea that professional growth has to remain within one conventional career lane.

Her nursing qualification did not disappear when she entered entrepreneurship.

Instead, elements of her healthcare background became part of the credibility behind her work in public health, nutrition, healthy cooking and family wellbeing.

Her academic journey also gave her a foundation for communicating health information beyond the clinical environment.

That distinction matters.

There is a difference between leaving nursing behind and building beyond nursing.

Umeh’s career is an example of the latter.

She has taken knowledge acquired through nursing and public health and combined it with cooking, business, communication and digital media.

The entrepreneur behind the camera

Today, Umeh operates across several professional spaces.

She is associated with Radiance Cookware, continues to create lifestyle and food content, and has developed work around personal branding and digital visibility.

Her own website describes her as a registered nurse, public health consultant, professional chef and entrepreneur, while her current platforms show an increasing emphasis on helping women build profitable personal brands.

That evolution is perhaps the most striking part of her story.

The young woman who once imagined herself becoming a Nursing Professor eventually discovered that her knowledge could travel far beyond a classroom or hospital ward.

It could be communicated through a camera.

It could become a business.

It could reach families in their homes.

And it could create an entirely different kind of professional platform.

The career she planned and the career she built

At 19, Nancy Umeh had one professional destination in mind: becoming a Nursing Professor.

Her actual journey took her somewhere else.

She became a nurse, graduated with first-class honours, earned a master’s degree in public health and developed expertise across healthcare, nutrition and healthy living.

Then came entrepreneurship.

Then digital storytelling.

Then personal branding.

Her story is not simply about a nurse who became a content creator. It is about how professional knowledge can evolve when it meets curiosity, creativity and entrepreneurship.

For nurses considering careers beyond traditional clinical practice, Umeh’s journey offers a useful perspective: the skills developed in nursing — communication, education, critical thinking, empathy, problem-solving and health knowledge — can have applications far beyond the bedside.

The profession can provide the foundation.

What comes next can take many forms.

For Nancy Umeh, that next chapter is being built one video at a time.

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Fellow Nurses Africa is the independent voice of African nursing. We educate, inform, and support the nursing profession.