Built at Microsoft. Forged at a Startup. Rooted in Africa.

Forwardly is led by Nathanael Ngbondo Koweda, a Principal Software Engineering Manager at Microsoft and former startup CTO with over 15 years of experience building technology at scale.

At Microsoft, Nathanael leads a team of senior and principal engineers in the Xbox Game Streaming organization, architecting OS components and datacenter systems that serve millions of users globally. He has shipped products across Windows, Skype, OneNote, and Xbox — and spearheaded Microsoft's first technical recruiting initiative in Africa, hiring 20+ software engineers across the continent. He also led recruiting efforts for major American tech companies seeking engineering talent from Africa for roles in the US and Canada.

Before returning to Microsoft, Nathanael co-founded a communications startup where he raised $400K in pre-seed funding, built the engineering team, and patented a novel voice communication technology.

Today, beyond his Microsoft role, Nathanael serves as a technical advisor to startups across multiple continents — from a Y Combinator-backed media tech platform to an AgriTech company in Cameroon, a conversational AI startup serving regulated enterprises, and a global EdTech platform operating across the EU and Asia-Pacific.

Nathanael holds an MBA from Cornell University (Tech MBA), a Master's in Telecom Engineering from the University of Oklahoma, and a Master's in Computer Science from Université Blaise Pascal in France. His technical foundations were shaped across continents — including a research internship in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, working on routing algorithms for Optical WDM networks. Originally from the Central African Republic, he maintains deep ties across Francophone West Africa — including Benin, Ivory Coast, and beyond.

He founded Forwardly to bring senior-level technology expertise to organizations that need strategic guidance without the overhead of a big consulting firm — and to bridge the technology gap between US innovation and Africa's fastest-growing economies.