Michael Essien Michael Essien Michael Kojo Essien (sometimes written in French: Michaël Essien) (born 3 December 1982) is a Ghanaian professional footballer. He has also been capped for the Ghana national team more than 50 times. Essien started his career playing for Liberty Professionals in Ghana. In 2000, he moved to France to join Bastia, where he would spend three seasons and appear in over 60 matches before joining Ligue 1 title holders Lyon in 2003. At Lyon, Essien won back-to-back league titles in 2003–04 and 2004–05 and also played in the UEFA Champions League for the first time. During his five-year
Mark Essien Mark Essien Mark Essien (born December 18, 1980 in Ikot Ekpene, Akwa Ibom State) is a Nigerian entrepreneur, software developer and startup investor. He is the founder and CEO of Hotels.ng, one of the first and most successful online hotel booking websites in Nigeria. Before founding Hotels.ng, Mark Essien had previously built a file sharing software called Gnumm (acquired by Snoopstar.com), followed by a language learning startup called Ingolingo. In 2013, he founded Hotels.ng. Spark.ng made an initial investment of $75,000 and another investment of $150,000. In 2015, the company secured additional investment funding of $1.2m from international investors EchoVC