Wednesday, Mar 05, 2025
9:00am – 10:00am
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Pioneers of Fintech: Shaping Africa's Financial Future

Join us for part two of the 2025 Inspire Speaker Series! This session seeks to explore the transformative role of fintech in Africa, with a focus on how industry leaders are innovating to address financial inclusion, mobile banking, and digital payment solutions on the continent. It will highlight the challenges and opportunities in this rapidly growing sector and discuss strategies to foster an inclusive fintech ecosystem that supports entrepreneurs, improves access to financial services, and drives sustainable economic growth.
Open to
Public

Location

Online
via Zoom

Speakers:

Adedeji Olowe is a fintech visionary redefining digital finance. He is the founder of Lendsqr, currently building the world’s most advanced lending software ecoystem, and chairman of Paystack, one of Africa’s biggest fintech success stories, acquired by Stripe.

Previously, he led Trium, the corporate venture capital arm of Coronation Group, and spent nearly two decades revolutionizing digital banking. He has experience managing cards and payments across 19 African countries. A leader in financial infrastructure, he co-founded Open Banking Nigeria, the industry’s body pioneering API-driven banking standards in Nigeria and Africa.

Beyond fintech, he is a sought-after thought leader, having blogged on payments and technology. With expertise spanning banking, venture capital, and financial regulation, Adedeji isn’t just building products; he’s architecting the future of finance.

Benjamin Fernandes is an award-winning Tanzanian speaker and entreprenuer. At 17, he earned scholarships that took him to the U.S. for the first time. At 21, he became the youngest African ever admitted to the Stanford GSB, where he earned his MBA. A former Tanzanian TV personality, he later worked at The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Fernandes is the founder of NALA, a fintech startup building payments for the next billion. Operating in 21 countries with nearly 150 employees, NALA became profitable in 2024, achieving 10x revenue growth in a year and 34x transaction volume over 20 months. The
company recently launched Rafiki, a BWB payments platform.

Recognized for his influence, Fernandes was ranked the 15th most influential Tanzanian (2020), featured in ROW100 global tech leaders (2022), and listed among Africa’s Top 100 Changemakers (2023). In 2024, Forbes featured him on its daily cover with a dedicated cover story. 

Iyinoluwa “E” Aboyeji is currently the Founding Partner of Future Africa, Africa’s largest seed stage investor which has invested millions of dollars into over one hundred startups across Africa. Prior to that, he co-founded two of Africa’s seven unicorns; Andela and Flutterwave. Iyinoluwa has served his country as the youngest member of Nigeria’s Presidential Council on Industrial Policy and Competitiveness and ha been recognized as one of the youngest recipients of a national award as the Officer of the Order of Niger (OON).

He has been recognized as a World Economic Forum Young Leader and a Forbes 30 under 30 honoree amongst other awards and fellowships.

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This series is produced in coordination with the Stanford African Entrepreneurship Network and the Stanford Graduate School of Business Africa Business Club.

Register today.