Victoria Munguti, a mobile money champion in East Africa

April 28, 2024 Melanie Hawken

Hepta Pay, a fintech business helping dissolve the barriers to cross-border micropayments for members of the East African Diaspora

Victoria Munguti is the co-founder and ceo of Hepta Pay, a financial services company founded in 2020 and based in East Africa. She holds a master's degree in information technology (MSIT) with a focus on Data Science and Entrepreneurship from Carnegie Mellon University. Throughout her career Victoria has worked on different tech projects and entrepreneurial venture programs. She has also co-founded two start-up businesses in the domains of Data Analytics (Hepta Analytics) and Fintech (Hepta Pay) respectively. She has been actively engaged in the tech ecosystem, supporting entrepreneurs at different stages of ideation, startup, and go-to-market strategies, and scaling of successful startups into scale-ups in different countries of Africa.

Ifeoma Uddoh, a Nigerian fintech entrepreneur positively changing lives

April 16, 2023 Melanie Hawken

Shecluded, a female-focused fintech dedicated to creating economic prosperity for women through access to financial services.

Ifeoma Uddoh is a social entrepreneur and the founder of Shecluded, a female-focused FINTECH dedicated to creating economic prosperity for women through access to financial services. Since inception, Shecluded has been recognized internationally and was selected as one of NASDAQs milestone makers for its contribution to reducing inequality. Ifeoma is a Halcyon Fellow and her career spans over a decade in Consulting, Analytics, and Seed Funding for notable companies including PwC, and IROKO Partners Limited. Thanks to her hands-on experience with gender-lens financing, Ifeoma has featured on several entrepreneurship panels and master-classes hosted by First Bank, JohnHopkins University, Tekedia Institute, etc. She started her business in 2019, and today it employs 15 people.

Evelyn Kaingu, a Zambian fintech champion empowering women and business

May 8, 2022 Melanie Hawken

Evelyn Kaingu, Co-Founder and CEO, Lupiya (Zambia)

Lupiya, an innovative fintech business in Zambia building inclusive and accessible financial solutions

Evelyn Kaingu is the Co-Founder and CEO of Lupiya, a Zambian fintech providing financial solutions for individuals and businesses in Zambia. Evelyn is an award-winning young leader whose selfless belief in people drives her to innovate solutions that are people centric. Her ideas are well-placed in considering small enterprise and technology as enablers and measurements of economic progress in Africa. She has first-handedly designed products with very few resources and built Lupiya to be a million-dollar business. Launched in 2016, today Lupiya employs 20 people. Evelyn is one of the 50 founders selected for Google’s prestigious inaugural Black Founders Fund in Africa.

Chilufya Mutale, building a Pan African Challenger Bank for SMEs

April 17, 2022 Melanie Hawken

PremierCredit, a Zambian fintech platform supporting women entrepreneurs and small scale traders

Chilufya Mutale is the Co-Founder and CEO of PremierCredit, an online microlending and investment platform operating in Zambia and Zimbabwe. Since 2019 PremierCredit has been offering micro loans in Zambia, supporting local entrepreneurs and small scale traders, many of whom are women, increasing their access to capital and the ability to grow their businesses. With the support of its partner banks in Zimbabwe, PremierCredit provides affordable bicycles, smart phones and solar equipment to underserved communities across Zimbabwe. PremierCredit is the first mover on the Zambian market to offer Peer to Peer lending, a platform that connects Investors to borrowers. The company currently employs 60 people.

Jihan Abass, a Kenyan innovator in digital insurance

March 27, 2022 Melanie Hawken

Lami Technologies, democratizing insurance and helping improve the lives of millions in Africa

Jihan Abass is the founder and ceo of Lami Technologies, a game-changing B2B2C Insurance-as-a-Service platform and API. She grew up in Mombasa, Kenya and started out her career in finance as a commodities trader in London, trading on the New York and London sugar markets. After that short stint in finance, Jihan set up Lami with the aim of increasing insurance penetration in the developing world. She has an undergraduate degree in finance from Bayes Business School and an MBA from the University of Oxford. She started Lami Technologies in 2018 and today it employs 48 people.

Meghan McCormick, a fintech entrepreneur in Ghana equipping entrepreneurs to make data-driven decisions

February 6, 2022 Melanie Hawken

Meghan McCormick, co-founder & ceo of OZÉ (Ghana)

Currently, Meghan is the Co-founder & ceo of OZÉ, a fintech company in Ghana that equips African entrepreneurs to make data-driven decisions to both improve their business performance and access capital. Meghan McCormick started her work as a Community Economic Development Volunteer in the Peace Corps in Guinea. During her service, she founded Guinea’s first business accelerator, Dare to Innovate, and scaled it to be French-speaking Africa’s most active small business accelerator. Meghan previously worked as an Innovation Strategist at Monitor Deloitte. She has an MBA from MIT and an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School.

Nkem Okocha, an award-winning entrepreneur changing lives through FinTech

December 5, 2021 Melanie Hawken

Mamamoni, a Nigerian FinTech social enterprise empowering low-income women with skills and small loans

Nkem Okocha is a serial award-winning social entrepreneur and the founder of Mamamoni in Nigeria, a FinTech social enterprise that empowers low-income rural-and-urban slum women with free vocational and financial skills, and small loans. She is passionate about the change that is possible from investing in poor women in underserved communities. Nkem’s vision is guided by the saying that, "No woman chooses to be poor, but we can choose to help poor women by investing in them". Mamamoni has impacted over 10,000 low-income women in Nigeria, and she has won many awards, local and international, for her work with women. Nkem is a 2015 Tony Elumelu Foundation Alumna, 2016 outstanding LEAP Africa Social Innovator, Young African Leadership Initiative (YALI) alumna, GSBI® accelerator Alumna and a 2017 Mandela Washington Fellow, A 2020 Innovative Justice Accelerator fellow and She is passionate about Women Empowerment, Financial Inclusion, Technology and Entrepreneurship.

Lioness Launch / Addisson & Western (Pty) Ltd in Botswana launches new KYC (Know Your Customer) web and mobile app solution

August 29, 2021 Melanie Hawken

One Oreeng, founder, Addison & Western (Botswana)

In Botswana, Addison & Western (Pty) Ltd, founded by One Oreeng, is a company known for providing marketing and project management services to its clients, It’s sister company, Certus, which provides technology-driven service as a software solution to ease the traditional KYC onboarding process, is now offering a KYC (Know Your Customer) solution that digitizes the AML compliance process. Certus is 100% citizen owned and woman led.

Lilian Makoi, an entrepreneur in Tanzania passionate about improving lives through technology

July 25, 2021 Melanie Hawken

Lilian Makoi, Co-Founder & CEO, MipangoApp (Tanzania)

Lilian Makoi is a Serial Entrepreneur who is passionate about technology and the opportunities it has in improving the lives of especially the mass population in Africa. She is the Co-Founder & CEO of MipangoApp, the Founder of Jamii Africa, and the Co-Founder of Stripesnsigns & FroKid Technologies. Lilian has received multiple local and international awards for being highly innovative and creating solutions with regional impact. Lilian was named Most Innovative Woman in Technology by The World Economic Forum 2016 amongst other accolades. She has a Master’s in International Business.

Dr Dorcas Muthoni, a technology leader and innovator on the African continent

December 6, 2020 Melanie Hawken

OpenBusiness Africa, a business transforming African enterprises through technology

Dr. Dorcas Muthoni is an entrepreneur, computer scientist, and founder of OpenBusiness Africa and OPENWORLD. She started her software business at the age of 24 and today it employs 50 people. She is greatly passionate about the transformation of African enterprises through technology. Dorcas is also the founder of the regional organization AfChix, a mentorship and capacity building initiative for women in computing across Africa. Globally, she has been involved and honored in technology leadership by the Internet Society (ISOC) as an Internet Hall Of Fame Global Connector, World Economic Forum (WEF) as a Young Global Leader (YGL), AnitaB Institute as a Change Agent Award Winner and the Pompeu Fabra University (UPF) in Spain as an Honoris Causa.

Quote of the Day by Wangechi Mwangi

March 17, 2017 Melanie Hawken

Wangechi Mwangi, co-founder & CEO of Valuraha — Wangechi Mwangi, co-founder & CEO of Valuraha

"Live life in a way that your contribution to humanity will be felt, during and beyond your years on earth!"

- Wangechi Mwangi is the co-founder and chief executive officer of Kenyan fintech startup Valuraha, a company that helps young people learn how to save and invest money. Valuraha runs investment clubs in high schools allowing students to learn about personal finance and investing while interacting with a virtual trading platform that simulates the investment ecosystem in Kenya. Wangechi, who is a 21-year-old student at Strathmore University in Nairobi, was in 2015 named as winner of the Global Social Impact Award by the the US-based Entrepreneurs' Organization's (EO) Global Student Entrepreneur Awards (GSEA). She won the prize after competing against a field of 2,000 entrepreneurs from 38 countries in a series of national and regional competitions.

"Live life in a way that your contribution to humanity will be felt, during and beyond your years on earth!"

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