Meet Flutterwave CEO, Olugbenga Agboola

Who is Flutterwave CEO? – The CEO of Flutterwave, Olugbenga Agboola is a Nigerian born Financial technology engineer, certified ethical hacker and security analyst, and Microsoft certified system engineer. He was born in Lagos and studied in Nigeria before travelling to America to further his education.

Bio Data

CERTIFICATIONS AND ACQUIRED SKILLS

Olugbenga Agboola has quite a number of acquired skills and academic certifications to his name. His acquired certifications are:

• An MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School of Management, Cambridge,
• The standard IT security certifications from EC-Council University, headquartered in Albuquerque, New Mexico,
• A Master’s degree in information technology security, and also, behavioural engineering,
• A degree in Project Management and Advanced Computing degree from the University of Westminster in London, England,
• Also at MIT, he completed the Fundamentals of Finance for the Technical Executive. That was in November 2012. And then, for Developing a Leading Edge Operations Strategy in April 2013.

And his acquired skills are in:

• PHP Applications,
• Product Innovation,
• Retail Banking,
• Card Management Solution,
• Product Marketing,
• Retail Banking,
• Security Management,
• Agent Management System,
• JavaScript,
• PHP,
• Development Tools,
• Product Life Cycle Management,
• Product Management,
• Server Administration,
• And, Ethical Hacking.

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CAREER 

In January 2003, Olugbenga Agboola started working as an Application Developer for British Telecom Professional Services. He worked there up until January 2004.

Also, in 2004, he worked at Paypal as an application engineer until January 2005. It was from there he became a member of the Enterprise Infrastructure Solution Development team of the Guarantee Trust Bank (GTB). And he worked there until March 2009.

Going further in his career, he worked as a Technology Product Manager and Developer at the Standard Bank Nigeria, developing a Biometric Payment Solution for the bank before he left. Then, worked at Google Wallet as a Product Manager and also the Head of Mobile Financial Services at Sterling Bank.

From November 2014, he worked as the Head of Digital Factory and Innovation in Access Bank up until May 2016. Although in between these years, he was part of the Management Programme at the Wharton School (that was in 2015). And yes, he also co-founded Flutterwave in 2016 alongside the initial founder, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji.

Also in 2016, he served as the Senior Entrepreneur in Residence for Africa Fintech Foundry up until August 2018. In between these service years, he also served as one of the members of the Strategic Marketing Programme at Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management, Evanston, Illinois. That was in 2017.

Still, in 2018, precisely October, he became the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Flutterwave after the former CEO, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji stepped down. And was also then an entrepreneur at Royal Bank of Scotland Business.

And till present, he remains the Flutterwave CEO regardless of the alleged scandal.

FLUTTERWAVE’S FOUNDERS (CO-FOUNDER)

Olugbenga Agboola has in the past, in an interview, talked about one of the main objectives of founding Flutterwave. The founding includes Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, alongside a team of another tech; banking, and payment Veterans they could work together with.

These were his words: “Africa needs three major things, logistics, payments, and commerce. Flutterwave is taking care of the fragmented payment system in Africa. The fragmented system needs a central means of payment to facilitate commerce within the continent, That is what Flutterwave is out to do.”

According to Olugbenga Agboola, although some African countries had strong payment systems in their respective countries, they have not made progress in making it possible for users to make and receive payments internationally. So, one of the aims of Flutterwave is definitely to create a solution and pave way for international transactions.

At the early stage of the company in 2016, Iyinoluwa Aboyeji was the CEO while Olusegun Agboola was the Chief Technical Officer until October 2018 when Aboyeji stepped down and Agboola took over. He remained the CEO from 2018 to date.

NETWORTH

Olugbenga Agboola is no doubt one of the best Tech persons in Nigeria and Africa at large. And also currently ranked one of the richest and most influential people in Nigeria. His estimated net worth is $2 million. Now you don’t have to wonder why he is the Flutterwave CEO.

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FLUTTERWAVE

Flutterwave is a Nigerian Fintech company founded in 2016 by Iyinoluwa Aboyeji. Aboyeji later graduated to get other hands to help on the project; Olugbenga Agboola as a co-founder and Adeleke Agboola as the Software Developer. While Olugbenga Agboola remains in the company to date, Adeleke Agboola already resigned. He served the company from the 1st of February 2017-the 16th of September 2019.

This Fintech company (Flutterwave), is headquartered in San Fransisco, California and is being operated in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, South Africa and seven other African countries.

The sole aim of this company is to build a payments infrastructure that would connect Africa and Africans to the global economy. To build technology, tools and infrastructure for businesses and banks that want to provide less stressful and risky transaction processes for their customers. They however have made huge progress in achieving their dream. They have now grown to become one of the fastest-growing payments companies in the world. Among their achievements is been named Africa’s best Fintech company in 2017 at the Apps Africa Innovation Awards.

Since its foundation, Flutterwave has been able to process close to $2 billion in payments and 25 million transactions across over 33 African countries where it operates. Also, over the years, Flutterwave has gotten investments from highly experienced Fintech investors such as Ycombinator Community Fund (Investors in Stripe), Glynn Capital, Greycroft (Investors in Braintree and Venmo), and so on.

In 2021, Flutterwave raised a $170 million Series C funding round. Which at the time, was the largest amount ever secured by an African Tech startup. And they ended up giving it a valuation of over $1 billion. This made Flutterwave a Unicorn.

Come January 2022, Flutterwave partners with AfroSport Network to broadcast the 2021 Africa Cup of Nations free to air from the 9th of January, 2022-the 6th of February 2022.

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ACHIEVEMENTS

From May 2014-June 2015, Olugbenga Agboola was part of the Young African Leaders Initiative at the Young African Leaders Initiative Network. He has two patents which are C4T DATA Encryption Tech and QR code Payment.

In 2019 likewise, he was one of the board of directors for the Corporate Council on Africa. And also a member of Fast Company’s Impact Council. This Council consists of Entrepreneurs, Technologists, Corporate Chieftains, and Designers. He also spoke during the session on Transforming African Economies through Digitalization. On the 20th of June 2019.

Also in 2019, he led the board of Directors of the Great Ife Alumni Association Inc. And was also a part of the panel for the USA Africa Business Summit in Maputo, Mozambique.

He was selected as one of the six Africam Entrepreneurs to join Endeavor at Endeavor’s 87th International Selection Panel; this was in Madrid, Spain. Endeavor is a non-profit organization that supports high-impact entrepreneurs all around the world. Agboola was also listed as one of the Quartz Africa Innovators 2019. This was in recognition of his input in the Fintech space.