Earlier this week, Cellulant Corporation announced that it has secured investment funds from The Rise Fund to the tune of $47.5m. The Rise Fund, which is managed by TPG Growth, had put down the money to purchase some unspecified stakes in the fledgling fintech company which operates in eleven African countries, including Kenya and Nigeria. The deal is adjudged the biggest ever in Africa’s financial technology sector.
It is, therefore, due to the sheer magnitude of this deal that we have decided to focus our lenses on the company’s management team, especially on Bolaji Akinboro, Cellulant’s Co-Founder and the current Chief Executive Officer of Cellulant Nigeria Limited. He is one, out of two men who envisioned the whole idea for Cellulant and brought it to fruition. Get to know him more.
About his educational background
Bolaji Akinboro is a Nigerian professional and businessman who was born in the 1970s. Between 1981 and 1982, he studied for his secondary school education at Baptist High School, Obanikoro. He later enrolled at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ife in 1988 where he studied Pharmacy until 1992.
He got a postgraduate certificate in Business Management from Herriot Watt University in 2005. He also went through the Oxford University Business Economic Programme, graduating in 2012.
On his professional experience
Bolaji started his career working as a Sales Manager at Procter & Gamble, in Lagos Nigeria. He worked this job for three years, between 1994 and 1997, before being promoted to the position of a Customer Business Development Manager & Head of Business, Procter & Gamble, Ghana.
The new position, which he occupied for three years, required him to literally build the Ghanaian subsidiary of the international company from scratch. From August 2000 to March 2001, Mobolaji had yet another role as a Customer Manager (Detergent and Candies) at Procter & Gamble.
He headed the Business Development Unit at the African Virtual University after he was hired by the World Bank through KPMG. He was also the Project Manager of the Africa Development Bank’s multinational sports project at African Virtual University for 6 years, between April 2001 and March 2017.
Between 2007 and 2008, Akinboro worked as a Senior Operations Manager at Plan International, Tanzania. He held the position for one and a half year before he was promoted to the position of a Country Director at Plan International, Malawi.
On co-founding Cellullant
Akinboro met Ken Njoroge in the early 2000s while he was working at the African Virtual University. Both of them co-founded Cellulant, with Akinboro “providing strategic and financial support from a board position.”
Cellulant is a Payment Platform Infrastructure Service Provider, with its headquarters in Kenya and presence in more than eleven African countries, including Nigeria. Cellulant provides governments, corporate bodies, retailers and consumers, etc., with access to payment instruments, stores of value, and payment channels.
In Nigeria, Cellulant is regulated by the Central Bank of Nigeria and insured by the Nigerian Deposit Insurance Corporation.
As the current Chief Executive Officer of Cellulant Nigeria Limited, Mobolaji Akinboro is in charge of overseeing the company’s projects, including implementation of the eWallet system. He is also in charge of the Growth Enhancement Support (GES) programme which is working to support nearly 20 million poor farmers across Nigeria using Cellulant’s eWallet platform “to create distribution and market efficiency in the value chain for Agro-Inputs.”
Without a doubt, Bolaji Akinboro is one Nigerian professional to watch out for. Nairametrics shall keep an eye out for him and his Co-Founder as they continue to steer the affairs of Cellulant Corporation. We shall, of particular interest, be monitoring how the newly secured $47.5 million investment is utilised towards scaling the business and creating value for customers and returns for stakeholders.
