Olugbenga Agboola is one of the leading tech entrepreneurs we have in Africa. He built one of Africa’s most prominent tech products, Flutterwave which is used by a lot of people in Nigeria and across Africa. Yet, very little is known about his personal life.
Olugbenga Agboola is considered a tech billionaire. Recently, he acquired a luxurious high-end residential property in Miami for a reported $7.1 million from Boschetti Group, a well-known Florida-based real estate development company that specializes in luxurious high-end properties.
In this article, we will present five things you should know about the Flutterwave founder and Chief Executive Officer.
His Background: Olugbenga Agboola was born in Lagos State in 1985. He is a serial entrepreneur who, in 2016, created Flutterwave with Iyinoluwa Aboyeji. The tech industry refers to him more commonly as GB.
When his business partner stepped down to concentrate on helping other entrepreneurs grow their startups and giving back to the community as a whole, GB took over as the CEO of Flutterwave and has since helped to grow the business.
His education: Gbenga is a man with a great deal of knowledge and more qualifications than you can count. His early education was received in Nigeria before he moved abroad for academic studies. More scholastic credentials than you can count are held by Gbenga.
At Cambridge’s Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School of Management, he earned a master’s degree in business administration. Olugbenga Agboola also holds a master’s degree in behavioural engineering and information technology security.
His standard IT security certifications came from Albuquerque, New Mexico’s EC-Council University. Following that, he graduated with a degree in Advanced Computing and Project Management from the University of Westminster in London, UK.
In November 2012, he began and finished the Fundamentals of Finance for The Technical Executive, which advanced his academic path. Gbenga created a Leading Edge Operations Plan in April 2013.
He took part in the Essential IT for Non-IT Executives training and the Supply Chain Strategy and Management program in November 2014. During this instruction, he learned how to use development tools.
In addition, Olugbenga Agboola studied server administration, agent management systems, ethical hacking, JavaScript, PHP, PHP Apps, product innovation, product life cycle management, product management, and retail banking…
How he started: Agboola worked in various positions for financial institutions like the Royal Bank of Scotland, Standard Bank Nigeria, and Sterling Bank as well as tech behemoths like Google and PayPal for years before founding Flutterwave. He started thinking about how he could implement the same types of payment solutions in Africa after creating numerous payment solutions that were successfully implemented throughout various parts of the world.
There were some payment systems in use at the time, but because of how disjointed they were, consumers had few accessible choices for sending money across borders or platforms. His commitment to finding a solution ultimately resulted in the development of Flutterwave.
In solution to a market gap, Agboola introduced Flutterwave in 2016. By developing a single-use payment solution that would enable any merchant or small business to take payments without having to deal with the issues associated with using multiple payment providers, he hoped to address the severely fragmented nature of Africa’s payment infrastructure. It immediately became popular. Four years after its launch, Flutterwave had already reached over 15 nations with its influence.
His Achievements: Agboola was part of the Young African Leaders Initiative at the Young African Leaders Initiative Network from May 2014 to June 2015.
- He announced on 21 January 2020 that he managed to raise $35 million to facilitate more payments at Flutterwave. The company will use these funds to expand its operations to other countries.
- Under Agboola’s leadership, Flutterwave has been able to complete the Series B Extension round of financing. The latest round of his financing includes investments from MasterCard, CRE Ventures, Fintech Collective, 4DX Ventures and Raba Capital.
- He is part of the board of directors for the Corporate Council on Africa.
- He is the Chairman of the Board of Directors at the Great Ife Alumni Association Inc, constituted of graduates and associates of Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria.
- Agboola became a member of Fast Company, a monthly American business magazine, Impact Council, consisting of entrepreneurs, technologists, corporate chieftains, and designers in 2019
His Awards and Recognition: Agboola was listed as one of the Quartz Africa Innovators 2019 on 19 September 2019.
- Agboola was part of the panel for the US Africa Business Summit in Maputo, Mozambique, and spoke during the session Transforming African Economies Through Digitalization on 20 June 2019.[15]
- In May 2019, Agboola was selected as one of six African entrepreneurs to join Endeavor, a non-profit organisation that supports high-impact entrepreneurs around the world. This occurred at Endeavor’s 87th International Selection Panel in Madrid, Spain from 24 April 2019 – 26 April 2019