Ridwan Olalere

Yo, have you heard of Ridwan Olalere? The dude’s a straight-up legend in the fintech space now, but his process is one of those “holy shit, no way” stories. He’s the CEO and co-founder of LemFi, a fintech startup that’s basically changing the game for immigrants trying to send money across borders. They’re crushing it, over 2 million users and moving more than a billion bucks a month across like 20 countries. That’s no small feat, especially for a company that’s still pretty fresh.

So, here’s the scoop on Ridwan. He’s Nigerian, born in ’89, so he’s 36 now (as of 2025). Instead of sticking with the usual hustle, he jumped into aeronautical engineering in China, yeah, that’s right, China, which is kinda wild. But even back then, he was already into tech, teaching C programming way back in 2009. Dude’s always been about building stuff and tech.

His career path’s super diverse. He’s worked at a bunch of big names, NextStep Systems, Novatia, Hotels.ng, Flutterwave, all those guys are doing big things in Africa’s tech scene. He also held some major roles at OPay, leading their payment products, and was a senior director of operations. And he even managed Uber Nigeria at one point. So, the guy’s been deep in the trenches of payment infrastructure and tech scaling across Africa for years.

But here’s the kicker, in 2020, he co-founded LemFi, which used to be Lemonade Finance. And this wasn’t some side hustle. It’s built to solve real problems for immigrants who need to move money easily and cheaply across borders, a huge problem. Ridwan’s approach has always been super customer-focused. He’s out there talking to users, really feeling their pain, and then building products that actually work for them. That’s what sets him apart, he’s all about making sure the tech actually helps, not just about creating fancy solutions.

And even before LemFi, he was all about community. He started forLoop Africa, a dev community that helps tech talent grow across the continent. The guy’s driven by a clear motivation, making tech and finance accessible and fair, especially for folks who’ve been underserved.

Now, he’s living in the UK, but his roots and hustle are all about Africa and the global immigrant experience. That process from aeronautical engineering to teaching code, then building payment infrastructure, and now leading a fintech revolution? That’s a story of relentless grind, deep tech knowledge, and a real desire to fix shit that’s broken.

Long story short: Ridwan Olalere is one of those founders who’s not just building a company, he’s solving big-ass problems for millions, driven by his own background and a legit passion for making finance work for everyone. No cap, he’s the real deal.