Ridwan Olalere

Ridwan Olalere co-founded LemFi (originally Lemonade Finance) in 2020 to build a full-stack financial home for immigrants around the world. A trained aeronautical engineer who studied at Shenyang Aerospace University in China, he pivoted early into fintech, rising through roles at Flutterwave, OPay — where he helped build and scale the ORide product as Senior Director of Operations — and then as Country Manager for Uber Nigeria. It was that blend of product depth and operational grit that he brought to LemFi when he and co-founder Rian Cochran launched the company. Today, LemFi serves more than two million customers, processing over $1 billion in monthly transactions across 30-plus countries, and has raised $86.9 million including a $53 million Series B led by Highland Europe in 2025.

Olalere represents a generation of African fintech builders who understand, from lived proximity, what the diaspora actually needs from money. Under his leadership, LemFi has moved well beyond remittance rails: it now offers multi-currency wallets, a Send Now, Pay Later feature aligned to immigrant salary cycles, and an "Ensemble AI" credit model that draws on open banking data and remittance behaviour to serve communities invisible to traditional credit bureaus. In doing so, he is rewriting the economics of the $50 billion-a-year corridor between Africa and its diaspora.