In a recent infographic, African tech ecosystem-focused online publication, Afridigest put together a list of 24 women founders and CEOs who have raised $3 million and more in equity for their Africa-focused startups. The list is pulled from across the continent to spotlight these 24 amazing women serving as leaders in the African tech ecosystem as we mark Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day this March. In this article, we break down the Afridigest infographic on women founder CEOs in Africa and shed more light on who they are, what their startups do, and where you can follow their stories.
Nelly Chaute-Diop
Nelly Chaute-Diop is a Cameroonian computer scientist. She is the co-founder and CEO of Ejara, a blockchain-based mobile investment and saving platform uniquely tailored for the French and African market and its diaspora which she launched in 2020, with Baptiste Andrieux. She was a computer developer for a few years after her degree in computer science. After her MBA, she worked in an investment bank in London before returning to France where she worked with an American SME specialising in pricing and data using statistical models for price recommendations. In 2018, she was named among the Top 10 Data Directors in Europe. In May 2020, she was part of the global list of women in power in the Data of the American reference magazine CDO Magazine. In June 2020, it was ranked in the World’s Top 100 Data Visionaries. Chaute-Diop earned an MSc in Computer Science from CPE Lyon, an MBA in Finance from the London Business School and another MBA in corporate finance, financial markets and strategy from HEC Paris.
Miishe Addy
Miishe Addy is a Ghanaian entrepreneur. She is the co-founder and CEO of Jetstream Africa, an e-logistics company headquartered in Tema, Ghana. A leading player in African cross-border commerce, Jetstream leverages human expertise and proprietary technology to accelerate the movement of capital and goods to and from businesses in Africa. Miishe started her career as a top-ranked strategy analyst for Bain & Company in New York, practised transactional law at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and has consulted global development organisations, including TechnoServe and Global Partnerships. Winner of the London Business School Accel Award for African startups, Addy has been recognized by the Project Management Institute as one of the top 50 next generation project managers globally, and by Forbes Woman Africa as a New Wealth Creator. Addy earned an honours BA in Philosophy from Harvard College and a JD from Stanford Law School.
Meghan McCormick
Meghan McCormick is a systems thinker and strategist who is passionate about designing solutions that bring real value to customers, corporations, and communities. She is the co-founder and CEO of OZÉ, a technology-powered startup—launched in 2017—that provides business insights for small-and-growing African businesses. OZÉ allows these businesses to make data-driven decisions to drive business growth, improve access to capital, and serve customers better. Meghan McCormick is a graduate of Harvard Kennedy School and the MIT Sloan School of Management where she received a joint MPA and MBA. After graduating with a B.S. in Finance from Georgetown University, she joined the Peace Corps and served as a Community Economic Development Volunteer in the Republic of Guinea. During her service, she experienced the economically and socially destructive force of youth unemployment and underemployment. Watching a country waste its greatest resource, the energy and ingenuity of youth, galvanised her to focus her career on solving this problem. McCormick is the co-founder of Dare to Innovate, francophone Africa’s most active social business accelerator. Her organisation has trained thousands of youth entrepreneurs and deployed nearly a quarter-million in seed capital to youth-led businesses in Guinea and Benin.
Lydia K. Bosire
Dr Lydiah Kemunto Bosire is the founder and CEO of 8B Education Investments, a financial and education technology platform specialising in lending to African students to attend world-class global universities and supporting them to succeed. 8B is on a mission to strengthen Africa’s human capital by equipping the continent’s future leaders and ecosystem builders to innovate, compete, and thrive in the knowledge economy of the 21st century. A Kenyan national, Lydiah brings to the field of innovative finance, her personal experience, and over eighteen years of working on issues of international politics, development, and human rights. Prior to founding 8B, Bosire worked at the United Nations, the World Bank, and leading global NGOs. Most recently, she served as lead for the UN-World Bank Partnership at the Department of Political Affairs of the UN Secretariat. While completing her studies at the University of Oxford, Bosire co-founded Oxford Transitional Justice Research. Bosire was a pioneer of the global youth movement around HIV/AIDS. She co-founded the YouthForce advocacy platform used at all international HIV/AIDS conferences and served as a founding board member of the non-profit Keep a Child Alive. Bosire currently serves on the board at WorldQuant University and is a member of the UWC Atlantic College Advisory Council. She publishes and speaks on a wide range of topics, including the role of innovative finance in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, the UN and the World Bank in conflict-affected states, and the role of world-class human capital in African development. Bosire completed her doctorate (D.Phil) in Politics at the University of Oxford. She also holds a Master of Science from Oxford, where she attended as a Clarendon Scholar. She received an undergraduate degree with honours in Government and a Master of Public Administration at Cornell University.
Sara Menker
Sara Menker is the founder and CEO of Gro Intelligence. Gro illuminates the interrelationships between our earth’s ecology and human economy to help you see the big picture and act on the small details. From assessing the impact of climate change in real-time to optimising agricultural supply chains, Gro’s data, analytics and forecast models provide honest answers to what goes on on earth. An Ethiopian national, Menker started her career in commodities risk management at Morgan Stanley. She eventually moved through Morgan Stanley to portfolio trading and management. Menker is a trustee of the International Center for Tropical Agriculture and the Mandela Institute for Development Studies. She was selected by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader in 2014. She is also a member of The Aspen Institute African Leadership Initiative. Menker is involved with Cognition X, the artificial intelligence information platform. In 2021, she was included in Time 100, Time’s annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Lesley Marincola
Lesley Marincola is the Founder and CEO of Angaza, an organisation that uses pay-as-you-go to make energy products affordable. Angaza creates the technology that enables businesses to streamline the sale of life-changing products to anyone, anywhere. The Angaza platform redefines how products like solar home systems and entry-level smartphones are purchased. By enabling distributors to offer incremental payment plans to consumers without access to traditional banking, Angaza makes it possible for over 2 billion people around the world to affordably acquire transformative products and devices. Globally, more than 1.2 billion individuals remain off the electric grid, and sub-Saharan Africa bears a disproportionate share of this burden. Over 600 million people—nearly two-thirds of the region’s population—lack access to electricity. From locations in San Francisco and Nairobi, Marincola leads Angaza in providing local support to the global and local Kenyan communities. She holds both an MS in mechanical engineering and a BS in product design from Stanford University, and was named one of Forbes’ “30 under 30” and one of Businessweek’s “Best Young Entrepreneurs.”
Hilda Moraa
Hilda Moraa, is an award-winning innovator, author and fintech entrepreneur. She has more than 10 years of experience in Fintech, Regulation, developing innovations, entrepreneurship and working with multinationals such as Coca-Cola to develop mobility innovations for Africa. She previously founded WezaTele, a Fintech startup in Kenya that was acquired in 2015. She is currently the founder & CEO of Pezesha, a digital financial infrastructure enabling SMEs and institutions in Africa. She also led Pezesha to be the first company to exit from the CMA regulatory sandbox and get approval. Hilda is a member of the Board of Directors at Konza City: The Silicon Savannah. Moraa holds a Business Information Technology Degree from Strathmore University. In 2015 she was also featured as one of the top 40 under 40 women in Kenya and Quartz Africa as top 30 innovators in Africa in 2018. She has continued to champion the local tech, innovation & Entrepreneurship scene in Kenya by supporting and mentoring other young techpreneurs through sharing her lessons, entrepreneurial knowledge and experiences in inspiring ways such as through her first book that was published when she was only 26 years old: “A Kenyan Startup Journey – 10 Key Lessons I learnt.” She was also a keynote speaker at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2015. And in 2019, she was among the few selected to be part of the Obama Leaders Program. Hilda is also celebrated across Africa as one of the 50, Africa’s most promising innovators by Global Shakers because of the impactful work she leads at Pezesha.
Lucrezia Bisignani
Lucrezia is the founder and CEO of Kukua, an educational entertainment company building a pan-African children’s franchise around Super Sema, Africa’s first animated child heroine. Backed by Firstminute Capital and Kima Ventures, Kukua is aiming to increase child literacy in Africa. Young users follow Sema which is brought to life with an animated TV Series, toys and a suite of educational smartphone games building skills around reading, writing and maths. Lucrezia is a graduate of Singularity University, and previously trained as an actress at The Oxford School of Drama. She was listed on the Forbes’ “30 under 30” 2019 Social entrepreneurs list, was named among the 100 most influential Italian women in technology, was selected by MIT as a SOLVE fellow and spoke at WIRED 2016 as one of the women who are changing the world.
Cynthia Wandia
Cynthia Wandia is a Kenyan electrical engineer, polyglot, entrepreneur, businesswoman and corporate executive, who is the chief executive officer and co-founder of Kwara Limited, a Kenya-based online and mobile banking application that helps cooperative societies, community banks and credit unions keep up with the financial needs and positions of their members in real-time. This allows the institutions to respond faster to the needs of their members, thereby maintaining high censuses of happy customers, driving up profits in the process. Wandia spent 6 months in 2010 in Monterrey, Mexico, serving as a business development consultant for Aceleradora de Empresas ITESM (the Business Accelerator Network at Tecnológico de Monterrey). She then moved to Düsseldorf, Germany to work with E.ON, in their global commodities division, as part of a trading qualification program. Some of the training took place in Madrid, Spain. She served in that capacity for one and half years, until May 2012. For a period of two years and 6 months, she worked for E.ON, based in Essen, Germany, as a Fleet Performance Analyst for about half of that period, then as a Manager for Special Projects. In December 2014, she left E.ON and co-founded Astra Innovations. Astra Innovations, sources closed gas-powered and hydroelectricity power plants, buys them cheaply, and sells them to Sub-Saharan, Southeast Asian and Latin American electricity producers. In 2018, Business Daily Africa, an English daily newspaper in Kenya, named Cynthia Wandia, one of Kenya’s Top 40 Under 40 Women.
Jihan Abass
Jihan Abass is a Kenyan entrepreneur and businesswoman who is the founder and CEO of Lami Insurance Technology, a digital vehicle insurance technology company on a mission to break the 3% insurance penetration barrier in Africa, based in Nairobi, Kenya, and Griffin Insurance. Abass founded Lami to increase Africa’s low insurance coverage. Abass was formerly a commodity futures trader and sugar trader at a trading house in London, England, where she traded on the New York City and London sugar markets. Abass has an MBA from the University of Oxford and an undergraduate degree in finance from Bayes Business School.
Kagure Wamunyu
Kagure Wamunyu, is a Kenyan civil engineer, urban planner and the CEO and Co-Founder of Jumba, a construction tech start-up that is simplifying the purchase and financing of construction materials in Africa. Previously, Kagure worked as the Global Head of Operations at Kobo360, an African freight logistics startup. She also served as the Senior Director of Strategy for Bridge International Academies in East Africa and as the Country Manager for Uber in Kenya. She holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mathematics, from Meredith College in the state of North Carolina, in the United States, obtained in 2013. The same year, she graduated from North Carolina State University, with a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering degree. She went on to obtain a Master of Science degree in City and Regional Planning, from the University of Berkeley, in 2015. As of November 2018, she was registered as a part-time PhD student at the University of Oxford, in the United Kingdom. Her doctoral focus is Sustainable Urban Development. In September 2018, Business Daily Africa, a Kenyan English-language daily newspaper, named Kagure Wamunyu among the “Top 40 Under 40 Women” in Kenya in 2018.
Bente Krogmann
Bente Krogmann is a passionate entrepreneur who prides herself in creating purposeful solutions that are simple and affordable, guided by data and supported by technology. She is the CEO and director at mTek Services, a B2C digital insurance platform that provides an entirely paperless ecosystem founded in 2020. mTek’s platform allows customers to purchase Insurance directly from the Insurer, Compare Insurance Policies and file claims directly through their smart devices.
Cathy Chepkemboi
Cathy Chepkemboi is the founder and CEO of Tushop, a Kenyan community group-buying platform that enables communities in Nairobi to buy groceries more cheaply with free delivery. Their mission is to make access to groceries more affordable and more convenient for Kenyans and eventually all Africans. Chepkemboi says she’s always known that she wanted to run a business since she was ten. She started her first business when she was thirteen. Five years later she chose to apply to the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) because it was the only American university she knew of that offered to teach business to undergraduates. After college, she joined Unilever and worked there for three and half years, both in their Kenya and UK offices. Not long after that, she joined a startup called Moko, leading their Brand, Marketing, and Product Development efforts and in 1.5 years grew the company from close to nothing to a ~$1M yearly revenue run rate.
Anu Adasolum
Anu Adasolum is the co-founder and CEO of Sabi, based in Lagos, Nigeria. Sabi provides a technology platform that enables and empowers the most underserved merchants in the world. Their commerce infrastructure enables agents, merchants, wholesalers, aggregators, distributors and manufacturers to grow their businesses using Sabi’s technology rails. These rails facilitate access to fulfilment, logistics, ERP tools, a B2B marketplace, data insights and financial services. Prior to Sabi’s spinout from Rensource Energy, Adasolum was the COO of Rensource. She joined Rensource after leading Jumia’s JForce program in Nigeria. Before Jumia, she worked as a consultant for KMPG, and in operations for the Dangote Group. She attended the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) in 2010 and has a BSc in Economics and Politics from SOAS University Of London.
Jess Anuna
Jess Anuna is the Founder & CEO of Klasha, a technology company building cross-border commerce solutions for Africa. Klasha is based in Lagos, Nigeria and San Francisco, USA and is backed by Techstars. Jessica, whose family is originally from Nigeria, grew up in London. Before Klasha, she had already worked for Net-A-Porter, Amazon, and started RestockChina, a product sourcing company exporting Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCGs) to the UK and US in 2015. Her background in e-commerce, fashion, and manufacturing came in handy with the launch of her online clothing store, which caters to women aged 18–28 in Nigeria, Ghana, Francophone countries, and additional emerging markets. While working full-time for Net-A-Porter and then Amazon, she started studying Mandarin Chinese. She studied Chinese language and culture for two years at Imperial College London and King’s College London before deciding to move to Shanghai to study at Jiao Tong University where she continued her Chinese language studies. She also holds a degree in Journalism from City University, London. Jessica has been featured in Forbes, WWD and BBC London News and has given keynote speeches at the United Nations Headquarters in Geneva and Nairobi and the African Union Commission in Addis Ababa. In 2019, Forbes Africa named Jessica 30 Under 30 and separately in 2019, named her a New Wealth Creator in Africa.
Yvonne Johnson
Yvonne Johnson is the MD and co-founder of Incidia, a challenger Credit Agency that uses advanced machine learning technology to build powerful decision-making tools that unearth unique customer financial data. Their tailor-made open banking platform Decide, leverages unique data points to build more inclusive profiles. Decide’s smart analytics allows them to look at the lender’s income, spending, sweep and cash flow pattern to deliver an array of extensive attributes for a complete story of the borrower’s financial status. Johnson has over a decade of leadership experience supporting executive management on strategy within Financial Services. Most recently, Yvonne led the Strategy team of a Tier 1 Nigerian banking group. She received her MBA at the Kellogg School of Management where she graduated on the Kellogg Dean’s List and was a recipient of the Donald P. Jacobs International Scholarship. At the Bank, Yvonne led the Strategy function for the Commercial Banking Group including its local and international subsidiaries. Notably, she led the efforts in defining a Digital Finance strategy for the Bank including the launch of its first-ever innovation hub. An Honors graduate of the University of Toronto, her previous work experience includes Merrill Lynch Investment Banking, Diamond Management & Technology Consultants as well as Community Lab in New York, where as Director of Process & Execution strategy, she worked directly with the CEO of this non-profit organization to define their overall implementation strategies and negotiate partnerships with local development agencies.
Fara Ashiru Jituboh
Fara Ashiru Jituboh is a software engineer and the co-founder and CEO/CTO of Okra Inc, a Nigerian-based fintech startup that allows for the exchange of real-time financial information between customers, applications, and banks. Jituboh’s inspiration for Okra came from her innate need to solve problems. Born in Nigeria, but raised in the United States, Jituboh desired to make a difference in her home country. While still in the U.S., she began using financial applications to manage her finances. When she returned to Nigeria, she realised that these applications did not work as they were not linked to Nigerian banks. This is when the idea for Okra was conceptualised. Jituboh co-founded Okra with David Peterside in 2019. However, the company launched in January 2020. Prior to founding Okra, Jituboh built and scaled products with organisations such as the design unicorn Canva, TechHustle, the health insurance company Sana Benefits, and the health-tech company Dorsata. In 2014, she co-founded and was the CTO of Shixels Studios which worked with financial companies such as AXA Mansard, Diamond Bank, Renmoney, telecommunications company Airtel, and more. Shixels Studios helps businesses create website designs and apps, in order to improve their web presence. Jituboh holds a BSc. in Computer Science from the North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University.
Ugwem Eneyo
Ugwem Eneyo is the Co-Founder & CEO at SHYFT Power Solutions (formerly known as Solstice Energy Solutions), an award-winning, venture-backed energy technology company that is pioneering the use of IoT, software and big data to improve access to clean, reliable and affordable energy solutions in markets that struggle with grid resiliency. As a former Stanford MS/PhD student in Civil & Environmental Engineering, Eneyo’s studies explored how we use tech to create ‘grids of the future’ but particularly in emerging markets. She’s given talks on the nexus of energy and sustainable development to global thought leaders, including the World Bank. Eneyo has travelled the world addressing energy and environmental challenges, which includes her previous work as a Risk Advisor for ExxonMobil supporting projects across Africa, South Asia, and the Americas. Her previous research also includes work in Tanzania alongside the Nelson Mandela Institute of Science and Technology, developing rural water systems. Eneyo also earned a BSc in Civil and Environmental Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
Honey Ogundeyi
Honey Ogundeyi is a tech entrepreneur and the Founder and CEO of Edukoya. She was also the Founder & CEO of Fashpa. Edukoya is a global education technology company that connects African learners with the world’s best teachers for real-time one-to-one learning. Edukoya’s mission is to allow every child to reach their full potential. Edukoya believes that education is not one-size-fits-all. Rather, all students are unique, and the world is within their reach when connected with great teachers capable of personalising learning and sparking curiosity. London-based, Edukoya has become a market-leading online education startup, attracting investment from Target Global and other leading angel investors. With a BSc in Public Policy and Management from the University of Birmingham, Ogundeyi launched Edukoya in 2021. Ogundeyi was an associate with UBA Group from 2004 to 2006. She later worked for companies including McKinsey & Company, where she worked in consulting in Brussels and Johannesburg. After her spell with McKinsey & Company, she worked with Ericsson as Head of Brand Management for Sub-Saharan Africa and then proceeded to Google as an Industry Manager. She also served as the founding CMO for digital bank Kuda.
Joanna Bichsel
Joanna Bichsel is the co-founder and CEO of Kasha, a digital retail platform optimised for women’s health and self-care reaching the mass market to the last mile. Founded in 2016 and currently operating in Rwanda & Kenya, Kasha is revolutionising the way that women in East Africa buy their health and personal care products. Bichsel was born in Poland, raised in Toronto Canada, has a Bachelor’s Degree in Computer Science and has worked on technology solutions around the world. Early in her career, she spent 11 years at Microsoft first as an engineer and later as a business leader. Prior to starting Kasha, Joanna was the Principal Technology Advisor for Global Development at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, working across East and West Africa and South Asia on technology strategies and solutions to optimise the supply chain of vaccines, family planning and other public health commodities, health services delivery, agriculture and financial services access to reach low-income individuals using fintech. Bichsel lives in Nairobi with her husband and two children.
Aisha Pandor
Aisha Pandor is the co-founder of SweepSouth, an online platform for booking, paying for and managing home services. SweepSouth was the first company on the African continent to offer this service and is a 500 Startups Batch 14 alum. Prior to founding SweepSouth, Pandor completed a PhD in Human Genetics at the University of Cape Town, and an Associate in Management from the UCT Graduate School of Business at the same time. Following her studies, she worked as a management consultant in the telecoms and mining industries with Accenture. SweepSouth is an advocate for financial and digital inclusivity and has connected tens of thousands of previously unemployed/underemployed home service providers to work opportunities across the African continent. Pandor is passionate about problem-solving and building and is also a part-time Venture Partner in E4E Africa, which funds high-growth, high-impact startups.
Jessica Boonstra
Jessica Boonstra is the Founder and CEO of Yebo Fresh, a multi-award-winning eCommerce platform, focusing on South Africa’s townships. Yebo Fresh started in a Hout Bay garage and has grown exponentially since its inception at the end of 2018, now serving over 25 townships in greater Cape Town and Gauteng. Yebo Fresh empowers entrepreneurs and community organisations with easier access to quality goods and services through smart technology. Boonstra previously worked at Alchemize Consulting as a Co-Founder and is the co-founder of the Buzzer Community Safety app, the fastest way to connect directly to your local control room as well as to professional and volunteer responders in your area in case of an incident or emergency. Buzzer applies crowdsourced safety to enable community members and professionals to work together to stay informed and to stay safe. Jessica Boonstra attended Universiteit Leiden where she got her BSc in Physics and Mathematics and the Delft University of Technology where she got her MSc in Engineering Technology, policy & management.
Tarneem Saeed
Tarneem Saeed is an industrialist and internet entrepreneur obsessed with African consumer markets. She is the founder and CEO at Alsoug. Saeed left Sudan for the first time when she was 14. Her father was a successful Sudanese businessman and her mother was a top professional in the humanitarian space. At the time, the Sudanese educational system was in shambles, so Saeed’s parents moved Saeed and her brother to Canada to continue their education. From Canada, Saeed proceeded to the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) where she studied law and served as the president of the Arabic Society. She worked as a corporate lawyer at Allen and Overy, a global law firm present in over 60 countries, for 4 years. In 2014, she took a sabbatical to visit Sudan to help a family friend put together a collection of coffee table books focused on Sudanese artists. Throughout 2015, she and her small team were building a broker platform where people could check the prices of goods and services. In 2016, alsoug was launched as a classified marketplace. Saeed earned an LLB from The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
Hasna Kourda
Hasna Kourda is an Economics and Corporate Strategy graduate from Dauphine Paris with a high level of interest in the luxury fashion industry. She is the CEO and co-founder of Save Your Wardrobe, a Fashion Tech startup that uses Artificial Intelligence to digitise wardrobes and streamline sustainable living. Save Your Wardrobe curates in the mobile app an ecosystem of services, Repairs, Second Hand Market, Rental, and more as a way to extend and up-cycle the life of garments. Kourda was born and raised in Tunisia with strong values of circularity and zero waste. After witnessing how people in the UK are disconnected from the clothes in their wardrobes and the resulting waste driven by such behaviour, Kourda came up with the idea of Save Your Wardrobe. Her passion for circular economy and fashion led her to co-found the company with Mehdi Doghri in 2017. Save Your Wardrobe is working towards the goal of extending the life cycle of fashion products. The virtual wardrobe recommendations are based on the user’s lifestyle, calendar, weather and post-purchase data. Furthermore, the platform offers a curated ecosystem of services (repairs, alteration, donations, selling, etc). Save Your Wardrobe has been in the Centre for Fashion Enterprise incubator, the Fashion For Good Plug and Play accelerator and the Farfetch startup programme, Dream Assembly. Kourda has a background in Economics and Corporate Strategy with a focus on ‘How to Optimise Finite Resources when creating Wealth’. Having studied Applied Economy at Paris Dauphine University, she was prompted to co-write the book L’essentiel d’un marché Tunisie regarding the Tunisian trading market, for the French Embassy in Tunisia.
