Born on a Wednesday.
February 26, 1992, Lagos. A middle child: small, quick, creative, and already everywhere at once.
About
The long way here, detours included.
Touch a year to preview it. Click to jump to the story.
Who — the short version
I have built products in payments, banking, and agriculture. The industries changed; my way of working did not. I stay with an idea until I understand it, then keep working until other people find it useful. Twice, that became a company of my own. I'm between ventures now, but I'm not finished with them.
Work is not the whole story. I play a lot of tennis, badly, often, and happily. I write for minds that think in spirals. I read more philosophy than is strictly useful, make a little art, and will still debate almost anything to the ground. I came up as a debater and never quite stopped. The tidy version is on the CV. This page is the rest.
Started school at four.
Left primary school with two titles: neatest boy and health prefect. One of them still holds.
Nine years old, sent to boarding school.
Federal Government College, Oyo State: three years as the smallest boy in a rural school, bullied for speaking English and for being scattered. Bright, creative, drifting in and out of class. The scatter wouldn't get its name for decades.
Two more schools before the finish line.
A year at Livingstone Model College, then Lagos State Model College Igbonla. Wanted to draw buildings for a living; landed in arts class studying to be a lawyer. Graduated at fifteen.
University of Lagos, round one.
Applied for Law at sixteen, got Political Science. Spent more of it as Rhymesmith, trading bars in campus rap battles with guys who became household names. The degree didn't happen; the stage presence stayed.
Punch at parties, a voice on air.
Mixed and sold party punch to stay afloat, met Tosin and Nas, friends to this day, and talked my way onto radio for the first time.
Radio, properly.
Trained at the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria; an internship at Eko FM became a full-time presenter's seat, and a sports show ended up syndicated on Rhythm FM. Six years of learning to hold a room with nothing but a voice.
Youngest project manager in the building.
Three years at West Midland Communications, setting up computer-based testing centres for the national university entrance exam. First taste of shipping something real at scale.
Back to UNILAG, this time for my mother.
Mass Communication, done right: class governor, departmental and faculty debate champion, university debate team. People had written me off; she never did.
Jumia, where product found me.
Joined customer experience at what became Africa's biggest e-commerce company, moved to the product experience team, and left in 2017 to finish the degree. The love for product never left.
Graduated into a recession with a Mass Communication degree.
University of Lagos, top 3% of the class. That training still helps me explain a product decision and defend it in a room.
Became someone's first-ever product hire.
No playbook, three mobile apps, and 29 Nigerian states I actually travelled to so I'd know who I was building for.
Founding consultant at Agramondis.
Seconded from Farm Crowdy to build a sister company's presence from nothing — brand, website, research papers. Turns out the writing habit was a career skill.
MasterCard Foundation Scholar.
A post-grad in Technology, Design & Entrepreneurship. It gave a formal name to work I had already been doing.
Joined Paystack, learned how money actually moves.
A Stripe company. Took a payment idea from a single line to tens of millions in volume, and learned that I enjoy the operational detail behind a payment that actually clears.
Married her — on our shared birthday.
We met at Farm Crowdy in 2019; she sat one seat and one level away. Born the same day, February 26, 1992 — we turned thirty and got married on the same morning.
A friend put a racquet in my hand.
Abby from Paystack introduced us to tennis. My wife and I have been chasing a clean backhand together ever since.
Ran corporate banking across two continents and five PMs.
Nigeria, the UK, and a lot of 6am calls. Grew the team; one mentee ended up running a whole division.
Moved to Toronto. Marqeta. Still here.
Landed in Calgary in March, Toronto by November. Lead PM on a card-issuing platform that moves billions. I kept building prototypes myself because that is still how I understand a product.
Toronto. Married. Still chasing a clean backhand.
Writing essays for minds that think in spirals, making a little art, and losing to better players on weekends.