Shola Akinlade

Shola Akinlade is a Nigerian software engineer and entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and CEO of Paystack,[1][2] the company that was acquired by Stripe in 2020 for $200m.[3]


Education

Akinlade attended St. Gregory's College for his secondary education. In 2006, he graduated with a degree in Computer Science from Babcock University, Nigeria.[4] Shola's career started at Heineken where he worked on their database management as a management trainee and moved on to being a software engineer with banks.[2] In 2016, Akinlade and Ezra Olubi started Paystack.[1][5]

Companies

Akinlade's company Paystack was a part of startup accelerator YCombinator's 2016 batch of startups. The company was created to help businesses in Africa get paid online and offline.[6]

In 2022, Akinlade founded a football club, Sporting Lagos F.C. which he notes is a platform for community development and social change.[7] In March, 2023, Akinlade further expanded his sports business by acquiring a 55% stake in the Danish 2nd division football club Aarhus Fremad. The plan is for Aarhus Fremad to support the professionalisation of Sporting Lagos F.C., relying on Sporting Lagos F.C. as a talent academy in return.[8]

National honours

In October 2022, Akinlade was conferred with the Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON) by President Muhammadu Buhari of Nigeria in recognition of his contributions to the advancement of technology in finance and business.[9]

References
  1. "Nigeria: "The hard work is still in front of us" - Paystack CEO". The Africa Report.com. 2020-10-23. Retrieved 2021-06-14.
  2. Can more entrepreneurs shake up fintech in Nigeria? - CNN Video, retrieved 2021-06-14
  3. "Stripe acquires Nigeria's Paystack for $200M+ to expand into the African continent". TechCrunch. Retrieved 2022-01-29.
  4. "Meet Sola Akinlade, co-founder of Nigeria's foremost payment platform Paystack". Nairametrics. 2018-09-08. Retrieved 2021-06-14.
  5. Nsehe, Mfonobong. "Nigerian Fintech Startup Paystack Raises $1.3 Million". Forbes. Retrieved 2021-06-14.
  6. Combinator, Y. "Helping African Businesses Get Paid, Shola Akinlade of Paystack". Y Combinator. Retrieved 2022-01-29.
  7. Christiansen, Dennis Bjerre (2023-03-28). "Aarhus Fremad får ny ejer: IT-milliardær fra Nigeria køber sig ind i klubben". Århus Stiftstidende (in Danish). Retrieved 2023-08-02.
  8. Salaudeen, Aisha (2022-04-20). "From fintech to football: With Sporting Lagos, Paystack's Shola Akinlade hopes to change the game in Nigeria". CNN. Retrieved 2022-10-16.
  9. Editorial Staff (2022-02-23). "Shola Akinlade: Biography, Paystack, family, facts & more". MakeMoney.ng. Retrieved 2022-10-12.
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