Odunayo Eweniyi Biography

Odunayo Eweniyi is a Nigerian business executive and activist. She is the Co-founder and Chief Operations Officer PiggyVest and co founder of Feminist Coalition.

Background


Odun is the first child of two professors. She hails from Oyo State, Nigeria.

Odunayo Eweniyi was born in Oyo, Nigeria. She is the first of four children. At school, she was the best of her generation in computational engineering. After finishing her studies, she met with two excompañeros of the university, and with them, she founded a platform of discount cards for business. The idea was not successful, and then they tried with PushCV, a website that helps job applicants to write their CV, a project that also failed. In 2016, they founded the company that would lead them to success: Piggybank.ng.

Education and career


She graduated from Covenant University in 2013 with a first-class degree in Computer Engineering. Odun started out to launch Push CV with Somto Ifezue and Joshua Chibueze after her graduation in 2013. Two years later, the trio went on to start PiggyVest in 2016.

Odun started out her career right out of university, like two weeks after she graduated from university. She joined her co-founders in their tech startup and then was working with them for about six months before they went on to launch Push CV together. And two years after they launched Push CV, they launched PiggyVest.

The 28-year-old Odunayo Eweniyi is the Co-founder & Chief Operations Officer of PiggyVest, the largest digital savings and investment platform in Nigeria.

She previously co-founded pushcv.com, one of the largest job sites in Africa with the largest database of pre-screened candidates. She has experience in Business Analysis and Operations. She’s an award-winning fintech entrepreneur who is working for diversity equity and inclusion in fintech and technology as a whole.

As the COO of Piggyvest, Odun oversees the company’s entire operation which cuts across Finance, Investment Management, People Operations, Investor relations, Fundraising, and related subcategories.

Odun is a board member at Village Capital, the most active supporter of impact-driven, seed-stage entrepreneurs in the world. She was featured on Bloomberg Business Weekly’s 2020 Bloomberg50 list, an annual list of innovators, entrepreneurs, and leaders who have changed the global business landscape over the past year.

She was named one of Forbes Africa 30 under 30 Technology in 2019 and one of 30 Quartz Africa Innovators 2019.

Awards


In 2018, Odun won the Future Awards Africa Prize in Technology. In 2019, she was on Forbes Africa 30 under 30 Technology list. She was named as one of 30 Quartz Africa Innovators for 2019.

She was on Forbes Africa's list of 20 New Wealth Creators in Africa 2019. She was nominated for The Future Awards Africa Prize for Young Person of The Year in 2020. Odun was also listed on Bloomberg 50 in 2020 and Time 100 in 2021 for her joint contributions during the End SARS protests of October 2020. In March 2022, Odun won the Forbes Woman Africa Technology and Innovation Award.

Odunayo Eweniyi
Odunayo Eweniyi and Joshua Chibueze

Odun also sits on the advisory board of TrainFuture, an Education Technology company based in Switzerland, as well as the Gender Lens Acceleration Best Practices Initiative, a collaborative effort of Village Capital, US and the International Finance Corporation (IFC)’s Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (WeFi). In 2019, she was named SME Entrepreneur of the Year West Africa by The Asian Banker’s Wealth and Society and she is the youngest Nigerian on Forbes Africa list of 20 New Wealth Creators in Africa 2019.

She was also one of the featured speakers at the World Bank-IMF Annual Meeting in 2019.

She is one of Business Day’s Spark 2019 Women to Watch and made the World Women in Fintech Power List for 2017; the YNaija Most Influential People in Technology 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020; she is a 2018 Westerwelle Young Entrepreneurs fellow; and she is a recipient of The Future Africa Awards Prize in Technology 2018.

In honor of her work, she was named one of 100 most inspiring women in Nigeria 2019 by Leading Ladies Africa, one of 50 most visible women in Tech by Tech Cabal in 2019. She is also included on the #YTech100 2019 list of the brightest Nigerian technocrats. She is the Her Network Technology Woman of The Year 2019. She was also voted The Most Influential Young Nigerian in Science and Technology 2019. In 2020, she was one of the Lord’s Achievers Awards Honorees, 2020 100 Most Influential Young Africans, one of OkayAfrica’s 100 Women 2020 as well as the ELOY Award for Technology 2020.

She works to support the inclusion of women in technology by working with hubs and female-focused networks like For Creative Girls, GreenHouse Labs, She Leads Africa, Itanna, etc. She is also the co-founder of the women’s community, Wine and Whine Nigeria.

Activism and ENDSARS


During the End SARS protests in 2020 against Nigerian police brutality, Eweniyi raised donations for medical care and legal support for victims of police brutality during and after the protests.

In 2020, Odun cofounded The Feminist Coalition, a group of young Nigerian feminists who work to promote equality for women in Nigerian society, with a core focus on education, financial freedom, and representation in public office.

In January 2021, Odunayo partnered with Eloho Oname to launch First Check, a platform of female business angels focused on supporting women led and women focused startups in Africa. 

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