Strategist · Author · Public Intellectual

A life’s work in ideas, leadership and inclusion.

Olu Akanmu has spent decades leading and transforming businesses across pharmaceuticals, telecommunications, banking and fintech in Africa — and thinking deeply, in public, about strategy, purpose and the common good.

“True mastery is knowing the why behind the how.”

His Story Explore the Ideas

Who He Is

Business for the common good

Olu Akanmu is one of Africa’s most distinctive business leaders. A pharmacist by training, he became the chief architect of MTN Nigeria’s consumer marketing strategy, led commercial strategy at Airtel Nigeria, and spent more than a decade shaping retail banking at Bank PHB and FCMB. As President and Co-CEO of OPay Nigeria, he steered the platform to unicorn valuation and thirty million users.

Today, as Academic Director of the Tech-Leap Initiative at Lagos Business School, he is shaping the next generation of African leaders — carrying forward a conviction that has defined his career: that profits and purpose belong together.

Industries led at C‑level

30M

Users reached at OPay

$1.5B

Yearly revenue led at Airtel

10M+

Subscribers in MTN Nigeria’s first five years

From the Platform

Ideas in Conversation

All Videos

Leadership · Part 1

Leading People: 22 Lessons

The first instalment of reflections on leading people, drawn from a multi-industry executive career.

Leadership · Part 2

Leading People: 22 Lessons, Continued

The concluding lessons on people, performance and the atmosphere leaders create.

Commercial Strategy

9 Strategies on Navigating the Global Marketplace

Strategy lessons for tech and traditional companies competing in the global market.

Health Systems

Scaling Health Solutions for Systems Impact

Ten lessons from financial inclusion, applied to scaling health solutions.

“The mission should extend beyond the banked and the underserved, to the completely excluded.” — Olu Akanmu, on the future of financial inclusion

The Podcast

Olu’s Files

A podcast distilling a multi-industry C-suite career into lessons on strategy, marketing, management, leadership and public policy — from Blue Ocean strategy in payments to forty stoic reflections on leadership.

Browse Episodes

Featured Talk

The Future of Financial Inclusion — TEDxLagos

Watch on YouTube →

Publications

Thrive: Mastering E-commerce the African Way

Co-edited with Uchenna Uzo and Elo Umeh, and published by Pan-Atlantic University Press, Thrive grew out of the Lagos Business School Africa Retail Academy’s inaugural E-commerce and Payment Forum. Across 394 pages, it equips entrepreneurs, executives and policymakers to navigate the intersection of e-commerce, payments and logistics in Africa.

Get the Book More Publications

Speaking

A much sought-after voice at business events

From TEDxLagos to the IFC Digital Financial Services Knowledge Exchange, Olu Akanmu speaks on strategy, innovation in traditional firms, financial inclusion and purpose-driven leadership.

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