Fintech Founder Ayodele Ognin Aims to Train 10,000 in Benin by 2030

By 2030, Wurami founder Ayodele Ognin wants her WIN Academy to have trained 10,000 women and young people in digital skills. She launched the academy in 2021, two years after joining the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme as a 2019 TEF Entrepreneur, and the target is now the benchmark for everything her Benin-based fintech social enterprise does.

The numbers behind the venture stack up quickly. In 2020, the African Development Bank's Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa initiative ranked Wurami among the 50 best African companies owned by female entrepreneurs. Wurami has also partnered with the Government of Benin to train 1,000 business owners in financial literacy and digital marketing. Separately, its DigiBoost digital marketing programme won European Union funding, supporting expansion and the opening of an office in France.

That's a long way from where Ognin started.

Why did Ayodele Ognin found Wurami?

Ognin grew up watching her mother run a business with limited access to capital and support. Accessing the money needed to grow, she saw firsthand, was often difficult even for a determined owner. As a girl, she launched small ventures with her brother, learning what she calls the value of initiative, resourcefulness and perseverance.

She carried that lesson into 2019, when she founded Wurami in Benin. The fintech social enterprise targets women-led businesses in low-income communities across three sectors:

• agribusiness
• renewable energy
• tourism

Wurami's model goes beyond financing. The company trains female entrepreneurs in financial literacy, business management and digital skills, betting that digital capability — managing money, reaching customers online, entering new markets — increasingly decides which businesses survive.

The takeaway: Wurami treats digital literacy as core infrastructure, not an add-on.

What is the Women Impact Network?

Training alone wasn't enough. Ognin also created the Women Impact Network (WIN), a platform where women entrepreneurs learn, collaborate and support one another. Through WIN, women-led micro, small and medium enterprises access learning opportunities, professional development resources and networks that strengthen both their businesses and their leadership capacity.

The rationale is blunt. Entrepreneurship can be isolating for women navigating cultural, economic and structural barriers. Ognin herself, as a woman entrepreneur, encountered significant obstacles while seeking business support, including inappropriate propositions and barriers that made access to markets and visibility harder.

For Ognin, empowering women is not simply a social goal — it is, in her words, an economic imperative. When women succeed, families become more resilient, communities prosper and economies grow stronger.

How did the Tony Elumelu Foundation help?

Ognin discovered the TEF Entrepreneurship Programme online. Seed capital attracted her, but what stood out most was the programme's focus on training, mentorship and a Pan-African network of business leaders.

The experience proved transformative. Beyond the financial support, the programme connected her to fellow entrepreneurs across the continent facing similar challenges. That sense of community became the template for WIN and, later, WIN Academy, whose structured programmes teach practical skills for navigating business challenges, improving employability and building sustainable enterprises, with a deliberate focus on women and youth.

What comes next?

Ognin is expanding both Wurami and the Women Impact Network, positioning them to reach more women as digital technologies transform African economies. Her vision, as she frames it, extends beyond individual businesses: an ecosystem where women connect, learn, lead and create sustainable prosperity — because when one woman is empowered, the impact reaches families, communities and entire economies.