Nigeria : Solape Akinpelu, a tech entrepreneur promoting African women’s financial inclusion

Solape Akinpelu, a tech entrepreneur from Nigeria and a gender-finance expert, is committed to fostering the financial inclusion of African women through her company, HerVest. Founded in 2020, the fintech counts over 100 000 members to date.

After starting her career in marketing and corporate communications, Solape Akinpelu combined her expertise in technology and finance to promote women’s financial inclusion in Africa.

In 2020, she co-founded HerVest. « The inclusive fintech provides easy access to target savings, impact investments and credit financing to smallholder women farmers and women-owned/led SMEs in Nigeria to scale their businesses and achieve their financial goals», the company’s website states. By promoting women’s financial inclusion, the fintech aims to improve their lives by leveraging technology for peer-to-peer capital reallocation. To date, more than 100,000 women are members of this fintech.

With a degree in Mass Communication/Media Studies from the University of Lagos, Solape Akinpelu worked at Meristem Nigeria, a Nigerian capital markets conglomerate, as Head of Marketing and Corporate Communications from 2018 to 2020. Since 2022, she has been global co-chair of marketing for the global Women in Tech movement and country director for Nigeria. She is also chair of technology at the Nigerian-British Chamber of Commerce, where she promotes trade and technology investment between Nigeria and Britain.

She is also a member of the President’s High-Level Advisory Committee on Women and Girls’ Economic Empowerment and sits on the CBN’s Gender Equality Committee on the Framework for Advancing Women’s Financial Inclusion.

She is the author of the book “Stripped: An African Woman’s Guide to Building Generational Wealth”.

In 2024, she won the Women in Tech Award at the Art of Technology Lagos event. In 2025, she won the Aurora Tech Award organized by InDrive.