Adeshina Adewumi

Scaling Up the Future of Africa

The pandemic brought an unfamiliar situaon to the fore. People had to stay at home and could venture out in only dire circumstances. This meant anything and everything had to be ordered online. Small businesses and mom & pop stores had to grapple with online orders and home deliveries, something which they hadn't had to deal with before. Raising enough capital to scale and meet the rising demand became an issue.

However, Adeshina Adewumi came up with a soluon to scale and meet the challenge with fiscal reliability. He founded Trade Lenda to provide digital financial services for MSMEs, supporng their growth and enabling access to market and finance across emerging markets.

Adeshina is a seasoned entrepreneur who understands that capacity development must meet a funding gap that exists in Africa. He has served as a Partner with Apve Capital, a US-based $ 1 million porolio Fund Company commied to supporng entrepreneurs in capacity development and funding across Africa, with seven porolio companies receiving funding between 2020 and 2021.

Adeshina is commied to driving posive change, promong sustainable development goals, and capacity development through various programs in Nigeria, Africa, and the Globe. He is a member of the Nigerian Instute of Management , the Instute of Management Consultants , and several other associaons.

He acvely volunteers to facilitate courses on innovaon and creavity for fresh graduates in partnership with the Knowledge Exchange Center ; a Nigerian non-profit focused on bridging the knowledge gap of fresh graduates and creang job opportunies for all. He is also a mentor with the Tony Elumelu Foundaon , where he supports various emerging entrepreneurs across Africa.

Adeshina Adewumi in an exclusive interview with CIOLook, shares his dedicaon to make Africa a leader on the global stage.

Below are the highlights:

Brief our audience about your journey as a business leader unl your current posion at Trade Lenda. What challenges have you had to overcome to reach where you are today?

Before venturing into Entrepreneurship, I had the opportunity to work in academia; then, I moved on to work with Stanbic IBTC Group within the Wealth Management and Bank subsidiaries. I previously founded One Kiosk in 2019 to support Micro, Small, and Medium Scale enterprises to achieve scale online. In 2020, we observed a soaring increase in the adopon of e-commerce channels among users due to the pandemic.

Supporng over 14,000 MSMEs at the me and seeing the gross merchandise value (GMV) growing from just less than $100,000 monthly to over $1 million showed the real potenal of basic essenals commodies and goods via ecommerce.

However, with the growth in customers' orders, MSMEs struggled to meet the corresponding growth. Could this be that MSMEs do not want to grow as fast as opportunies are available to them? A closer look and engagement led to the realizaon that most businesses were unable to access credit to grow even when they showed the capacity or had invoices to make some supplies that could increase their revenue potenal.

By 2021, we decided to put all our learnings together. We formed a team with experience cung across the Supply value chain, Retail, Credit, and Technology to make a difference, and we have never looked back since then.

Digital lending space for MSMEs is driving financial inclusion and delivering soluons to real problems faced by many businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa. We provide mely and affordable credit for MSMEs in emerging markets to avoid missed opportunies.

Tell us something more about Trade Lenda and its mission and vision.

Our vision is to become Africa's No1 Digital Financial service soluon for Commerce and Trade, supporng MSMEs' access to mely credit and other financial services to grow and create jobs across emerging markets.

Our mission is to develop fast, efficient, and inclusive soluons capable of driving financial inclusion for MSMEs across emerging markets and posion us as role models and market leaders within the first five years of operaons while building with the utmost professional and ethical standards and building an enduring instuon.

Enlighten us on how you have impacted the Financial Services Industry through your experse in the market.

Digital lending space for MSMEs is driving financial inclusion and delivering soluons to real problems faced by many businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa. My team brings our wealth of experience spanning over two decades across technology and the financial service space to provide mely and affordable credit for MSMEs in emerging markets to avoid missed opportunies.

Describe in detail the values and the work culture that drives Trade Lenda.

At Trade Lenda, we have built a culture of family, loyalty, service, and excellence. This encourages everyone to feel valued and appreciated. It drives innovaon, outstanding efforts, and service to our customers and all stakeholders.

I am a strong believer in leadership by example, and as such, I maintain an open-door policy which allows members of the team to queson any area which they feel needs to be changed to get posive results for the team. Every member is empowered to produce results.

Undeniably, technology is playing a significant role in almost every sector. How are you leveraging technological advancements to make your soluons resourceful?

We are a Fintech, so already fully digital and do not operate tradionally. We have built a proprietary credit framework while leveraging exisng infrastructures and partners for underwring our users.

What, according to you, could be the next significant change in the Financial Services Industry? How is Trade Lenda preparing to be a part of that change?

Trade Lenda is well-posioned for the next phase of financial services. Every sector today needs financial services in what we call embedded finance.

For us at Trade Lenda, we see this, and this is in line with our long-term goals to be that plugin to help various partners that we currently support and various manufacturers and commodity players offer credit to their customers using our API call.

Where do you envision yourself to be in the long run, and what are your future goals for Trade Lenda?

We are developing ourselves as the Digital Bank for MSMEs across emerging markets while providing credit for the underserved across various markets (developed and emerging).

What would be your advice to budding entrepreneurs who aspire to venture into the Financial Services Industry?

The financial service industry is robust and unique. Pay aenon to details, cyber security, and regulatory frameworks. Build and scale quickly.