Dare Okoudjou

IWA Team

October 6, 2026

Dare Okoudjou 
Founder/CEO of Onafriq

Dare Okoudjou is the founder and CEO of Onafriq—formerly known as MFS Africa. Through its extensive digital payments network, Onafriq makes it easy for people and institutions to move money across the continent. The platform connects more than 500 million mobile wallets and over 200 million bank accounts across 40 African countries, linking everyday users to financial services with scale and speed.

On the ground, Onafriq also powers payment delivery through a huge agent presence in Nigeria, supported by more than 400,000 agents. In addition, the company is a major prepaid card processor, partnering with 80+ banks and running programmes across more than 30 countries. Whether for domestic payments or cross-border collections and disbursements, Onafriq leverages its “network of networks” approach to help reduce the friction of borders—working with global partners to make access truly seamless. Its innovation has been widely recognised, including being named by Fast Company as one of Africa’s Top 10 Most Innovative Companies.

Before founding Onafriq, Dare built deep expertise at MTN Group. There, he developed the company’s mobile payments strategy and led its rollout across 21 countries across Africa and the Middle East. He began his career in management consulting at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Paris.

Dare has also received major support and recognition from the entrepreneurship ecosystem. He was named one of the Endeavor Entrepreneurs of the Endeavor Network, and selected as one of 13 African founders for the inaugural Foundry Fellowship at MIT. In this fellowship, he will help catalyze the next generation of innovation-driven entrepreneurs across Africa.

A native of Benin, Dare is based in Johannesburg, South Africa. He holds an MSc in Telecom Engineering from ENST-Paris and an MBA from INSEAD.