For many, technology is a tool of convenience. For Ehi Ijewere, Senior Product Manager at Kora, it is a medium for transformation, particularly for a continent as complex and underserved as Africa.
Ijewere doesn’t trace his introduction to technology to one defining moment. There was no early coding experience or long-standing fascination with computers. Instead, his curiosity was sparked by something as ordinary as Google Maps.
At the time, it wasn’t just about navigation; it was the experience. The ability to share locations with friends in real time, track movement, coordinate meetups, and even call out who was truly “five minutes away” felt almost magical. But beyond the novelty, he wanted to know how this technology was built.
The backstory
Ijewere’s path didn’t initially point towards fintech. He studied logistics and management, and his early career reflected that training.
His first role was at a hyperlocal logistics startup, Ace, where he worked on one of Nigeria’s earliest structured delivery systems, helping power Chicken Republic’s original delivery service. At a time when delivery standards were almost inconsistent, the model introduced speed and structure standards.
But staying within defined roles was never the plan.
After Ace, he explored several entrepreneurial paths, experimenting with ride-hailing networks for package delivery, launching a local food delivery service, and even attempting to build a Patreon-like platform for African creators. While some of these ventures didn’t succeed, each one deepened his understanding of systems, markets, and user behaviour.
He later returned to structured roles at GIG Logistics, where he built and led the company’s eCommerce division.
His transition into product management happened at Kobo360, where he became the company’s first product manager and built its product team from scratch. By the time he left, he had fully transitioned into product leadership.
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That trajectory eventually led him to Kora, where he now serves as a Senior Product Manager, working on payment infrastructure across Africa and beyond.
What product leaders get right and wrong
Ijewere has a contrarian view on product management, especially in early-stage startups. For him, product managers are not essential at the beginning.
“In a zero-to-one stage, your product manager should be the CEO,” he explains.
He likens it to cooking.
“Making two packs of noodles is straightforward, but scaling to ten requires a different level of expertise. That’s how product management is, it comes in, not at inception, but at scale.”
As organisations grow, product managers help build structure, align direction, and prevent growth from becoming chaotic. But at the beginning, clarity of vision matters more than process.
At the core of Ijewere’s work as a product manager is the obsession with the problem. When people talk about building fintech products in Africa, the conversation often starts with solutions such as faster payments, better infrastructure, and seamless cross-border trade. But according to Ijewere, that’s already the wrong starting point.
“The problem isn’t that we don’t have solutions,” he says. “It’s that we don’t fully understand the problem.”
In his view, if 90% of the effort goes into understanding the problem, the solution becomes almost inevitable. That critical distinction sits at the heart of why building payment systems on the continent remains one of the most complex challenges in global fintech.
He sees fragmented systems, especially in commerce and payments, as one of the biggest barriers holding the continent back. For him, solving this isn’t just a technical challenge; it’s a pathway to unlocking Africa’s global economic potential.
Building payment systems for African realities
One of the hardest lessons Ijewere has learned in Kora’s expansion across Tanzania, Egypt, and South Africa is that Africa is not a monolith. According to him, the biggest mistake in fintech is assuming that one solution can work across multiple African markets. The reality is, it is a collection of deeply distinct systems.
Nigeria relies heavily on bank transfers, Kenya mostly built its ecosystem around mobile money, and Egypt leans more toward card payments. What’s important isn’t the method, but the intent: people want to move money quickly, reliably, and with confirmation. The execution, however, varies drastically.
Each system solves the same fundamental problem of moving money, but through entirely different infrastructures. This means localisation is non-negotiable when scaling products.
“You don’t build for Africa,” he says. “You build for that specific market first.”
Many companies fail at this stage, attempting to export solutions without fully understanding the context. The results are products that technically work, but fail in practice.
Only after gaining traction locally can solutions begin to cross-pollinate across borders. Every market differs: regulations, fraud profiles, user behaviour, infrastructure, and even language. What works in Nigeria might fail in South Africa or Côte d’Ivoire.
He recalls entering new markets and realising that even familiar concepts like bank transfers require entirely different frameworks, approvals, and naming conventions. This complexity makes scaling across Africa uniquely difficult, but also deeply important. Because beneath the fragmentation lies the issue of connection.
It’s tempting to assume that Africa’s fintech challenges are primarily technical. But Ijewere says the deeper issue is fragmentation.
If he could change one thing about Africa’s payment ecosystem, it would be regulation. Not its existence, but its posture.
He argues for a shift from protectionism to merit-based openness, where solutions are judged by their impact rather than their origin. In his view, enabling cross-border innovation through friendlier regulatory frameworks could transform Africa’s economic trajectory almost overnight.
Globally, conversations about fintech have moved toward credit, wealth creation, and financial empowerment. In Africa, the conversation is still more foundational. While other regions optimise advanced financial systems, much of Africa is still working to establish reliable payment rails, especially across borders.
Ijewere sees this not just as a challenge, but as an opportunity. If payment barriers can be reduced, even marginally, it unlocks trade, improves GDP, and strengthens economic ties across countries.
“It starts small,” he says, “but the impact compounds.”
Beyond the products
If he weren’t in product management, Ijewere says he would either be painting or still working in logistics. But even that alternative path would still follow his mission to improve how Africa moves, trades, and connects. Whether through trucks or technology, the goal remains removing friction from systems that should simply work.
For Ijewere, the ideal payment system is one you don’t have to think about. It simply works, no barriers, no complexity, and no friction.
Until Africa reaches that point, his work at Kora remains focused on turning a fragmented continent into a connected economic force.
