Odunayo Eweniyi is Co-founder and COO of Piggyvest (formerly called Piggybank.ng). On the change of name, she says “Our new identity is more than just a name change. We believe that it captures the essence of our direction as a business and our focus on the needs of our customers. Our new name is symbolic of this direction and it provides a glimpse into the exciting things the future has in store for us and our customers.”
Odunayo previously cofounded pushcv.com, one of the largest job sites in Africa with the largest database of prescreened candidates. She has 5 years’ experience in Business Analysis and Operations and is a graduate (first class) of Computer Engineering, Covenant University, Nigeria.
Odunayo Eweniyi was born in Oyo, Nigeria. She is the first of four children. At school, she was the best of her generation in computational engineering. After finishing her studies, she met with two excompañeros of the university, and with them, she founded a platform of discount cards for business. The idea was not successful, and then they tried with Pushcv, a website that helps job applicants to write their CV, a project that also failed. In 2016, they founded the company that would lead them to success: Piggybank.ng.
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The idea of Piggybank came to Odunayo Eweniyi after meeting a lady who saved what she had for a year every day, and when she opened her piggy bank, she discovered that she had only saved $97,000.
Piggybank. ng started operations in April 2016 with the recommendations of Pushcv users and began to grow thanks to word of mouth. Eweniyi focused the platform on millennials who wish to save periodically with one goal in mind, savers can deposit from one dollar per day and set a date to withdraw the money.
In just six months after its launch, Piggybank helped save its users $58,000. After more than three years, this sum grew to $58 million.
Piggybank recently acquired a stake in Nigeria’s Gold Microfinance Bank, which will allow it to expand its services. Eweniyi also intends to launch a group savings feature on the platform. She was part of the 2017 World Women in Fintech Power list and the Naija Most Influential People in Technology list in 2017 and 2018. In 2019 she was named as one of the New Wealth Creators of Africa by Forbes.
She was also named one of Forbes Africa’s 30 under 30 in Technology in 2019 and one of 30 Quartz Africa Innovators 2019. She sits on the advisory board of Trainfuture, an Education Technology company based in Switzerland, as well as the Gender Lens Acceleration Best Practices Initiative, a collaborative effort of Village Capital, US and the International Finance Corporation ( IFC)’S Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative (Wefi).
In 2019, she was named SME Entrepreneur of the Year West Africa by The Asian Banker’s Wealth and Society and she is the youngest Nigerian on Forbes Africa list of 20 New Wealth Creators in Africa 2019. She made the World Women in Fintech Power List for 2017; the Ynaija Most Influential People in Technology 2017 and 2018; she is a 2018 Westerwelle Young Entrepreneurs fellow; and she is a recipient of The Future Africa Awards Prize in Technology 2018.
In honor of her work, she was named one of 100 most inspiring women in Nigeria 2019 by Leading Ladies Africa, one of 50 most visible women in Tech by Tech Cabal in 2019. She works to support the inclusion of women in technology by working with hubs and female-focused networks, including For Creative Girls, Greenhouse Labs, She Leads Africa, Itanna. She is also the cofounder of the women’s community, Wine and Whine Nigeria.
