Our People
David Ogundeko
Founder & CEO
A man of faith, recovering poet and a socially awkward entrepreneur. He's a theoretical maths and physics enthusiast who is very much happy hiding behind spreadsheets and data models. He spends his free time feeding his curiosity in binary stars, singularities and quantum phenomena.
Oche Bridgeford
Partner, Communications and Investor Relations
Multi-industry international professional with one foot in the United States and one in Africa. Founder. Adviser. Global TEDx Speaker. More than 18 years of professional experience spanning the tech, non-profit, sports & entertainment, government, and marketing & communications industries.
Mikhail Janowski
Partner, Technology, Blockchain and Crypto Assets
I've always been interested in how things work and this led me down a very technical career path. Starting off in software development I gained experience with a number of languages, frameworks and design patterns. I then moved on to focus more on DevOps and cloud infrastructure. This taught me the importance of automation and system architecture.
Tayo Akinyemi
Advisory Partner | Strategy and Global Operations
I have spent most of my career creating order from ambiguity, whether it's charting my own vocational journey, supporting an African entrepreneurial leadership center launch, building the first pan-African network of tech hubs, or decoding early stage investing in Africa. In other words, I like to help great people build great things, ideally by marrying vision (dream+strategy) with implementation (getting stuff done).
Bern Leuvennink
Advisory Partner, Investments and Expansion
Bern Leuvennink established a successful professional career in accounting, tax and advisory in both South Africa and the UK. In so doing, he developed a passion for global business growth and development as well cross-border commerce. Besides building a strong professional network across the world, his international experience and global footprint have nurtured an agile and independent mindset invaluable to his clients.
Dolapo Oni
Associate | Ventures
Dolapo Oni is the Venture Operations Lead at Funema Group LLC, where he works directly with the founders in ensuring they’re building sustainable and profitable companies. He leads the team charged with the responsibility of integrating our company building and growth frameworks into our portfolio companies.
Favour Odey
Analyst
As an Analyst, Favour works closely with both the Venture Operators and Team Leads, ensuring that the Venture Operators are well integrated into the various portfolio companies and duly carry out venture support. When working with the associates, she assists in the Investment Operations, Venture Operations, and Product Operations teams, jumping in when needed and offering solutions as best as possible.
Oluwatofunmi Idowu
Analyst
Oluwatofunmi manages Venture Operators in Funema, ensuring that they carry out their activities in the company with different teams and offering top notch portfolio support to the portfolio companies.
Namira Shabnam
Senior Venture Operator
Namira works with Funema’s portfolio companies in the Venture Ops team to ensure that all mission-driven goals are met while keeping informed on how she can best assist these companies in achieving their full potential; her duties in Product Ops and Investment Ops include conducting market research, assisting team leads in business development and assessing the potential for future investment opportunities for the firm.
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