The 2024 Champion of Change EMEA winner is Ifeoma Uddoh, a speaker, gender coach, exit entrepreneur and the founder/CEO of Shecluded, a Nigerian digital financial inclusion company focused on women.
A new category for this year, the Champion of Change award is given to individuals who demonstrate a real commitment to challenging the status quo and making workplaces more equitable and inclusive. The judges felt that Ifeoma’s track record of championing inclusion, and her clear commitment to empowering women and building a community of female entrepreneurs, made her a standout candidate for this year’s award.
Unlocking a better life for women
Ifeoma has over 20 years’ experience of working in emerging markets across strategy consulting, operations, product development and financial inclusion. Her passion around creating equitable access to unlock a better life for women has seen her featured on the national and international stage, including NASDAQ Billboard, W20 Summit (a G20 focus group for women-led initiatives), Fintech Asia and others.
Ifeoma also has an impressive career history, spanning strategy consulting, angel investing, and three technology startups which have raised over US$10m. After achieving a BSc in Industrial Mathematics, and a MSc in Science and Operation Research from Lancaster University, Ifeoma worked as a market researcher for the biggest conglomerate in West Africa. Subsequently she became a strategy consultant for PwC, with a focus on leading and executing performance improvement.
With a growing interest in pioneering companies, Ifeoma joined iROKO Partners, an African movie streaming platform, in a role that included establishing KPIs to track growth and harnessing web analytics to optimise operations. In 2012, she became a country director for Slimtrader Inc, a US-based hospitality technology startup focusing on building technology for travel and hotels, raising US$1.5m in seed capital and leading the set-up for the Nigerian company.
Subsequently, Ifeoma became Chief Operations Officer for Sasware in Nigeria, a technology incubator brand that invests, incubates and provides thought leadership support for tech startups in the Nigeria ecosystem.
Female-focused fintech
In 2019, Ifeoma founded Shecluded, a female-focused finance company with clients in Nigeria, Uganda and South Africa. As one of the first fintech companies specifically designed for women in Africa, Shecluded is one of the top credit partners for women entrepreneurs, disbursing close to one billion naira to women entrepreneurs yearly.
Ifeoma’s mission – to unlock economic prosperity for 1,000,000 African women – has already made a difference to over 40,000 women. As Amarachi, the founder of Reverb, commented: “Shecluded Hub’s loan transformed my financial journey completely. Their flexible terms, low rates and supportive team made reaching my goals a reality.”
Shecluded was listed on the Top 50 Google black founders in Africa in 2021, and was a select USA finalist in 2022 by the US Trade and Investment Department. The company has worked with several international development agencies that are interested in economic prosperity for women.
Through Shecluded, Ifeoma has worked with public and private organisations to amplify women’s economical representation and contributions. Of particular note is her work to develop a gender-lens algorithm to assess the creditworthiness of female entrepreneurs.
Shecluded has created a co-working space to support its community of over 22,000 women entrepreneurs, as well as initiating and deploying an accelerator programme for women with the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) in Nigeria. The company has also deployed over €1m on a youth unemployment campaign with the Netherland development agency (CFYE) to create self-employment for 3,600 young women through skill acquisition, access to debt capital, business incubator programmes and accelerator programmes.
In her role at Shecluded, Ifeoma continues to inspire those around her. As Executive Assistant Glory comments, “Her transformative leadership style has completely changed the way I operate, and I couldn’t be more grateful to be a part of her team…. [She] creates an atmosphere where I feel supported and encouraged to take risks and grow.”
Empowering women
Looking to the future, Ifeoma plans to expand Shecluded’s activities into other continents. By challenging the status quo in the fintech space, she aims to continue opening up access to financial services, while also empowering women to take control of their economic futures.
“Shecluded is experiencing an overwhelming demand for its services, underscoring the pressing need for tailored support in building scalable and sustainable women-led businesses,” says Ifeoma. “The enthusiasm from our target audience surpasses our current capacity, highlighting the widespread demand for hands-on guidance.” She notes that the company is actively seeking partnerships and collaborations to extend its reach and provide economic mobility to hundreds of thousands of women.
“By joining forces with like-minded organisations and individuals, we aim to amplify our impact, bridging the gap for women entrepreneurs and fostering a transformative wave of economic empowerment,” she concludes. “Together, we can create lasting change and unlock the full potential of women in business.”
