Endeavor Founder Stories | Episode 3: Dare Okoudjou, Founder & CEO of Onafriq

The Origin: Purpose Over Aid

Dare Okoudjou was born in Benin and learned the fundamentals of commerce early on. He credits his mother, a nurse, who always ran side businesses selling yogurts and drinks. This taught him the basics of business: “input, operation, output, profit, margins.”

After receiving his engineering degree and spending five years as a consultant at PwC in the telecom and media practice, he was searching for greater impact. A conversation with a mentor who challenged his ambition and a brief stint volunteering in a refugee camp in Tanzania became defining moments.

He quickly realized the limitations of the aid cycle: “I also understood this is not for me, not because… I just realized how little impact they were indeed… there was just a cycle of help of aid.” This crystallized his belief that sustainable change would come from market-driven solutions, not charity.

The MTN Foundation: Doing Good and Doing Well

Dare used an MBA from INSEAD as a bridge to return to Africa. He joined MTN, inspired by the concept from C.K. Prahalad that you don’t have to choose between doing good and doing well.

“You don’t have to choose between doing good and doing well. Like you can build businesses that can actually generate wealth but they can also transform, impact society.”

He was entrusted with building what is now known as MTN Mobile Money, a two-and-a-half-year project that gave him a front-row seat to the mobile revolution. This experience was the technical and philosophical foundation for his next, bigger idea.

The Leap to Onafriq

By late 2008, Dare recognized two things: the corporate structure of a maturing MTN was limiting his pace, and the opportunity for truly cross-border payment solutions was massive.

“The large opportunity I saw on one side and the growing frustration I was feeling from just the natural structure that the company was putting in place led me to say, ‘Okay, let me let me go and and try this.'”

He left in 2009 and, by January 2010, was writing the code for what became Onafriq (formerly MFS Africa). His goal was personal: to make the two constants of a migrant’s life—calling home and sending money home—as easy as possible.

Competitive Advantage: Margins and Vision

Okoudjou is unapologetic about the importance of profit for a purpose-driven company. He believes that the more profit a company makes, the more choice and more levers it has to effect positive change.

He offers a crucial test for any entrepreneur:

“Competitive advantage shows up in margins. So don’t tell me we are so good at this thing yet we have to price like everybody else.”

This relentless pursuit of excellence and the clarity of their mission—building enduring infrastructure—is what carried the company through the difficult times, including the “fintech winter.” Dare shares how he had to tell his team they wouldn’t pay bonuses, yet “nobody walked out.” They stayed because they believed that “the future we want to do is possible” and they were close to achieving it. This shared, contagious vision is his most powerful leadership tool