Starting his career as a designer in the dynamic and growing landscape of Africa’s tech industry, one individual has been a driver for transformative change through design.Oladele Aiknnusi’s career journey is a testament to his unwavering commitment to bridging the gap between people and technology through innovative product design.

Oladele Akinnusi did not start out to become a product designer. He is amongst the first few Nigerians to start his career in ecommerce, a field still in its infancy when he first ventured into it by joining Jumia Nigeria as the CRM and Design Operations manager.

Initially focused on creating designs to augment marketing efforts, a field with untapped potential when he first embarked on his career. His passion for creating effective designs that drive business growth sparked his relentless drive for innovation, and sets him apart as a prominent product design and growth professional in Nigeria.

Over the years, Oladele has solidified his reputation as a pioneer in digital product and growth design, with a suite of products and portfolio spanning various industries, including e-commerce, fintech, and food delivery. Being able to understand user needs and translate them into groundbreaking designs and product features has set him apart as in the African tech ecosystem.

In 2015, he launched a freelance design agency, Lusions Interactive Design Agency with the goal to help small scale businesses take advantage of the online audiences to reach their full potential through design. This is with the understanding that good design is not just about nice looking visuals, but it has a functional and strategic role in business growth. Lusions Interactive Design Agency has since transformed to become a Design-as-a-Service company, that partners with businesses to provide design strategy, consultancy and training services, with a view to driving growth through design.

Oladele’s approach is not just a focus on business growth, but mostly on user-first thinking to problem solving, enabling him to design product solutions that solve users’ needs. Extending beyond the individual project objective to impact user’s personal lives. Leading teams and projects across 15+ countries in Africa, Europe and the Middle East, Oladele has been able to go beyond just his corporate endeavors to actively nurturing the next generation of African product and growth designers. His commitment to mentorship and knowledge-sharing has inspired aspiring budding designers and tech professionals to pursue careers and succeed in tech design.

His innovative design of the JumiaPay app transformed it into a lifestyle application that enabled fast and secure payments for everyday services needs of users to include utility bills payments, loans and credit facilities, and insurance products. The design also opened up online payments to small businesses by offering payments as a service, enabling businesses receive online payments for their goods and services off the Jumia platform, without having to go through the technical hurdles of licencing and regulatory required by other payment providers.

What sets Oladele apart is his dedication to creating not just products, but building product experiences that live with users, which in turn drive user engagement, loyalty and business growth. He understands that good product design is the tool that drives technology, making it accessible to all, and his work reflects this ethos. Leading the design on the pioneer use of augmented reality for ecommerce shopping in Africa, his work on the project went beyond just selling products, but solved the exclusionary issues faced by millions of people with melanated skin within the beauty industry. The success of this project highlighted Oladele’s ability to seamlessly integrate product design thinking into business strategies as a tool for tangible growth.

Speaking passionately about his commitment to building user focused products and experiences to drive business growth, he said “We live in an increasingly technology driven world, but at the core of technological impact is design. My goal is to make technological advancements accessible to everyone by bridging the gap through user focused designs and products that puts solving the users needs first every time thereby creating impact at scale.”

With over 13 years of experience in product design and growth marketing, Oladele leads user experience and growth marketing for Jumia group, the first African tech startup to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. He plays a key role in leading the business ecosystem strategy, building products and creating unified experience for users and customers across the online marketplace, payments and food delivery verticals of the group’s services across 15 African countries.

He previously held the role of the regional head of performance marketing, where he successfully introduced gamified experience into online shopping, and developed strategies that informed the framework of Jumia groups brand partnership strategy.

Looking into the future of product design and the vital role it plays in making technology accessible, Oladele Akinnusi’s impact on the African tech landscape serves as an example of dedication, innovation, and a passion to build products and design experiences for user needs. In a continent filled with unequal access to technology, his work embodies the essence of empowerment and a foundational work for progress.