Every product starts as a promise—an answer to a problem, a spark of possibility. But between idea and impact lies a brutal proving ground. It’s not just about code or design. It’s about timing. About relevance. About whether real people in real places will care enough to use it, and pay for it.
Too many startups chase trends, rush to ship features, or force-fit global blueprints into local puzzles. The result? Slick launches with zero stickiness. The graveyard of “almosts” is full of products that never made it past beta, not because they lacked talent but because they skipped the trenches of true validation.
Building something that actually works for actual humans—not in theory, but in messy, lived reality—that’s the real magic. Few can pull it off. Even fewer make it look easy.
Lola Eniolorunda does just that. She doesn’t just build ventures—she builds resonance. With a mind wired for both systems and soul, she approaches each new opportunity not as a blueprint to deploy but as a conversation to begin.
Playbook for Market-Ready Growth
Lola, a seasoned venture builder at Exequi, has established a remarkable track record of creating and scaling rapid-growth technology companies across both North America and Africa. Her approach to market expansion is rooted not in simply replicating proven models, but in adopting a deeply localized and culturally intelligent strategy.
According to Lola, successful expansion hinges on three core principles:
- Localized Product-Market Fit: She emphasizes that what works in one region doesn’t necessarily translate to another. Lola prioritizes early, on-the-ground validation by co-creating with local stakeholders. Her teams adapt not only language, but also user behavior, UX expectations, pricing models, and go-to-market strategies to suit the unique dynamics of each target market.
- Ecosystem-Driven Entry: Lola believes in entering new markets with humility and respect. Whether through collaboration with regulatory bodies, strategic partnerships with local corporations, or engaging with startup accelerators, she integrates her ventures into local innovation ecosystems to build trust and accelerate traction.
- Agile, Data-Led Expansion: Her expansion methodology is underpinned by a data-driven approach. Rather than overcommitting early, Lola advocates for starting lean, iterating quickly, and scaling only when there are clear signs of traction. This approach enables her to validate assumptions, reduce risk, and focus resources where they matter most.
These strategies have been instrumental in scaling ventures like Exequi and VG Platform across borders—often with fewer resources than competitors, but with far greater market resonance and long-term sustainability.
Reengineered B2B Transactions in Africa’s Digital Economy
Lola’s leadership at VG Platform exemplifies the powerful intersection of innovation, operational excellence, and continuous improvement. One standout example from her career involves tackling a persistent issue in Africa’s digital economy: the inefficiency and unreliability of cross-border B2B payments.
Early research conducted by Lola and her team revealed that users frequently encountered delays, high failure rates, and unclear fee structures. Determined to solve this, Lola approached the challenge with a cross-functional strategy that blended technological innovation with operational discipline.
First, she led efforts to automate and redesign internal processes, successfully eliminating compliance bottlenecks that had previously required manual intervention. Next, under her direction, VG Platform integrated with real-time settlement APIs. Finally, Lola embedded lean improvement cycles across every department—from engineering to operations and customer success—ensuring feedback was rapidly collected and acted upon in near real-time.
The outcome was transformative. VG Platform achieved a 60% reduction in operational and marketing costs compared to its competitors. But for Lola, the true success wasn’t just in the numbers—it was in the culture shift the initiative sparked. Innovation, in her view, only delivers sustained value when paired with structure, accountability, and relentless iteration.
Blueprint for Culturally Relevant Market Entry
Lola brings a deeply contextual and diagnostic approach to launching new ventures, shaped by her experience operating across a variety of business cases and geographies. She firmly believes that market entry strategies should never follow a one-size-fits-all model. Instead, her first step is always a comprehensive diagnostic, diving into the region’s structural realities—ranging from infrastructure and digital maturity to regulatory frameworks and socio-economic dynamics.
For example, in North America, Lola notes that customer expectations are typically centered around speed, sleek UX design, and self-service capabilities. As a result, her go-to-market strategies in this region tend to be product-led, often incorporating growth hacking and data-driven acquisition models.
In African markets, however, Lola tailors her approach toward trust-building, inclusion, and ecosystem partnerships. She and her team design around mobile-first behavior, account for informal economic structures, and implement hybrid distribution models that blend digital with on-the-ground touchpoints.
Beyond consumer behavior, Lola also considers macro-environmental factors such as currency fluctuations, policy shifts, and access to capital. These factors shape not only the venture’s runway but also inform strategic pivots and risk buffers.
This hyper-contextual, region-specific approach has been instrumental to Lola’s success at Exequi.io, allowing her to build ventures that do more than survive in new markets—they thrive sustainably and with cultural relevance.
Vision for the Next Decade of Tech Innovation
As a committed technology evangelist, Lola envisions the next decade as a period of profound transformation in how society lives, works, and does business. She identifies five emerging technologies that she believes will have the most significant impact on businesses over the next 5 to 10 years.
- AI and generative intelligence: Lola sees artificial intelligence moving far beyond traditional automation. In her view, AI will increasingly enable strategic decision-making, hyper-personalized experiences, and even entirely new business models. She emphasizes the disruptive power of generative AI in revolutionizing content creation, software development, and knowledge work.
- Blockchain and decentralized finance: Particularly in underbanked regions like parts of Africa, Lola notes that blockchain and DeFi are ushering in new paradigms of trust, transparency, and peer-to-peer financial interaction. She believes these technologies are pivotal for financial inclusion and systemic transformation.
- Biometric identity and privacy technologies: With digital access now pervasive, Lola highlights that secure, user-centric identity management will become crucial. She expects biometric authentication and privacy-preserving technologies to play a central role in building digital trust and securing access in the years ahead.
- Space and satellite connectivity: Lola is optimistic about the potential of low-orbit satellite networks to bridge the digital divide. These advancements, she says, will extend internet and digital infrastructure to remote and underserved communities, unlocking untapped economic potential.
- Quantum computing and bioengineering: While still in nascent stages, Lola foresees these technologies radically transforming industries. From logistics optimization to precision drug development, she believes their eventual commercialization will redefine the limits of what’s possible.
Lola remains a staunch advocate for responsible innovation, urging that the deployment of these technologies must prioritize not only efficiency but also ethics, inclusivity, and equitable impact.
The Human Side of Data-Driven Innovation
Lola is known for her data-driven and research-backed approach to building ventures, but she’s quick to point out that data alone isn’t enough. “Data gives you clarity, but it doesn’t give you courage,” she often says. For her, effective decision-making is a triad of data, intuition, and creativity.
Data, in her view, helps define the landscape, revealing patterns, validating assumptions, and highlighting opportunities. But when data is incomplete, ambiguous, or lagging behind market shifts, intuition becomes vital. It’s that inner compass shaped by years of experience and thousands of conversations. Creativity, meanwhile, allows her and her team to imagine entirely new paths—often before there’s sufficient data to support them.
At Exequi.io, Lola recounts a pivotal moment when her team was deciding between launching a founder education product or a venture co-building service. The data pointed to viable demand for both options. But intuition—gleaned from ongoing dialogues with dozens of corporate professionals—revealed a deeper insight: people wanted to start ventures without quitting their full-time jobs. That nuanced understanding led Exequi to double down on venture co-building, a decision that significantly accelerated their growth.
Art of Co-Creation and Connection
For Lola, customer obsession isn’t just a buzzword—it’s a core mindset that drives everything she builds. She embeds this philosophy into her ventures through a deliberate and structured approach that ensures alignment with customer needs while nurturing lasting relationships with stakeholders.
First, she prioritizes co-creation, involving customers early in the process through prototypes, pilots, and feedback sessions. In her words, “their fingerprints are all over our products.” This ensures the solutions are not only relevant but resonate deeply with the target audience.
Second, Lola implements robust customer listening systems, including structured Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys, informal Slack channels, user interviews, and anonymous feedback loops. These mechanisms help her team capture a broad range of insights—from enthusiastic praise to critical pain points—fueling continuous improvement.
Third, she maintains a consistent relationship cadence, personally engaging with key customers and partners through regular check-ins. These meetings aren’t sales-driven—they’re focused on genuine relationship-building and active listening, which foster deep trust and mutual respect.
Lastly, Lola applies a strategic lens to relationship management through stakeholder mapping and engagement plans. Whether dealing with investors, clients, or regulators, she ensures tailored, proactive communication strategies are in place to build credibility and long-term alignment.
This holistic approach allows Lola not only to meet immediate customer needs but also to stay attuned to the broader ecosystem forces that influence sustainable success.
Strategic Rhythm for Scaling What Matters
For Lola, agility isn’t just a methodology—it’s a leadership mindset that guides both daily operations and strategic direction. At the team level, she instills agile practices through weekly sprints, retrospectives, and the use of OKRs to maintain focus and alignment with the company’s North Star. This structure ensures teams remain nimble, responsive, and purpose-driven.
She integrates value engineering into every decision-making process, encouraging teams to ask critical questions: “Is this solving a real problem?”, “Are we overbuilding?”, and “How does this tie back to measurable business value?” These principles help keep efforts tightly aligned with the company’s mission and ensure resource efficiency.
Operationally, Lola is a strong proponent of process automation. She regularly challenges her teams to consider, “Can this be automated?”—whether in onboarding, internal workflows, or reporting. This approach allows teams to focus more on creative and strategic contributions, rather than repetitive tasks. For her, tools and automation aren’t simply conveniences—they’re multipliers for delivering exponential value.
At the leadership level, Lola leads with clarity, context, and empowerment. She fosters a culture where teams are aligned yet autonomous, and where speed is balanced with thoughtful execution.
Building and Mentoring High-Performing Teams
Leading high-performing teams in fast-paced environments requires a nuanced approach, and Lola views leadership as a multiplier effect. Her goal is to create an ecosystem where talent can thrive, fail safely, grow, and step into leadership themselves.
She begins with hiring for mindset over mere skillset—prioritizing individuals who demonstrate resilience, curiosity, high agency, and a hunger to learn. Once onboarded, she co-creates a compelling “why” with her teams, ensuring that every individual understands how their contributions support the broader mission.
Psychological safety is a cornerstone of her leadership. Lola rewards learning over flawless execution, encouraging her teams to take risks and grow through failure. Her motto—“Act now, apologize later”—empowers individuals to move quickly and decisively without fear of punishment.
In addition, she invests heavily in talent development through personalized coaching, stretch assignments, cross-functional exposure, and intentional mentorship. Under her leadership, several team members have advanced from junior to senior positions in under two years, reflecting her commitment to growth and empowerment.
Building Systems That Work for Women
As a member of Chief, Lola brings a powerful voice to the conversation around women in leadership. She sees a transformative shift underway—one where women aren’t just participating in leadership but redefining it. Traits like empathy, collaboration, and resilience—once undervalued—are now recognized as essential to leading in the modern era.
To accelerate this shift, she believes organizations must first reframe what leadership looks like, moving beyond outdated and often masculine archetypes. She champions the need for true sponsorship programs over basic mentorship—ensuring women have access to leaders with influence and social capital.
Lola also advocates for designing workplace systems that support life alongside work. She views flexible schedules, parental leave, and mental health benefits not as perks but as critical enablers of high performance and inclusion.
Importantly, she emphasizes the need to fund women’s ideas—whether through venture capital, corporate intrapreneurship, or nonprofit endeavors. For Lola, talent should always be met with capital and opportunity.
Through her involvement with Chief, she is inspired daily by women who lead boldly, authentically, and with profound impact. In her view, the future of leadership is not only female—it’s inclusive, intersectional, and built for meaningful change.
Venture-Building Without the Leap
When launching Exequi, Lola encountered a surprising challenge to the initial thesis. While many corporate professionals expressed a strong desire to explore tech entrepreneurship, they lacked the time, clarity, or confidence to pursue it full-time. Rather than pushing traditional accelerators or courses, Lola and her team listened deeply and pivoted.
They introduced a concierge-style co-building model that allowed clients to validate startup ideas without immediately quitting their jobs. By managing product strategy, team formation, and early-stage execution, Exequi provided a low-risk, high-impact entry point into entrepreneurship.
What began as ambiguity transformed into innovation. The pivot unlocked a previously untapped segment of the market—high-performing professionals who were eager to explore venture-building on their own terms. Lola’s ability to lean into uncertainty and design for real-world constraints was key to establishing a scalable, differentiated model.
Balancing Long-Term Vision with Short-Term Execution
Lola is known for her ability to zoom in and out—keeping a sharp eye on both the long-term vision and the tactical details that bring it to life. She describes this approach as “strategy orchestration,” where each short-term move is designed to advance the broader strategic narrative.
To stay grounded in the day-to-day while building toward the future, Lola maintains a handwritten daily task list, which she says helps her think critically about the outcomes she expects by week’s end. At the organizational level, she leverages quarterly OKRs to align teams on shared goals, ensuring near-term activities ladder up to long-term priorities.
Execution is managed through dashboards and structured weekly rituals that keep momentum high without the need for micromanagement. Equally important, she carves out dedicated time for “thinking work”—zooming out to reassess whether the team is still solving the right problems.
For Lola, leadership is about holding both the telescope and the microscope: vision to guide, precision to execute, and discipline to prioritize relentlessly.
Driving Sustainable Growth and Profitability in Tech Ventures
With deep expertise in P&L management and revenue generation, Lola emphasizes that sustainable growth is not just about speed—it’s about strategy. She believes growth must happen at the intersection of value creation, operational efficiency, and capital discipline.
Among the most critical elements she focuses on are:
- Healthy Unit Economics: Key metrics like Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC), Lifetime Value (LTV), retention, and payback period must be strong early on. In her view, scaling a flawed model only multiplies inefficiencies.
- Recurring Revenue & Ecosystem Expansion: Subscription models, platform plays, and network effects build resilience, boost margins, and foster long-term customer loyalty.
- Cross-Functional Alignment: Lola ensures that sales, product, and customer success teams are united through shared OKRs. Silos, she believes, are growth killers.
- Capital Efficiency: Especially in capital-constrained environments, every dollar must be measured for return on investment. Growth for growth’s sake is not enough—profitable growth is the true benchmark.
Lola’s framework is rooted in disciplined innovation. Her goal is not just to scale quickly, but to scale wisely—with intentionality, sustainability, and impact.
