Shola Akinlade

Shola Akinlade (born 6 May 1985) is a Nigerian entrepreneur and software developer. He is the co-founder and CEO of Paystack.

Early Life

Shola Akinlade attended St. Gregory's College for his secondary education. In 2006, he graduated with a degree in Computer Science from Babcock University, Nigeria.

Career

In 2015, Shola Akinlade and Ezra Olubi co-founded PayStack, a financial technology company that offers payment processing services to businesses. In November 2015, it became the first Nigerian company to be accepted into the startup accelerator Y Combinator. Paystack was later acquired by Stripe, a technology-based Company, for $200 million in 2020.

In 2022, Shola Akinlade founded a football club, Sporting Lagos F.C. In March 2023, Shola Akinlade acquired a 55% stake in the Danish 2nd division football club Aarhus Fremad.

In October 2022, Shola Akinlade was conferred with the Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON) by Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari.