Former Flutterwave top executive claims abuse and harassment by CEO

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Flutterwave Chief Executive Officer and Founder, Mr. Olugbenga ‘GB’ Agboola
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Wanjiku Clara, a former Head of Implementation at Flutterwave and CEO of open banking platform Credrails, has claimed harassment from her former boss Fluterwave CEO Olugbenga Agboola  also known as GB, in a detailed blog post published this morning.

Writing about the incident on Medium, Wanjiku claims she decided to resign from the company late 2018 following claims of improper treatment by the CEO.

 “I have been constantly belittled, lied about, harassed,had my name tarnished and almost arrested because of Olugbenga Agboola the CEO of Flutterwave and I am calling time. It has been almost 5 years of constant harassment and I am over it all,” Wanjiku wrote on Medium and Twitter.

According to her, she has gone through a number of incidents after her resignation from the company. After Flutterwave, Wanjiku worked as Director of Network Operations, Africa at Rapyd, an Israeli firm, then later as VP Growth and Partnerships at Nium and most recently as co-founder and CEO of Credrails. Credrails connects bank, mobile money, and offline data into a single API to power their own next-gen fintech solutions. Founded in 2020 Credrails aggregates financial data from multiple online and offline sources and makes the unified data available to businesses via an API. Credrails is uniquely positioned to power the pan-African digital revolution and recently raised $2,500,000 from investors including Japanese tech giant, SoftBank to improve its product offerings, expand its operations in Kenya and Nigeria and its customers across the continent.

Wanjiku said that  on many occasions she asked the CEO to have her dues settled but he ignored her until she  engaged a lawyer. She then began receiving calls from various Flutterwave staff requesting her to resolve the issues amicably. Wanjiku claimed her name was being maligned by her former colleagues without any proof. The former colleagues allegedly accused her of being behind a Twitter account calling out the male members of management for sexual harassment. TechMoran has reached out to Flutterwave for comment.

Clara

 She also claims the CEO in an interview tried to smear her name linking her to an M-Pesa fraud which reportedly occurred while she was on a work trip to Ghana in May 2019. She also alleged that Olugbenga Agboola was using power  to make her life hard and claimed that GB sabotaged a bank job she had been introduced to claiming she was a bad worker and a criminal in California.

“It ends today. I am speaking up because when does it stop? When do I stop being the target of a powerful man trying to stick it to me for standing up for myself?”

“I Am sick of it to be honest. It has been almost 5 years of constant bullying,trying to malign my name and just make my life more difficult. All of it stemming from me deciding to leave, ask for what is fairly mine AND ask to be compensated for Flutterwave’s negligence.”

She sued the company on grounds that it was wasting her time and being negligent with her data and although she was awarded a settlement, she felt it was too small and has since appealed in a case that’s still pending in court.

Flutterwave, which recently launched in Tanzania, and bought a stake in a UK fintech startup, provides a payment infrastructure for global merchants and payment service providers across the continent and recently secured $250 million in a Series D round, bringing its valuation to nearly $3 billion in just a year. In March 2021, the San Francisco-based and Lagos-based startup raised $170 million in a Series C investment from Tiger Global and Avenir at a $1 billion valuation. Flutterwave has raised a total of $475 million since its launch six years ago (it raised a $35 million Series B in 2020 and a $20 million Series A in 2018).

The firm recently rebranded and launched a new identity as it introduced new products and services beyond payments. The new products include Fintech as a Service (FaaS) solution , a Capital arm for loans and Buy Now Pay Later option, quick Checkout and Card issuing in partnership with Mastercard. GB, a highly respected serial entrepreneur with two successful exits under his belt, recently joined Lipa Later Group as a member of its advisory board to help the Kenyan-based firm grow beyond East Africa. 

 

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