Lapo Odunjo.
AI PM focused on trust systems, decision infrastructure, and human-in-the-loop design.
World Map
About
// character profile
I go by Lapo. I grew up in Lagos, left home for university in Bradford, found my way through New York and Philadelphia, and have been shaped by every place that asked me to begin again.
A lot of my story has been about new beginnings: learning new systems, entering new rooms, building new communities, and finding my voice in places that did not always feel familiar at first. That is probably why I am drawn to products and people in transition. I like helping make complicated things feel more navigable.
Today, I build AI systems for regulated industries, especially in environments where trust matters and the cost of a wrong answer is real. My work sits at the intersection of product, AI, financial infrastructure, and practical judgment.
The path from chemical engineering to product to AI to private capital may look random from the outside. To me, it has always been connected by one question: where is the real problem, and what would actually help?
Outside the build, you will usually find me reading in a coffee shop, planning the next trip, playing tennis, running somewhere in the city, or getting pulled into one more game of League, Mortal Kombat, or God of War. I recently finished the Wharton MBA while building Kinage in production at the same time. It was intense, humbling, and deeply worth it.
Story
// extended loreI grew up in Lagos. The city moves fast and nothing is ever quite what it looks like on the surface. You learn early to look past the obvious explanation, because the obvious one is almost always wrong.
That habit never left me. When an AI system keeps failing, or an investment keeps underperforming, the first thing I do is ignore where the pain is showing up. The real problem is almost always somewhere else.
Why informal financial systems in West Africa are more sophisticated than they look from the outside, and why formalising them badly is worse than leaving them alone.
Whether AI governance in regulated institutions is a product problem or a political one. Probably both.
How to build things that outlast the person who built them. Not immortality. Just durability.
What it actually means to be a builder from the continent operating inside Western institutions without losing the thread back home.
Nigerian jollof is better. This is not a debate, it is a fact with citations.
Most AI failures in enterprises are communication failures dressed up as technical ones.
The best investors in African markets are the ones who have been embarrassed by their first deal. Overconfidence is the most expensive mistake you can make in a market you do not actually understand yet.
Anyone who has never left their home country should not be building products for people who have.
I have been a gamer since I was old enough to hold a controller. What I did not realise until recently is that games taught me everything that matters: resource allocation under uncertainty, reading patterns before they complete, knowing when to push and when to reset.
Every PM I have ever met who moves fast and breaks nothing learned it the same way, through a thousand invisible iterations before the stakes were real.
The strategy games especially. If you have ever spent three hours optimising a build order in an RTS, you already understand roadmap sequencing. You just call it something different at work.
Finished the Wharton MBA. Running Kinage in production. Raising for KOVA. Writing about what happens when AI models meet regulated institutions and neither side is ready.
I also co-founded Young Africans in Diaspora because the community needed to exist and nobody was building it. Most weeks I am juggling more than I probably should. It is fine.
Capital Allocation
// resource managementFull investment lifecycle: market sizing, financial diligence, deal leadership, post-investment monitoring. 60+ companies reviewed. Two closed investments (mid-to-high seven figures). Built the firm's framework for markets where the standard U.S. playbook doesn't apply, FX stress, regulatory disruption, exit uncertainty across Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa, Ghana, and Egypt.
Building a credit data platform that converts informal financial behaviour (savings groups, rent, school fees) into structured, usable credit signals for Nigeria's informal economy. Designed the onboarding model leveraging existing collector networks to drive adoption at grassroots scale. Operating across a 5-person cross-functional team.
Education
// training arcAchievements Unlocked
// rare dropsLoadout
// skill tree- ▸Platform Strategy
- ▸RAG Architecture
- ▸LLM Evaluation
- ▸Drift Monitoring
- ▸Anomaly Detection
- ▸Experimentation Frameworks
- ▸Governance & Escalation Design
- ▸DCF & LBO Modeling
- ▸IRR Sensitivity
- ▸NAV Analysis
- ▸Monte Carlo
- ▸Portfolio Construction
- ▸FX Stress Testing
- ▸Blended Finance
- ▸Nigeria, Kenya, S. Africa, Ghana, Egypt
- ▸Fintech Infrastructure
- ▸Digital Lending
- ▸Energy Infrastructure
- ▸Regulated Finance (U.S.)
- ▸Python · SQL
- ▸FastAPI · Snowflake · AWS
- ▸OpenAI · Claude · Cursor
- ▸Capital IQ · PitchBook
- ▸Tableau · Excel (advanced)
- ▸GitHub · Vercel
◆ Philadelphia, 2025
Building things that
actually work.
Not just in demos. In production, under pressure, in regulated environments where it actually matters.
When I am not building, I am usually reading in a coffee shop, planning a trip, playing tennis, running, or gaming. I like games that reward strategy, timing, adaptation, and character mastery, which probably explains the League of Legends, Mortal Kombat, and God of War rotation.
Travel has shaped how I build too. Moving through different cities, cultures, and systems made me care more about products that work outside polished environments. Thirty-six countries in, that instinct only gets stronger.
Start a conversation. Or a co-op.
AI systems in regulated industries. Private markets across Africa. Anything that does not fit a clean slide deck. Those are my favourite conversations.