Mercy Olorunfemi is a strategist and program development specialist with a passion for building sustainable and inclusive communities through innovation, entrepreneurship development, decent jobs for youths and policy advocacy in Africa.
She is a World Business Angels Investment Forum, International Partner for Nigeria, with diverse experience in the non-profit and technology sector. Her zeal for solving Nigeria's unemployment challenge and building sustainable youth-led businesses and inclusive communities led to her involvement as a project manager and youth coach at the Next Economy Nigeria, the Dutch government-funded Local Employment for Development in Africa (LEAD) programme. She was instrumental in building the capacity of 600 youths in employability, entrepreneurial skills and financial literacy through the youth development and incubation project and supporting 120 youth-led start-ups to grow, scale, and raising over 10million seed capital through crowdfunding. To further drive access to capital, she led the launch of Jack Ma' Africa Netpreneur Prize Initiative in West Africa, worth $10 Million in 2019.
Excited about diversity, gender inclusion, and safeguarding minority and vulnerable communities, she co-curated the Women in Business: Digital Entrepreneurship Round-Table with the World Bank Group Nigeria in 2019. Mercy is currently implementing the Women in Business Growth Lab, an entrepreneurship development project for 40 female-led start-ups to access quality mentorship, capacity development, investment, building the next generation of future female leaders and bridging the gender gap on the continent.
A policy enthusiast, Mercy designed the Policy Dialogue Ecosystem Project to promote deep-rooted conversations on funding investments in Sub-Saharan Africa to create policies to foster foreign direct investment, support quality education, equality/diversity, increase internal revenue generation and ultimately drive economic development. Mercy currently facilitates and coaches at Founder Institute, Impact Hub's New Economy Booster Program and Connect Lab, an African focused innovation Lab, supporting the growth of FinTech, EdTech, and HealthTech start-ups in Nigeria.