Damilola Olokesusi

Damilola is the Co-founder and CEO of Nigeria’s leading technology-driven transportation startup called Shuttlers. The company is revolutionizing how professionals and organizations commute in the ever-busy Lagos and Abuja metropolis. Dami, as she is fondly called possesses a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemical Engineering from the University of Lagos. She boasts of experience in Process Engineering and Investment Management. Dami is very passionate about solving socio-economic problems in her community, hence the founding of Shuttlers. The Shuttlers platform enables professionals and organizations to share rides in decent buses to and from work. With Shuttlers, users book trips along fixed routes at 60-80 per cent lower rates than other ride-hailing services. It is worthy of note that Shuttlers operates a “no surge during peak hours or bad weather” pricing, which is the first of its kind in Africa. The Shuttlers solution is contributing to a decline in the menace of traffic in cities, as young professionals can now share comfortable air-conditioned bus rides with other professionals- this is not only reducing their daily commuting stress but also reducing traffic congestion and carbon emission due to lesser private cars on highways (1 bus can remove up to 14 -29 cars from the road.) Damilola is a Forbes30under30 (2019) Recipient for Technology, and she went on to be selected by the UK government for a technology exchange in 2020. She has garnered accolades such as The Digital & Tech Award at the Women in Africa Contest in Morocco in 2017, the Award for the Best Idea at the Aso Villa Demo Day, where she had the opportunity of meeting the Vice President of Nigeria and Mark Zuckerberg. She has also won grants from institutions like Airtel’s Sahara, GEM-WorldBank, and Ford Motors Company. In 2020, she launched an initiative called Shemoves Shuttles, an all-female shuttle service (sponsored by Ford Motors Company) that has impacted 600+ female professionals by turning their commute time to learning time. She is a member of the Lagos hub of Global Shapers of the World Economic Forum, where she served as the Vice Curator in 2019/2020. She is part of the Harambean Team 2018 cohort- an alliance for highly educated young African socialites, business, and political entrepreneurs attending leading universities in Asia, Europe and North America. In 2021, under the leadership of Dami, Shuttlers raised a $1.6m seed funding, announcing plans to expand into more African metropolitan cities. Damilola is poised to continue to lead innovation in the technology and transportation sectors and other sectors in Nigeria and around the world.