Biography
Mayowa Olugbile is the CEO of Itana, a Nigerian company building a digital jurisdiction for local and foreign companies operating in Africa, replete with simplified paperwork, business enablement, and tax optimizations.
Itana is also building a ~30,000 square meter physical city, which benefits from economic free zone status, near Lagos. Itana was co-founded by Luqman Edu and Iyinoluwa Aboyeji. The latter previously co-founded two African unicorns (Andela and Flutterwave).
Prior to Itana, Mayowa spent three years as the general partner of the Future Africa Fund as well as three years leading finance at Flutterwave.
The concept of “special economic zone” sounds jargony. Can you elucidate it?
Let’s take a real life example.
When you set up a home office, you dedicate and equip a delimited area of your house to bring money into the broader household. A special economic zone is the same, at a country level. It’s a carve out, regulatory and physical, aimed at achieving a well-defined objective the country has set.
Since it’s at the country level, special economic zones are either government-led or government-approved. These special zones must serve a specific objective, or set of objectives, the government has in mind.
China’s special economic zone in Shenzhen relaxed some foreign investor rules and created a vibrant economic center (Chinese tech giant Huawei was founded there). Dubai’s DIFC harmonizes interactions between global capital and the UAE with, for example, specialized commercial courts, flexible corporate structuring, and financial services regulation aligned with international standards.
Before we dive into Itana’s work, can you explain the problems Itana set out to solve?
Itana is creating an economic cluster dedicated to unlocking shared prosperity across Africa. To do so, it needs to solve problems facing two types of companies: foreign companies doing business in Africa, and African companies doing business in Africa.