A former Microsoft product manager and founder of LolaWealth LLC, Lola Oyewumi, has called on professionals to ensure that they build their wealth beyond their monthly salaries as she champions a shift from earning high salaries to building sustainable wealth and achieving financial freedom.

Drawing from her personal journey of overcoming debt, building multiple income streams and leaving corporate employment in 2024, she is empowering professionals, particularly women and African diaspora families, to embrace financial ownership, protect their assets and create generational wealth.

In this interview with The Guardian, she discusses her FIRE’D UP Accelerator System™, the importance of financial education and estate planning, and why true wealth lies in having the freedom to live with purpose beyond a monthly salary.

When did you realise a good salary was not the same as financial freedom?

On paper, it seemed like I had made it. I was a leader at Microsoft, earning well, with a title people respected. Yet I carried a quiet secret: I had income and no financial freedom. If I stopped working, the money stopped with me.

One day, sitting with my three children, I remembered my mother stretching cooperative loans across a family of eight. I was earning far more than she ever had. I had also arrived in America carrying debt from my master’s degree, so I knew what it felt like to work very hard and still feel one step behind. In that moment I realised my family was still only one paycheck away from the same kind of pressure she faced. The income had grown. The dependence was still there.

What changed was the question I asked. I used to ask, “How much am I earning?” I began to ask, “What do I own, and how long could my family live well if my paycheck stopped tomorrow?” Success became freedom of time, alignment, choice and purpose. Wealth became a system I could build, with God’s grace and my own discipline.

What did those five years of intentional building look like, and what were the hardest decisions?

In my 30s,  I wrote the vision down and made it plain multiple times, just as Habakkuk 2:2 instructs. I would build a five-stream wealth system and retire from corporate by 40. Most people thought I was dreaming. Sometimes, I doubt myself looking at how far I still need to cover due to the goals I set for myself. But, I was actually building.

Those years were quiet and unglamorous. I kept showing up in my day job while building in the early mornings, late evenings and weekends. I became a licensed financial professional, built my financial services business, wrote my books, and, a couple years ago, I registered LolaWealth LLC as a business  and built the FIRE’D UP Movement. My Microsoft salary was my active income, and I treated it as the engine that funded everything else. My financial services work, my books and later my coaching became my skills-based income. I invested steadily, began building assets designed to earn without my time, and put life insurance in place for my children as the first piece of my legacy stream.

Those years demanded real trade-offs, and I did not get them all right. My lifestyle grew right along with my income, and some of those choices hurt me badly. They taught me what I now teach: a raise without a plan simply funds a bigger lifestyle. By God’s grace, I learnt, adjusted and kept building. As a mother of three, I also guarded family time fiercely while still putting in the hours the plan demanded.

Then came the hardest decision of all: letting go of my title as a product manager at Microsoft. In 2024, right on schedule, I walked out. The numbers were ready before my identity was, and that lesson shapes how I coach today.

Why do so many high-income professionals remain financially dependent?

Because income is loud and ownership is quiet. A good salary pays for a beautiful home, good schools, nice cars and a lifestyle that rises with every raise. From the outside, it looks like wealth.

Many of us were raised on one formula: study hard, get a good job, and you will be fine. That formula built careers. It never came with a system for what happens after the paycheck arrives.

I see three patterns again and again. Lifestyle grows faster than assets. All the eggs sit in one basket, a single income from a single employer. And identity gets tied to the title, so building anything outside the job feels risky, even disloyal. For many of us in the diaspora, there is also the love and responsibility we carry for family back home, which is a blessing and a real weight.

Earning well is a gift. But “Ownership” is what turns that gift into freedom.

Why should the conversation move from “making more money” to building a complete wealth system?

I have watched people double their income and remain just as anxious. More money poured into a leaky system simply leaks faster.

That is why I built the FIRE’D UP Accelerator System around five pillars: Make, Manage, Multiply, Mitigate and Meaning.

• Make is your income, and inside it sits my 5-Stream Wealth System™: active, skills-based, investment, asset and legacy income.

• Manage is how you direct money once it arrives.

• Multiply is investing, so money keeps working while you rest.

• Mitigate is protection: insurance, wills, trusts, the safeguards that stop one bad day from erasing years of work.

• Meaning is your why. Deuteronomy 8:18 reminds us that God gives the power to get wealth, and that wealth comes with a purpose.

When people see the whole system, the next raise stops being the goal. They begin building something that will still be standing when they are gone.

What is the bigger problem you are solving through all these platforms?

Talented, hardworking people are living one paycheck away from losing their choices. That is the problem underneath everything I do.

Each platform meets people at a different stage. The FIRE Readiness Assessment, My books and The FIRE’D UP Show open eyes. My coaching gives people a system and the accountability to follow it. My licensed work protects what they build, through retirement planning, life insurance, and wills and trusts I set up in partnership with attorneys.

This mission is personal. I have lived the debt, the fear and the identity tied to a job title. I am the daughter of a woman who stretched cooperative loans to give her children a future. I want families like mine to build with a plan, and to have choices my mother never had.

What does wealth activation mean, and how is being financially educated different from being financially empowered?

Information is everywhere today. You can watch a hundred videos on investing this weekend. Activation is the moment knowledge turns into action, and action turns into a habit.

A financially educated person can explain compound interest. A financially empowered person has money compounding in an account with their name on it, protection in place for their family, and a written plan with dates attached.

My work starts with identity. I became a wealth builder in my own mind long before it showed up in my bank account, and I believe my clients must do the same. Once someone sees themselves as a builder, the tactics land. Then we take the first step together, this week, while the conviction is still fresh. That is where my line comes from: I don’t just teach wealth. I activate it.

What must women, especially in the African diaspora, confront to move from earning income to building generational wealth?

Women are earning, leading and building businesses. Yet many of us remain the family’s provider and the last person we pay.

There are behaviours to confront. We give generously and save last. We leave investing decisions to someone else. We under-insure ourselves, even when everyone depends on us. We postpone the will.

There are structural barriers too. Pay gaps are real. Career breaks for childbirth and caregiving slow our savings. Access to capital and the right networks is still uneven.

Then there are beliefs, often the heaviest. That talking about money is improper. That a good woman sacrifices quietly. That wealth belongs to other people. I once worried that my accent would limit me in American rooms. I learnt that the real ceiling was the belief I carried about it.

My encouragement to every woman: put your name on assets, protect yourself first, and speak about money openly with your daughters and your sons.

What have you learnt about career, identity and purpose, and what would you say to professionals who feel trapped?

Leaving taught me that a title is something you hold for a season. It was never meant to hold you. When I left Microsoft, I felt the loss of that title more than I expected. Many of my clients have spent years as a VP, a Director or a Senior Manager, and walking away can feel like losing part of their dignity. That struggle is real, and it deserves respect.

The C.L.E.A.R. Exit Framework™ came from walking that road: Clarity, Layout, Establish, Amplify and Reclaim. Get clear on your number and your why. Lay out the timeline. Establish income streams while you are still employed. Amplify what works. Then reclaim your time and your life.

To anyone who feels trapped: please don’t walk out in frustration. Build the bridge before you cross it. Your current paycheck can become the first investor in your freedom. Stay excellent where you are, and start building today, quietly and consistently.

Why is protecting and transferring wealth as important as creating it?

Building wealth can take a lifetime. Losing it can take one unplanned funeral.

We have all seen it: a hardworking parent passes, there is no will, property is tied up for years, and families who once loved each other end up in disputes. Children inherit confusion and conflict. Without protection, everything you built is exposed.

As an Estate Planning Strategist, I partner with attorneys to help families put living trusts and wills in place. The conversations families need to start now are simple, even when they feel uncomfortable:

• Do we have a will, and who knows where it is?

• Who will raise our children if something happens to us?

• Is our life insurance enough to replace our income?

• Are the beneficiaries on our accounts current?

• What do we own across countries, and is each asset properly documented?

Love your family enough to plan. That is one of the most generous gifts you can leave.

What does financial freedom mean to you personally, and what legacy do you want to leave?

Today, freedom looks like ordinary moments that used to be rushed. Studying the Bible with my children and attending Wednesday prayer meetings and the kids get to participate in weekly activities in church. Being present for the things that matter to them. Saying yes to the work God has called me to, and no to what pulls me away from it.

The next chapter is about depth. I am growing my financial services practice, serving families face to face rather than only virtual and working toward my Certified Financial Planner certification. I want to keep writing (my newest book is being launched in November of this year, I’m so excited about it), keep teaching, and keep building leaders on my team.

The legacy I want for LolaWealth and the FIRE’D UP Movement is generations of families who own. People who were the first in their family to retire on their own terms, and who taught their children to do the same. If my work helps break even one cycle of paycheck dependence in one family, it will have been worth it.

What is in the pipeline?

Right now I’m focused on helping professionals build a Plan B before they need one. On November 14, I’m hosting a free webinar, Layoff-Proof Your Income in 2027. I’ve also created an Income Risk Scorecard that shows anyone, anywhere, how much of their security rests on a single paycheck. And I’m releasing my newest book, Declare Your Increase, on the faith side of building wealth.

Income is a blessing. Wealth is a system. If my story spoke to you, start with the Scorecard at https://lolawealth.com/start I’d love to have you join me.

If you could change one thing about how African and African-diaspora communities think about wealth, what would it be?

I would move us from earning to owning. We are some of the most educated, hardworking people anywhere in the world. We know how to earn. The next step is ownership: assets with our names on them, protection for the people we love, and plans that outlive us.

I would also love to see us speak about money openly, at the dinner table and across generations. Silence has cost our families too much.

After encountering my work, I hope people do three things. Write the vision down and give it a date. Start one more income stream, however small. Have the will conversation this month. Small, faithful steps, repeated, build wealth that lasts for generations.