In an era defined by explosive digital growth, especially across emerging markets, the strategic challenge for financial leaders lies not just in growth, but in secure, compliant growth.

This necessity positions Dr. Gbenga Odegbami, Co-founder and CEO of Youverify, as a definitive inclusion among the 100 Most Strategic CEOs of 2025.

Youverify, a leading provider of Anti-Money Laundering (AML) and fraud prevention solutions for commercial banks in Nigeria, is rapidly becoming the essential trust and compliance engine for Africa’s expanding digital economy.

Dr. Odegbami’s leadership is deeply rooted in technical mastery and strategic foresight. Having achieved MCSE certification at 18 in 1999, he is currently a CCIE Emeritus and a Fellow of the British Computer Society.

Academically, his foundation includes an engineering degree from Unilag, an MBA from Warwick Business School, UK, and a Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) from the Paris School of Business, France. He is also recognized as a Certified Anti-Fraud Specialist from ACAMS.

This unique blend of technical expertise and advanced business education informed his decade-long tenure as a technology consultant supporting major commercial banks, telecom operators, and government agencies across Africa. This intensive experience shaped his crucial understanding of the identity, fraud, and compliance gaps that historically limit institutional growth, ultimately inspiring the creation of Youverify.

For Dr. Odegbami, strategic leadership is defined by clarity of mission, focus, and disciplined execution.

This translates directly into Youverify’s straightforward vision: to help businesses achieve smarter, faster, more accurate, and simpler fraud prevention and AML compliance specifically for Africa and other emerging markets. Youverify is committed to changing the current landscape so that every bank and business can build economic relationships and trust without worrying about compliance difficulties or fraud.

Youverify operates on a Business-to-Business Software as A Service (B2B SaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) model, leveraging proprietary technology enhanced by Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems.

The company’s technology is highly scalable, effectively analysing over 5 billion individual records and 400 million business records, providing banks with deep insights into the AML risk profiles of their clients.

The strategic roadmap for 2025 reflects this mission, focusing on deepening their unified FRAML (Fraud and Anti-Money Laundering) platform, which automates processes from customer onboarding to risk management.

A standout milestone demonstrating the company’s ability to convert difficult market conditions into strong execution was scaling to process more than 250 million compliance and anti-fraud checks while serving over 1,000 businesses across 12 countries.

This growth occurred during a period of sharp fraud increase, yet Youverify successfully expanded its platform to cut fraud losses by over 60 percent, eliminate manual processes, and accelerate onboarding for banks, fintechs, and enterprises.

Youverify’s comprehensive product suite is central to its strategic market positioning. The Customer Onboarding and Business Verification solution helps customers perform enhanced due diligence, addressing risks associated with identity fraud, money laundering, deepfake attacks, and payment fraud.

The Transaction Monitoring (Know Your Transaction or KYT) solution automates monitoring, using AI and machine learning to provide real-time insights that identify, flag, and block high-risk activities, thereby cutting down fraud loss and safeguarding finances.

Further ensuring compliance, the AML and Sanction Screening Solution screens individuals and businesses against periodically updated global watchlists—including OFAC, EU, UN, and FATF—and local Nigerian PEP databases, drawing on access to over 3,000 global data sources.

Perhaps most critical to proactive risk mitigation is the Risk Intelligence Solution, which uses artificial intelligence to proactively detect, classify, prevent, and report fraud cases through continuous monitoring of customer risk profiles. This solution analyzes data from a wide range of sources, assigning tailored risk scores based on factors like geographical location, transaction types, and historical alert data. This approach is reported to effectively reduce fraud by over 70%.

Looking ahead, Dr. Odegbami’s focus remains intensely strategic. The 2025 roadmap prioritizes scaling AI capabilities so institutions can detect fraud that does not follow known patterns. The biggest growth driver is scaling AI, with the goal of building explainable, reliable AI that institutions can trust for critical identity and fraud decisions.

The commitment to compliance is foundational: Youverify builds for compliance from day one, integrating privacy, auditability, and regulatory alignment into the product architecture to guarantee trust and long-term resilience.

For 2026, the strategic priorities include making their AI-driven fraud and risk models available to a broader customer base, expanding compliance automation and workflow orchestration capabilities across more industries, and deepening Youverify’s presence in high-growth markets.

As Dr. Odegbami advises aspiring African tech CEOs, successful businesses must “Build for real problems that customers are willing to pay for”. Youverify exemplifies this principle, addressing the critical pain point of financial crime.

Under his visionary leadership, supported by key leaders like CTO Famous Ehichioya, who drives vertical integration, and Head of Sales Olufunso Alonge, instrumental in sustaining over 100% yearly sales growth, Youverify is well-positioned to meet the rising demand for cost-saving technology and automation across government agencies and financial institutions.

By delivering exceptional value and constantly exceeding industry standards, Youverify ensures its clients can grow securely and efficiently. Youverify can be contacted via [email protected] and [email protected] or through their social media handle: Twitter- @YouCheckOnline and Instagram – @YouCheckOnline
Youverify is headquartered both in the USA (201 Spear Street, Suite 1100, San Francisco, CA. 94105) and Nigeria (1st Floor, Sum House, 350 Borno Way, Yaba, Lagos 101212).