Fara Ashiru has joined UK-based Kernel, a firm that builds custom AI agents for revenue operations.
According to reports, the founder and chief executive officer of Nigerian open-finance startup Okra has left her role to join Kernel as its head of engineering.
The move raises concerns about the future of Okra, which recently pivoted to cloud services amidst a challenging regulatory and competitive landscape.
Her departure follows a period of significant change at Okra, which she co-founded in 2019 with David Peterside, the former chief operating officer, who left the company in 2022, leaving Ashiru to solely hold the venture.
As she joins Kernel, Ashiru will be tasked with replicating her successes at Okra while maintaining a lean team. Ashiru is expected to leverage her more than five years of experience in building payment APIs and driving revenue growth
Under her leadership as both CEO and CTO, she expanded the engineering team to 40 and secured $16.5 million in funding from prominent investors, including Susa Ventures, Base10 Partners, and TLcom Capital.
Despite this, Okra has faced headwinds as the firm previously discontinued three of its core open-finance products which include balance, income, and transaction, which were designed to assess creditworthiness for lenders.
Under her leadership, Okra integrated with major Nigerian commercial banks and platforms like Renmoney, Branch, Bamboo, and AIICO Insurance.
