Women & Money is a monthly Piggyvest series that explores the relationship between real Nigerian women and money. This series sheds light on money, career and business from a female perspective.
For this month’s episode of Women & Money, we spoke to Dolapo Omotoso, a Growth Specialist splitting her time between Lagos and London. She talks to Piggyvest about her comfortable childhood that ended with her father’s death, and why she walked away from a law degree to build a career in tech instead.
What was your childhood like?
I’d split my childhood into two phases. From age zero to about fifteen, my family was what we call soft. Not rich rich, but definitely upper-middle class by Nigerian standards. My dad was in the military and doing well, so my four siblings and I attended good private schools, rode the school bus, and always had whatever we needed.
We also travelled a lot; we’d go wherever my dad was posted for the long holidays, and occasionally vacation in London. I even got my first phone, a Motorola flip, at ten, and used various BlackBerry models straight through secondary school. Whatever phone my dad was done using, he’d just hand it down to me.
Okay. Soft.
My dad eventually left the military and became a special adviser to a minister of state, so things stayed comfortable. My mum ran her own business too, but hers wasn’t really about paying bills; it was about her lifestyle and the satisfaction of making her own money.
I genuinely thought everything I experienced was normal childhood in Nigeria, until my dad died and everything shifted. That’s the second phase.
How old were you when your father passed?
Sixteen. I’d just gotten into university. It wasn’t like we were thrown into poverty overnight, but there was a real change.
In my first year at university, I was still living fairly soft; my dad had just died, and I was getting around ₦10,000 a week in pocket money, which was solid money in 2014. Then things got tight, and my mum stopped giving me pocket money altogether. My sister took on the responsibility and could only manage to give me ₦15,000 for the entire month. I was schooling in Lagos and relying on restaurant food, so that ₦15,000 had to cover transport, class materials, and food. It was brutal.
That’s when I actually started looking for work.
How would you describe your relationship with money before that shift, versus after?
Before, I genuinely believed the world was going to cater for me the way my dad always had. It affected my ambition more than I like to admit. For instance, I assumed I’d study law, graduate, and my dad would sort out a job for me somewhere.
I also didn’t understand saving at all. I do remember once saving up around ₦10,000 toward a Nokia C3 phone everyone in my class had, and presenting it to my parents as proof I was serious, but that was it. They ended up buying it for my birthday anyway.
Must’ve been hard to adjust.
Once the pocket money dried up, I had to become industrious almost overnight. I started doing assignments and writing essays for my classmates for money. I eventually found a more efficient hustle in competitive debating. I entered several student competitions with cash prizes, and I started winning consistently.
I once won a phone and enough cash along the way to supplement my income. When I got into uni, my ambition was to graduate well and never be poor again. In my first year, I had a 4.3 CGPA, but by second year the ambition had quietly evolved into: “Whatever you do, make sure you don’t starve.” Interestingly, I made most of my income during university by planning events.
Wait. Tell me more.
It happened almost by accident. A friend who was already coordinating events got me my first gig, and I turned out to be good at it. I started as an event coordinator for one event planner, then expanded to working with five. I also honed my eye for social media content along the way, and by my final year, I was being flown to Abuja for work.
That’s pretty cool.
Eventually, one of the planners I worked for wanted to relocate abroad and offered me her business, in exchange for a profit split. I accepted the terms and took over the business in 2019, and it did well—well enough that I once charged ₦1.5 million for an event we’d normally have priced at ₦500-600k, and the client still came back grateful.
Then in 2020, the pandemic hit, and nobody was planning weddings. I’d already collected deposits from a few brides, so I locked most of that money away in my SafeLock, since I couldn’t trust myself not to dip into my clients’ money.
My strategy was simple: for every payment, I’d SafeLock roughly 75% to cover the cost of executing the client’s event, then set aside the rest to pay myself. Essentially, I was putting myself on a salary. That period made me realise I couldn’t build a long-term future purely on events.
Did you plan to practice law then?
I completed my law degree and went through law school, but I never really practised.
Why not? Why did you choose to leave law behind?
I was genuinely unhappy. Even though I was good at the practical side—winning debates and essay competitions and landing solid internships—I never saw myself sitting in a law firm long-term.
I’d worked under some lawyers who were simply unkind, and not just to me, but to everyone around them. If I was that unhappy as an intern, spending just a few hours there, I knew full-time practice would break me.
So what came next, career-wise?
The tech space was having a moment right as the pandemic hit; everyone was talking about tech salaries and offices flying staff abroad for Christmas parties, and I wanted in.
As you should.
My first tech role was actually an internship at Piggyvest, as a customer success associate. I knew almost immediately it wasn’t for me in the long term; customer support was never my passion.
I was upfront with my manager about wanting to switch teams, and even though the switch I initially wanted didn’t work out, she had me write captions for the brand’s social pages instead. I was unreasonably proud every time one of mine got used.
PocketApp (then Abeg) went on to sponsor Big Brother Naija, and I ended up helping my manager troubleshoot vendor issues for the activations that came with it. And since I knew events, I helped connect her with better options and vendors, tagged along to events, and built mood boards. These things came easily to me.
How did you move from Piggyvest into your next roles?
I left Piggyvest in February 2022 to join LemFi as a social media manager, though the role quickly grew into far more than that. In no time, I was writing newsletters, sending push notifications, and running the blog. It was a genuine baptism of fire, but it built the foundation for almost everything I do now.
From there, I moved into a country manager role at LemFi, owning target numbers, marketing campaigns, partnerships, and essentially the overall health of the business in that market.
I did that for about a year before deciding I needed a bigger challenge. In fact, a conversation with a new manager actually crystallised this decision. In our very first conversation, she said she was in her work era; she was at this phase in her life where she wanted to give her all to her work, because it would only be a matter of time before she couldn’t anymore.
I remember thinking, “Wow. I need that.” That’s really what pushed me to look elsewhere.
Where did you go next?
I left for a six-month stint at TransferGo, taking on a director-level role that introduced me to P&L ownership for the first time. I inherited a negative P&L (profit and loss) statement and had to lean heavily on my network to learn how to fix it, and I eventually turned it positive. I also ran commercial relationships across Africa for the company.
When TransferGo decided to scale down its Africa operations, I went back to LemFi for another six months, this time working on a new product vertical, before eventually moving into a Head of Growth role at MonieWorld and relocating to the UK in March 2025.
Why MonieWorld?
I’d actually wanted to work at MoniePoint for a while. I first tried to get in informally in early 2025, learned there was no opening, and moved on. Months later, someone mentioned my name in a room where they were trying to solve a specific problem, and it reached MonieWorld’s CEO. He reached out to me to come in for a coffee meeting, and I left that meeting with an offer.
Oh wow. Was it difficult to have that conversation when moving from one competitor to another?
Not particularly; it’s a small industry, and people move around a lot. I was upfront with my manager about wanting to leave and why.
Let’s talk about the UK relocation. What made you finally apply for the Global Talent Visa?
What actually got me to submit the application was my now-husband giving me a real deadline and telling me he’d be upset if I missed it.
I finally sat down, had a few trusted people review and strengthen it, submitted it the last Friday of November 2025, and got endorsed the following week.
Did you have any worries?
Honestly, I was fairly certain I’d get it going, partly because I’d seen others with similar career trajectories succeed. Two of my closest friends had already moved to the UK on the same visa, and I was the last one left in Lagos, constantly being pushed to apply. I kept putting it off because I was genuinely enjoying my life in Lagos and already visiting the UK every quarter for work.
I moved in March, and deliberately kept my life in Lagos rather than fully uprooting it. I’d built something there I was proud of, and I didn’t want to let any of that go, so Lagos stayed home while I processed the visa. Honestly, I don’t take the opportunity for granted at all.
If you had to choose one country to settle down, which would it be?
Nairobi, easily. I don’t fully know why, but I love who I am when I’m there.
It’s strange, but a group of my friends who all moved abroad separately have independently arrived at the same conclusion: we’re all ending up in Kenya eventually.
Your career has grown fast, and presumably your income too. How has that changed how you relate to money?
I’m a spender, if I’m honest, but I’m actively trying to shift that. I think once you’ve experienced real lack, even if you hesitate to call it poverty, it changes something permanently.
I’m currently working on becoming more of a saver, with help from my husband, who’s constantly in my ear about it.
What does financial freedom look like to you?
Right now, it’s about letting go of anxiety around the basics: knowing my housing is covered, being able to afford my personal style, travel, and take care of myself and my family, entirely by my own means.
Financial freedom to me is not being tied to an employer or anything outside my control. Being financially free means I’m not living paycheck to paycheck anymore, but living off what I’ve actually built and accumulated.
How are you working toward that?
I work best with structure, so that’s where I’m starting. I no longer see my entire salary as mine to spend; I set some aside first, then pay myself from what’s left, almost like a reward for showing up.
I’m also a big believer in pension schemes, and I’ve contributed to one since I was able to. Beyond that, I want a solid nest egg split across short-term and long-term goals.
Once that savings structure is properly in place, the next step is figuring out how to actually invest it so my money starts working for me too. I’m still at the early stages of building that system, so I won’t overpromise on anything yet. It’s a work in progress.
You’ve worked incredibly hard since university. What have been some trade-offs?
The trade-off has changed at every stage. In my early twenties, it was sleep; I barely slept and eventually needed melatonin just to fall asleep.
These days, my sleep is better, so now it’s constant growth; I love a challenge. I’m always learning or in some class, and my laptop is practically glued to me. My friends actually beg for “no work” conversations when we hang out, because I can turn anything into a business discussion if they let me.
Kind of a workaholic.
But I don’t really see it as a sacrifice anymore, though. I’ve learned to genuinely love chaos.
If something in a business is falling apart and needs fixing, that’s where I thrive. I do cry or crash out sometimes, but underneath it all is real gratitude, and a stubborn resilience that pushes me through anyway.
You clearly have a strong personal network. What does maintaining that actually require of you?
Honestly, I used to be a terrible friend. I was so consumed by my own chaos and my own life that I wasn’t present for the people close to me, and it cost me some relationships.
Watching how intentional my husband is with his friendships changed something in my brain chemistry. It clicked for me that being a present friend is a deliberate act.
Since then, I’ve had to actively rebuild some of those friendships, sometimes by genuinely apologising and asking for another chance. Inconvenience is the price of community, and I try to pay it. That means actually checking in, telling people what they mean to me, showing up when it’s not convenient. It’s made a real difference.
What advice would you give anyone trying to advance their career, especially in tech?
Two things. First, don’t approach relationships transactionally, especially with people further along than you. Focus on genuinely being of value to people rather than thinking about what you can extract from them early on.
Second, open your mouth and talk. Ask for help. Say you’re struggling. I’ve reviewed CVs, mock-interviewed people, and reviewed Global Talent applications for people I’d never even spoken to before, purely because they asked. You won’t get a yes every time, but you’ll almost always get something. Women helping women is real, but it starts with actually asking.
