She is an internationally renowned entrepreneur and business leader. She co-founded and heads Kwara, a startup that helps financial cooperatives better manage their operations using technology.
Cynthia Wandia, a Kenyan electrical engineer and entrepreneur, founded the start-up Kwara with David Hwan in 2018. Kwara, which she steers as CEO, offers financial cooperatives and their members a secure, enjoyable, and affordable online and mobile banking experience.
Based in Kenya, Kwara's mission is to enable the 3 billion under-served people worldwide to become financially stable and balanced. To achieve this, the start-up is modernizing and equipping savings and credit cooperatives with a banking services platform that updates and improves their back-office operations.
In January 2023, the startup, which already serves over 100,000 members, raised $3 million in seed capital and signed an exclusive digital solutions distribution agreement with the Kenyan Union of Savings and Credit Cooperatives (Kuscco), representing over 4,000 savings and credit cooperatives (Saccos) in Kenya.
"We believe that we have barely scratched the surface of the Kenyan market. That's why we're going to invest in products and services that will allow us to deepen our relationships here," said Cynthia Wandia.
"The logic of the agreement is clear: it's an opportunity to generate leads and distribute our core product as quickly as possible, and to deepen our competitive edge," she added.
Cynthia Wandia holds a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, obtained in 2009 from Yale University. In 2014, she co-founded ASTRA Innovations, an energy company where she served as CEO until 2017.
Before founding Kwara, she worked for several companies. In 2010, she served for six months as a business development consultant for the Mexican business accelerators network Aceleradora de Empresas ITESM. Between 2012 and 2014, she worked at E.ON Climate & Renewables, successively as a fleet performance analyst and director of special projects. In 2017, she joined Finparx, a business creation studio, as a project developer.
In 2018, the Kenyan newspaper Business Daily Africa named Wandia one of the country's 40 most influential women under 40.
