The Nigerian business strategist powering the global shift to driverless shared mobility

Business Insider

15-05-2025

In the emerging architecture of global transportation, few African executives have shaped the conversation, let alone the infrastructure, as profoundly as Tayo Oyegunle. A Yale MBA graduate and former investment analyst, Tayo has become a globally respected mobility strategist, helping transform transportation in high-growth markets through a disciplined combination of technology, financial innovation, and urban systems thinking.
Today, as the Head of Global Marketplace Partnerships at Moove, Tayo is core to aiding the next frontier in global mobility: with Moove's recent foray into the deployment of driverless electric vehicles via a recent partnership with Waymo, where it will lead the management infrastructure, Moove is primed to become a leading player in the new mobility world of autonomous vehicle that seeks to eliminate the need for private car ownership while unlocking inclusive access to movement at scale. From Lagos to London, Dubai to Delhi, his work at Moove stretches across nine countries on three continents, positioning him as one of the few Africans in top position at a business shaping how cities will move and grow in the next century.
Scaling the Infrastructure for Smart Autonomous Cities
Tayo's mandate is as complex as it is ambitious: to design and manage partnership strategies that grow Moove's fleet operations and products across new verticals and geographies. At Moove, he is part of the leadership team driving the company's evolution from a fintech startup to a full-stack infrastructure player capable of supporting post-ownership, frictionless urban transport ecosystems.
The model is revolutionary. In the cities Moove is partnering with revolutionzing and democratising is building toward, individuals will no longer need to own vehicles. Instead, fleets of connected, driverless electric cars will circulate continuously, summoned by users when needed and released when done. No parking. No idle assets. No emissions. These systems are designed to optimize vehicle utilization, dramatically reduce congestion, and democratize access to mobility without the financial burden of ownership.
'We're not just financing vehicles. We're architecting how people will move in the world ahead. Access will replace ownership. Intelligence will replace infrastructure. Mobility will be a service layer, shared, clean, and autonomous,' Tayo explains.
From Uber to Moove: A Record of Systems-Level Execution
Tayo's background uniquely qualifies him for this task. As Uber Nigeria's Country Manager, he led operations across three major cities and launched UberBOAT, the first water-based ride-hailing product in sub-Saharan Africa, in partnership with the Lagos State Waterways Authority. His expansion into Benin City aligned closely with state-level development policy, earning Uber recognition as a key enabler of jobs and mobility infrastructure.
He later became Vice President of Global Operations at Kobo360, where he managed the company's supply chain resilience during the COVID-19 crisis. With law enforcement agencies blocking food and medical logistics across the country, Tayo led rapid-response advocacy to unlock movement, stabilize markets, and safeguard public health. His role demonstrated not just logistical command, but high-level coordination with government, private stakeholders, and civil society.
Over these period he built operational and leadership muscles to run $100M+ business in the African mobility space and clearly distinguished himself as a thought leader in the scene.
Moove: The Strategic Evolution from Fintech to Mobility Infrastructure
In 2021, Tayo became Chief Operating Officer at Moove Africa, where he transformed the startup's model from vehicle financing to full-stack urban mobility enablement. He led Moove's expansion in South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya, providing access to financing for over 10,000 mobility entrepreneurs across the African continent and help to also scale the company's bouquet of product offerings, which served as a core of its launch into SouthEast Asia and the Middle East.
Supported by Tayo's strategic leadership, Moove is actively piloting the management of autonomous vehicle fleets in urban corridors in the US, building partnerships with EV infrastructure players, and partnering with its platform partners to push toward zero-emission in niche progress cities across the world.
Africa as a Platform for Global Urban Strategy
Tayo's strategic insight goes beyond deployment. He views Africa not as a lagging consumer of Western mobility trends, but as a launchpad for scalable, sustainable, and inclusive urban systems.
'Africa's transport infrastructure has gaps, but it also has flexibility. We can leapfrog legacy car ownership models and implement shared, electric, and autonomous solutions faster than the West. If we build right, we won't just catch up, we'll lead.'
He is currently laying the groundwork for a Pan-African Mobility Infrastructure Fund, a vehicle to finance EV adoption, smart fleet networks, and AI-based traffic coordination platforms. This fund will act as a continental investment arm, unlocking both public-sector alignment and private capital for large-scale infrastructure.
At a time when cities are overwhelmed by traffic, pollution, and outdated infrastructure, Tayo Oyegunle is offering a scalable vision grounded in technology, financial innovation, and global coordination. His leadership at Moove positions him as one of the most strategically significant Nigerian executives operating at a global level, not only because of the markets he's shaping, but because of the system-level transformation he is driving.
With a rare blend of Wall Street rigor, Silicon Valley vision, and deep African fluency, Tayo Oyegunle is not just building businesses. He is defining how the next billion people will move.
He is the Nigerian strategist guiding the world beyond car ownership toward a shared, intelligent, and inclusive mobility future.