Radhika Bhachu: Shifting Africa from Consumption to Owning

Africa-Press – Kenya. IN a region where capital markets have long felt distant, complex and reserved for the wealthy, a new wave of digital innovation is reshaping who gets to invest and how.

At the centre of this shift is Ndovu, a Kenyan-based investment platform that is steadily redefining access to global financial markets for ordinary Africans.

Founded in 2021, Ndovu has quickly positioned itself as one of East Africa’s leading fintech disruptors, enabling users to begin investing with as little as $50 while tapping into global assets once out of reach for most retail investors. The platform has already onboarded more than 200,000 clients, reflecting a growing appetite for wealth creation tools among a young, digitally connected population.

At the helm is Co-founder and CEO Radhika Bhachu, a former BlackRock and Deloitte professional whose vision is anchored in a simple but powerful idea: that Africans, as global consumers, should also be global owners. Her mission is not only to expand financial access but to fundamentally shift mindsets—from consumption to ownership, from saving to investing, and from exclusion to participation.

In this conversation with The Star, Bhachu reflects on building trust in fintech, scaling financial inclusion across Africa, and why the future of wealth on the continent will be defined by technology, discipline and access.

You founded Ndovu Wealth to democratise investing in Kenya—what gap did you see in the market that others were missing?

Ndovu began its journey five years ago as the first fund manager in East Africa to provide easy access to global investments. The reasoning was simple but profound: as Africans, we are global citizens. We consume products manufactured by global companies and priced in dollars, yet we earn in Kenyan shillings. That asymmetry is a structural disadvantage. If you are a global consumer, you should also be able to earn and own globally. The vision was to move Africans from a consumption mindset to an ownership mindset.

What has been your biggest leadership lesson since becoming CEO?

Humility. When we launched Ndovu, I came in with a clear picture of how clients would interact with the product and what problems we were solving. Most of those assumptions turned out to be wrong. The biggest lesson? 90 per cent of what you think you know at the start will be challenged by reality. So listen, really listen to the market and to your clients. Build for the problem that actually exists, not the one you imagined.

How do you define success for Ndovu Wealth beyond profitability?

Success is the day Ndovu becomes a household name and the decade after, when every African is a capital markets owner, whether they know it or not.

Many Kenyans still view investing as something for the wealthy. How are you changing that perception?

Ndovu’s founding ethos is democratisation, making capital markets accessible to everyone. On our platform, you can start with as little as $50. We were the first company in East Africa to make that possible, and today we have helped over 200,000 clients participate. More tellingly, capital markets participation in Kenya has grown from 172,000 to 3.2 million individuals. That is structural change. It tells you something important: Kenyans always wanted to invest. They just needed access. Digital distribution unlocked demand that was always there.

What role do digital platforms play in advancing financial inclusion across Africa?

The average African is digitally savvy and hungry for transparency about their money. Digital platforms let us put solutions in the hands of clients in rural areas, across income levels, and with varying financial needs, at scale and at speed. Technology removes the gatekeepers.

How do you balance accessibility with ensuring users understand investment risks?

This is one of the most important questions in our business. As a fiduciary, communicating risk isn’t optional— it is the foundation of the relationship. When a client signs up, our AI tools walk them through a series of questions to understand their financial position and investment knowledge, then recommend the right products for them. Accessibility and responsibility aren’t in tension. Done right, they reinforce each other.

Ndovu Wealth has grown rapidly—what has been the key driver behind this growth?

Three things working together: the right product, the right partnerships, and relentless focus on distribution. We built a product that solved a real problem, giving ordinary people access to investments that were previously out of reach. But product alone does not create growth. We layered on distribution partnerships which put Ndovu in front of millions of people who were already digitally active and financially underserved.

Meeting clients where they already are—on their phones, on platforms they trust, removed the friction that had always kept them out of capital markets. Underneath all of it is a team that executes without excuses. Growth at this scale does not happen by accident. It happens because the right people show up every day and do the hard work.

What are your expansion plans within East Africa or beyond?

We are already licensed to operate in Uganda and Rwanda. Over the long term we are eyeing expansion in 14 countries.

How do you stay competitive in a fast-evolving fintech space?

Three things in my experience. Become exceptional at identifying and executing on the specific levers that drive your growth. It sounds obvious. It is much harder than it sounds. Build a navy seal team. People who can execute in the trenches, not just strategise in the boardroom. Speed. It is the most underrated competitive advantage. Move faster than your competitors, learn faster and iterate faster.

What has been the toughest challenge you have faced building a fintech company in Kenya?

Trust. You can growth-hack user acquisition. You can A/B test onboarding. You can run referral campaigns and viral loops. But you cannot growth-hack trust especially not in financial services and especially not in markets where people have been burned before. When someone hands you their shilling, even their very first one, they are not just handing you money.

They are handing you their faith. Their future. Their family’s security. We learned that trust is built through consistency. Through showing up every month with transparent reporting. Through picking up the phone when a client is confused. Through never, ever overpromising on returns. Today, Ndovu serves over 200,000 clients. That didn’t happen because of a clever campaign. It happened because we earned it, one conversation at a time.

How do regulatory environments affect your innovation and operations?

Having spent over 15 years at BlackRock, a highly regulated business, I learned early how to navigate regulatory environments. My view is that regulation is not an obstacle, it is the foundation on which you build a strong, credible business. The work is in collaboration: educating regulators on new innovations, bringing them along on the journey, and building trust with the institutions that set the rules of the game.

Have there been moments where you doubted the business model? What kept you going?

Absolutely. But at Ndovu, we don’t see failure as an endpoint. We see it as data. An invitation to learn, pivot, and iterate. As Nelson Mandela said, “A winner is a dreamer who never gives up.” That belief lives in our culture. We will win.

How is technology reshaping how young Africans approach investing?

Technology has fundamentally changed how capital markets operate globally and locally. Young Africans are already using technology to generate income from their phones. Now they are using it to multiply that income. About 83 per cent of our clients are first-time investors. Technology removes the intimidation. It makes participation simple, transparent, and accessible and once people see their money grow, the mindset shifts permanently.

Are there emerging trends (AI, automation, etc.) that you are exploring?

Absolutely. We are deploying AI and automation across sales, client service, compliance, engineering, and investment management. I think of these tools not as replacements, but as multipliers; they allow a lean, sharp team to move with the speed and scale of a much larger organisation.

What inspired your journey into finance and entrepreneurship?

I grew up surrounded by strong women, my mother and grandmother, both of whom ran successful businesses. From them, I inherited the belief that one day I would run something of my own. Finance found me through mathematics. I have always loved watching things compound and multiply. After university, working in the pensions space, something clicked: if institutions can systematically build and grow wealth, why can’t individuals? That question became an obsession and eventually, Ndovu.

As a female CEO in fintech, what unique challenges or opportunities have you encountered?

The challenges remain varied. I’ll be direct: the gaps are real. Less than two per cent of venture funding globally goes to women-led businesses. You walk into rooms where you have to work twice as hard to be taken half as seriously. Early on, I had investors question whether I truly understood the African mass market, I had spent 15 years at one of the world’s largest asset managers.

The question was never really about competence. But being a female CEO in this space is also a genuine advantage. Our clients, many of them first-time investors, many of them women, see themselves reflected in Ndovu’s leadership. That builds trust faster than any marketing campaign. The discipline and long-term thinking women bring to leadership aren’t soft skills. They are the skills that build enduring businesses. I am not interested in just breaking through the ceiling. I want to tear it down so the women coming after me don’t have to have this conversation.

Who has influenced your leadership style the most?

My deepest leadership education came from my years at BlackRock. Working inside one of the world’s most sophisticated institutional asset managers shaped how I think about risk, governance, client relationships, and what it means to be a true fiduciary. I learned that excellence is not a moment, it is a standard you hold yourself to every single day, even when no one is watching. What I took from that experience wasn’t just technical knowledge. It was a leadership philosophy: be rigorous, be accountable, and never confuse activity with outcomes. Those principles travel. They are as relevant running a startup in Nairobi as they are managing institutional capital in London or New York.

I also learned what I wanted to do differently. BlackRock taught me the architecture of a great institution.

What impact do you hope Ndovu Wealth will have on the average Kenyan in the next five to 10 years?

Over the last four years, we have grown our clients’ wealth by 20 per cent year- on-year. Over the next decade, our goal is to show ordinary Kenyans what financial freedom actually looks like and to be the platform that got them there.

If you could change one thing about the investment culture in Africa, what would it be?

The relationship with time. Across the continent, there is a deeply ingrained instinct to prioritise immediate consumption over long-term ownership. I understand where it comes from—generations of economic instability make the present feel more urgent than the future. But it is costing us enormously. Wealth is built in decades, not days.

The most powerful force in finance is compounding and compounding requires patience. If I could shift one thing, it would be the widespread belief that investing is something you do when you are already wealthy, rather than understanding that investing is precisely how you get there. That mindset shift, at scale, would be genuinely transformational for this continent.

What advice would you give to young people looking to start investing today?

Just start. Start small, but start. The best time to invest was yesterday. The second best time is today. You cannot learn from something you have never tried and the cost of waiting is always higher than you think.

Looking ahead, what legacy do you hope to build?

I want to be remembered as part of the generation that permanently shifted Africa from a consumption continent to an ownership continent. My grandmother kept her savings in a mattress. My mother joined a bank. I invest in the S&P 500. That three-generation arc is the story of what becomes possible when access opens up.

My ambition is that millions of African families get to write their own version of that story , faster, with better tools and without the barriers my grandmother and mother faced. If in twenty years, capital markets participation across Africa is not measured in hundreds of thousands but in tens of millions and Ndovu played a meaningful role in that, then we did what we came to do. That is the legacy worth building.

The African financial landscape has historically been marked by limited access to capital markets, often perceived as exclusive to the wealthy. However, the rise of fintech companies like Ndovu is changing this narrative, enabling ordinary Africans to invest in global markets. This shift is crucial for fostering a culture of ownership and wealth creation across the continent, particularly among the youth who are increasingly digitally savvy.

As digital platforms gain traction, they are reshaping how young Africans approach investing. With tools that simplify access to financial markets, these innovations are not only enhancing participation but also encouraging a shift in mindset towards a

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