Inside the Numbers with Olajide: How Data Drives Strategy at SeerBit

For our blog piece interview this week, we had a sit-down with Olajide Aderibigbe, the Commercial Insights Business Manager who sits at the intersection of analytics and impact. With a strong background in FMCG and a passion for real-time data, Olajide shares how he transforms raw numbers into actionable insights that influence everything from pricing and product to partner optimisation. If you’ve ever wondered how SeerBit stays agile and informed in Africa’s fast-paced payment space, this is the story behind the strategy.   

Can you tell us about yourself and what you do at SeerBit as the Commercial Insights Business Manager? 

 My name is Olajide Aderibigbe, and I'm the Commercial Insights Business Manager at SeerBit. I play a strategic role at the intersection of data, business performance, and commercial growth. My primary responsibility is to turn data into actionable insights that inform key business decisions across our payment ecosystem.   

On a typical day, I work closely with a cross-functional team including sales, marketing, product and finance to strategise and also to analyse customer behaviour, market trends, and transaction performance. I build and manage dashboards, lead commercial reporting, and deliver presentations that guide pricing strategies, partner optimisation and revenue growth initiatives. In essence, I help the organisation understand the reason why something is happening in the market or internally and what we can do to drive smarter decisions and more sustainable commercial outcomes.  

 Well, my role also involves scenario modelling and forecasting to support executive plans and strategy initiatives at SeerBit, where I work, where innovation in payment is fast-paced and competitive, having a pulse on the numbers and what they mean is critical. That is where my work adds value. Thank you. 

Wow, interesting. You sound like the busiest person at SeerBit. 

I try and I give my best. 

Thank you for that. So, how would you say your work directly supports SeerBit’s growth and strategy in the market? What’s the direct impact of your work? 

I would say my work supports SeerBit’s growth by providing data-driven insights which influence key commercial decisions, from identifying high-performing sectors to optimising pricing and forecasting revenue, which is very important for us here. I also help to ensure our strategy is backed up with real-time market intelligence. This enables the business to scale efficiently, target the right opportunities and stay competitive in the market. 
 
 So, that would mean that there's barely any strategy SeerBit wants to try out that doesn't exactly go through you first? 

 Um, majorly, yes. 

 Interesting. So, you mentioned your work with data, right? What kind of data or KPIs do you spend most of your time analysing?  

 Most of the time, I analyse key revenues for growth. Those are the KPIs that I concentrate on, such as transaction volume, merchant performance, average revenue per user and sectoral trends. I also track conversion rate and customer acquisition cost. Well, the customer acquisition cost is mainly finance, but of course, my work leans into it also and takes the rates to understand the profitability and optimise commercial strategies. 

Can you share with us an example of a project where your work with data led to making a key business decision at SeerBit? 

One of the significant projects I've worked on involves analysing a transaction failure rate across different payment channels that we have. I noticed there's one unusual spike in the failure rate from a certain merchant (I don't want to mention the merchant's name), which was beginning to impact our user experience and merchant satisfaction. So, I did a deep dive analysis, segmenting the data by payment channel type, which the merchant actually concentrates on. My findings revealed that a large portion of failures were coming from a particular payment processor during payment or repayment, primarily affecting the merchant in retail sectors.  

 With this insight, I presented a data-backed recommendation to the operation teams and the product teams to reroute a portion of traffic from the processor that was giving us issues to a more reliable partner during peak periods.  

 This solution was implemented within two weeks. As a result, it reduced the transaction failure rates by over 40%, we recovered the merchant’s confidence and even saw a 7% spike in transaction volume from previously impacted merchants in the following quarter. So, this initiative not only improved our performance metrics, but it also strengthened our reputation and reliability in the competitive market that SeerBit operates in.  

So, seeing how data is crucial to your work and the organisation’s success as well. How do you ensure data quality and accuracy of data within your reports? 
 
Data quality and accuracy are very critical as a commercial insight person. I always start by validating the integrity of the data source, making sure that they are actually pulled from the right system, whether it is raw transaction logs from CRM tools or any payments gateway. I use SQL to apply filters, join and transformations carefully, while always checking for duplicates and abnormalities. Once data is extracted and all the errors are removed, I perform cross-validation against previous reports, and dashboards to support inconsistencies or outliers.  

I also implement sanity checks to compare trends, week over week, or month over month, and sometimes you compare what you have now versus the same period last year, to check the growth, and ensure that all numbers are aligned with expected behaviours.  

 Let me give an example. When there’s a sudden spike or a drop in volume for a particular merchant. You need to check what the cause of it is. What triggered the dive down to confirm the accuracy of the data? In reporting, I mainly use Excel, Power BI, and also pivot tables. 

 I often automate my template to reduce manual efforts. When you automate your template, it reduces errors also, and gives you more accurate data. I share my primary output after all these numbers and data are driven, and my primary stakeholders are sales teams, marketing teams and also finance.  

 So, for the check, especially in insights, where I need to give them some high-impact decisions, this collaboration ensures both the numbers and the narrative are correct and they are aligned with business goals, which is very important. 

Oh, interesting. You mentioned working with the sales and marketing team to align what you're doing with the goals of the organisation, but can you be more precise on how your work with these teams drives SeerBit's main objectives? 

Okay. For example, supporting sales teams is by identifying high-performing customer segments; the industry where we have good merchants that are more viable for the business, to help them focus on the right leads. With the products team, I share data on feature usage and transaction behaviour to guide improvements on their part. And for the marketing team, I give them leads to support their campaigns.  These partnerships are built on regular checks-in, shared dashboards, and clear communication to ensure that the data given is not just delivered, but is applied effectively to drive SeerBit’s growth and efficiency. The main purpose of this data is to ensure that the company is growing and performing optimally. Thank you. 

Alright. Thank you very much for that. Next is, what's something about the commercial side of payments that most people might not realise? 

One thing many people don't realise is how thin the margin can be on the commercial side of payments and how much volume, in terms of price strategy and operational efficiency, matters. It is not just about processing transactions. It's about optimising rates, managing costs, like the chargeback that we always have, or settlement delay and finding the right mix of merchants and sectors to stay profitable.  

 Also, every change in the pricing or policy from interchange fees, like the FX rate, has a ripple effect on customers behaviour and revenue, especially in Africa where you have different countries. So commercial success in payment isn't just technical, it is deeply strategic and requires constant balancing of risk, cost and definitely, growth. 

So, what are the major challenges that you face when interpreting data for decision making? 

One of the biggest challenges is ensuring that the data tells the full story, not just a snapshot. It's easy to misinterpret trends and numbers without the right context, like seasonality, product changes or external market shifts. For example, a dip in transaction volume might seem alarming, but it could be tied to a holiday period or a system migration, or maybe there's an upgrade on the system from the merchant side. Like the example I gave earlier, when we have a deep dive on a merchant transaction, I need to look deep into it. But it’s not always alarming.  

 Another challenge is aligning different data when you have different data sources. 
Sometimes, teams pull metrics differently. Some teams will get some information which is different from what you have, or define their KPIs in a different way. So, a big part of my role is to ensure we are asking the right questions using clean, unified data and interpreting it with the right business context in mind before making high-impact decisions. That is my major role. 

What do you think are the most exciting opportunities within Africa's payment landscape? 

What excites me the most about the African payment landscape is the massive potential for digital inclusion and innovations. With a large unbanked population that we have in Africa, the rise in smartphone penetration and the ongoing digital economy, there is a real opportunity to build a scalable, homegrown payment solution that solves uniquely African challenges.  I'm also particularly excited about the rise of the embedded finance sector-specific payment solutions, like SMEs, Agritech and retail, and the potential of real-time payments. It drives financial assets.  

There is also a growing interest in cross-border payments, which we are into now, and regional integration. This can unlock trade and economic growth across the continent. So, it's a dynamic space where data, technology and strategy intersect. Being a part of the evolution in Africa is incredibly rewarding. 

 All right. Great response. Thank you very much. Let's talk a little about you. What inspired you to pursue a career in commercial analysis, especially within fintech? 
 
So you're going back to my grassroots. I actually came from the FMCG industry, and I was always drawn to how data drives every business decision, pricing, distribution, and consumer behaviour. But what really inspired me to move into commercial analysis within the fintech industry was the pace, the complexity and the impact within the payments space. 

In FMCG, you work with large volumes and market trends, but in fintech, every transaction tells a story in real-time. So, the opportunity here is to work with live data. You influence revenue strategy and directly shape how people or businesses move money. How people and businesses move money across Africa was too exciting to be ignored.  Fintech offers me the chance to apply my commercial acumen in a much more dynamic environment, where innovation, speed, and data-driven decisions are central to growth. That's what inspired me and drew me into fintech.    

How did you find the switch from FMCG to fintech? Was it difficult? 

It's not difficult at all. As I said, FMCG deals with a much higher volume, while in the fintech industry, every day and every transaction count. That's the basic thing. There's not much difference, otherwise. So, switching from FMCG to a fintech company was not difficult at all.  

 What do you find most rewarding about your work at SeerBit? 

OK, I hope my MD will hear this (laughs). What I find most rewarding is seeing my work and my insight influence real business outcomes. Whether it is helping the sales team hit their growth target, shaping product improvement or unlocking revenue opportunities. At SeerBit, the impact of data is immediate and tangible, and knowing that my work contributes to the growth of a leading African (and the best) fintech company, which is SeerBit, makes it even much more fulfilling. Thank you. 

 So, what skills do you think are essential for someone who wants to succeed in commercial analysis? 
 
To succeed in commercial analysis, you need to have a strong mix of technical and business skills. That's the first one. Analytical skills are also very critical. You should be comfortable with data tools like Excel, SQL, Power BI, Python and the like, and know how to extract insights that drive decision making. Equally, it's also important in commercial awareness, understanding how revenue flows, what drives profitability and how different teams impact business performance. 

Communication is another key skill. Being able to translate complex data into simple actionable insight for non-technical stakeholders is what sets great analysis apart. Lastly, curiosity and problem-solving are very essential. You need to ask the right question, challenge assumptions, and stay adaptable in a fast-changing environment like Fintech, because we have so many competitors out there.  

 What advice would you give to a young analyst who wants to break into fintech? 

My advice to young analysts or people who are coming in is to focus on building strong fundamentals. They need to focus on building strong fundamentals in data analysis. Learn tools like SQL, Excel and Power BI. Power BI gives them the visualisation platform, which is very important. But beyond the technical skills, they need to invest in understanding how fintech works, how money moves, how products are monetised, and what metrics matter in digital finance. They need to be curious and ask the why question a lot. Read industry reports, follow fintech news, learn new case studies, and try to get hands-on experience through internships, side projects or even by analysing open data sets.  

Most importantly, they don't need to just chase insight. They should show that they can use that data to solve real problems. It's not just about chasing insight. They need to know that they can use this data to solve real problems, not just create a dashboard. That mindset is what sets you apart in the fast-paced and high-growth industry as fintech industry.  
 
Thank you very much, Mr. Olajide. It was nice having this insightful conversation with you.  

Thank you. Have a great day.