Currently
Founder & Delivery Partner, Tehillah Solutions
Advise founders and business leaders on product strategy and growth, run discovery workshops, and deliver digital transformation and product capability training to organisations and founders across the UK.
Business Development Manager (part-time), Dicem Limited
Built a structured prospect-qualification framework — operational pain, buying trigger, budget, decision-maker access — replacing ad hoc outreach, and proposed a lead-generation industry event.
Senior Product Manager
At Cowrywise I owned strategy and delivery across five digital investment products end to end — working across Engineering, Compliance, Marketing and Operations. I introduced RICE-based prioritisation that lifted product adoption 30%, ran research with 200+ users to find what was actually driving behaviour, and used SQL, Metabase, Firebase and Microsoft Clarity to keep decisions evidence-based rather than opinion-based.
Sprout — £0 to £5M+ AUM in a year
Challenge Cowrywise wanted to open a B2B investment product for small businesses — a new segment with no internal playbook.
What I did Owned strategy and go-to-market, built the roadmap, launched with Engineering, Compliance and Marketing, then expanded the range (Naira Fixed Notes, Halal Funds, Dollar Fixed Notes) and added reporting features based on direct user feedback. Took the product on the road too — led the opening workshop at Lagos Startup Expo 2023, teaching small business owners how to use Sprout to grow.
Result £5M+ (₦3bn+) in Assets Under Management within twelve months.
Explore — financial literacy at scale
Challenge Users needed to understand wealth-building, but written content wasn’t landing.
What I did Research and behaviour analytics showed a clear preference for video over text. Built an in-app learning feature around video content, sustained through YouTube distribution.
Result 100,000+ users educated on wealth creation, with a measurable lift in engagement.
Money Duo — designing for two people, not one
Challenge Individual savings products don’t fit couples saving toward shared goals.
What I did Led development of a joint-savings product, including “Buckets” for goal-specific allocation, and redesigned onboarding for two-person setup.
Result Improved onboarding conversion and engagement through personalised, shared goal tracking.
- RICE-based prioritisation → 30% increase in product adoption across the portfolio
- Research and analytics with 200+ users to shape the roadmap
- Cross-functional ownership across Engineering, Compliance, Marketing and Operations
- Own identity, fraud prevention, security and compliance considerations across onboarding, payment and investment journeys
“She demonstrated exceptional leadership skills… delivered high quality work, was quite attentive to details and constantly steered the team towards having a clear understanding of the vision.”
— Yarmirama Grace Ashama, AVP Product, Cowrywise
“Esther possesses a remarkable blend of business acumen, technical expertise, and analytical prowess… she dives headfirst into challenges, fearlessly navigating ambiguity and consistently delivering impactful results.”
— Khose Grillo, Senior Product Manager (worked with Esther at Cowrywise)
- Tech Nation UK Global Talent nomination (2023)
- Exceptional Product Manager Award, Techtrend Africa (2022)
- Trained and mentored 100+ aspiring product managers
- Public speaker: Lagos Startup Expo, main-stage workshop (2023)
Technical Delivery Manager
I started as a software engineer building the backend for high-volume SME banking transactions, then moved into owning API products and coordinating delivery across six scrum teams. That path means I can read a dependency graph as easily as a stakeholder map — and a Firstbank colleague credits me with catching a regulatory misinterpretation early enough to keep an entire initiative out of trouble.
API Developer Portal — six teams, one delivery cadence
Challenge FCMB needed an enterprise API developer platform for external fintech integration — a build spanning six scrum teams across Engineering, Architecture, QA and Design.
What I did Owned product strategy and roadmap; coordinated delivery across all six teams; managed technical dependencies and competing priorities; led the transition from waterfall to Agile, introducing stronger prioritisation and iterative delivery.
Result Cut developer integration time by 30%; the portal became a new revenue stream for the bank.
Digital onboarding & SME lending APIs
Challenge First Bank needed account-opening, payment and SME lending capability delivered as scalable, compliant API products — with fraud prevention and payment security non-negotiable.
What I did Owned the API products end to end, translating business, regulatory and security requirements into platform capability. Worked closely with Engineering, Data, Legal, Policy and Compliance. Led stakeholder alignment across technical and non-technical teams through an Agile transformation.
Result Cut onboarding turnaround time by 36+ hours, and caught a regulatory misinterpretation early enough to avoid what a colleague called “dire consequences” for the initiative (see testimonial below).
- Built backend services and APIs supporting high-volume SME banking transactions, contributing to £4M+ in annual payment processing (FCMB, Software Engineer)
- Worked with QA and DevOps on testing, deployment and recovery processes to improve service resilience
- This is the foundation for reading architecture and dependency conversations directly, rather than through a translator
“Esther’s strong engineering background proved invaluable — for example, when we worked together on a regulatory requirement that the misinterpretation would have led to dire consequences, she was able to spot it early and steer the team back on track… a dedicated and reliable team player, always willing to go the extra mile.”
— Bea O., CBAP, CPM, CSPO, Senior Product Manager (Firstbank Digital Innovation Lab)
Led planning and execution of Faith Blue Musicals, a 2,000+ attendee conference — coordinating volunteers, performers and external partners end to end.