Full Bio
Chrissie Kayode is a visionary finance professional with nearly a decade of experience and specialization in Energy and Renewables. Renowned for her brilliance in crafting innovative financial solutions, Chrissie’s unique ability to merge creativity with financial acumen, drawing from her Economics and Strategic Design background, positions her as a leading figure in interdisciplinary problem-solving.
Throughout her distinguished career, Chrissie has excelled across the finance spectrum, from Investment banking to Corporate, Project Finance, Structured Finance, and Venture Capital. Beyond her work in Energy and Climate Finance, she plays a pivotal role in the entrepreneurial ecosystem as a trusted advisor to startup founders, guiding them in refining business models and unlocking value by leveraging her dual expertise in Strategic Design and Finance. Her deep knowledge of African and North American markets enables her to offer a unique perspective, particularly for entrepreneurs navigating the dynamic African business landscape.
Her leadership and expertise have earned her numerous prestigious accolades and awards. Chrissie serves as a Global Mentor at TechStars, the world’s most active pre-seed investor with a $115.7B market cap, as well as a Mentor at Village Capital (ClimateTech) and Nasdaq Milestone Makers. In 2024, she was named a Fellow at the Clean Energy Leadership Institute and an Emerging Voice in Sustainable Finance by Trellis Group, USA.
Chrissie has been recognized as a Sanofi Scholar and Future Woman in Tech, as well as a One Young World Ambassador, UK. Additionally, she was recognized as a top 3 Innovator at GLC 2021 and honored as a Young Global Leader by the University of Oxford and the St. Gallen Symposium. She is also a Young Professional at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). She was named a World Economic Forum Global Shaper.
In 2019, Chrissie founded the She Innovators Foundation, a nonprofit dedicated to empowering girls and women in rural communities. The Foundation forged strategic partnerships with Google and IBM to offer monetary scholarships for education and to introduce the girls to renewable energy concepts through storytelling and animations. In 2020, in response to the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Foundation provided free alternative education to over 200 children in rural Nigeria who lacked access to digital learning resources.
Chrissie holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Ibadan and a Master’s in Strategic Design and Management from Parsons School of Design.
An advocate for knowledge sharing, Chrissie is an adjunct professor of finance at Parsons School of Design, the leading design school in the U.S. and a top-three global institution.