Humans of Tech: Odun Olowookere

Meet Odun Olowookere, Director of Research, Digital Economy at the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI). If you meet Odun at a dinner party and ask what he does, his simple answer would be that he thinks about the future of money and who gets to shape it. On a given day, that might mean researching compliance frameworks for digital currencies, analyzing how payment systems are evolving across jurisdictions, or publishing on monetary law and financial regulation. His work has appeared in the IMF's Finance & Development magazine, and his collaborative research on digital currency compliance earned a Best Paper Award at the IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency in 2024.

But the job is not just research for research's sake. CIGI operates as an independent think tank with global reach, meaning Odun's analysis helps inform how governments and central banks approach everything from digital assets to the governance of emerging financial technologies. The work is technical, yes, but it is also deeply human. It is about who has access to financial systems, and how we build institutions that can adapt to change without collapsing under it.

If you looked at Odun Olowookere's resume five years ago, you might have wondered what story he was trying to tell. Law. Finance. Commercial litigation. Corporate finance. Energy infrastructure. Fintech. Banking regulation. Each credential was impressive on its own, but strung together they looked less like a career plan and more like a curious mind collecting tools without a blueprint.

"I was randomly acquiring credentials that I didn't think had any alignment," he told me, laughing at the memory.

Today, the alignment is clear. Odun is operating at the intersection where money, technology, law, and global governance collide. The litigation background matters. The corporate finance fluency matters. The energy and fintech regulation expertise matters. At CIGI, they do not just coexist, they are essential.

The Needle in the Haystack

Here is the thing about Odun: he is exactly the kind of candidate a standard keyword search would miss. He does not fit neatly into a single LinkedIn job title. He is not "just" a lawyer, or "just" a financier, or "just" a regulator. He is the rare combination that only makes sense when you see the whole picture, and that is precisely why Artemis knew he would be such a great fit for the role.

When Alex and Carly worked with CIGI to find Odun, they were finding a needle in a haystack across North America, as we often do: someone with the interdisciplinary depth to shape policy on digital assets, payment systems, and monetary law while understanding the institutional machinery required to actually implement it. CIGI needed a researcher who could speak the language of central bankers and engineers alike. Odun didn’t even realize there was a place that would benefit from everything he had learned.

It turned out to be a perfect match.

The Convergence

Odun moved to Kitchener-Waterloo to take the role, a relocation that signals how seriously he took the opportunity. For years, his eclectic path had felt like a collection of unrelated chapters. CIGI was the place where they finally read like a single story.

When I asked him the question I ask everyone in this series "When have you felt you truly belonged at work?" he did not hesitate.

"Right now," he said. "CIGI has given me the ability to use my skills and knowledge that I acquired over time. CIGI is the perfect place for me."

You could hear the relief in it, the relief of being somewhere that asks for the full breadth of what you can do, rather than asking you to file half your expertise away.

Looking Ahead

Odun's work is only going to get more consequential. As central banks around the world experiment with digital currencies, as payment systems fragment and consolidate, and as artificial intelligence begins to reshape financial decision-making, the questions he is asking today will become the policy frameworks of tomorrow.

What excites him is the chance to shape those frameworks from the ground up; not reactively, but proactively. To design institutions that are resilient enough to handle technologies we have not invented yet. To make sure that as the digital economy evolves, it does so with governance that protects stability and expands access.

The Bigger Picture

Odun is proof that the most interesting people in tech are not always the ones with the most obvious resumes. Sometimes they are the ones who have spent years building a toolkit until the right problem comes along. At Artemis, we love the needle in the haystack. The candidate who does not fit the template. The winding path that reveals itself as a perfect combination of experience. The person who needs a role as unique as they are.

Odun found that role at CIGI, and we are proud to have been the matchmakers.