Happy Rugbere, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Staffmate, has been selected as a 2025 Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) Entrepreneur, earning seed funding through the Foundation’s flagship entrepreneurship programme.
The Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme supports African entrepreneurs whose businesses demonstrate the capacity to drive economic transformation, create jobs, and deliver sustainable growth across the continent.
Rugbere is a serial entrepreneur with more than a decade of operating experience. He began his entrepreneurial journey in the hospitality sector over ten years ago, building and scaling operations across Nigeria’s North-East. Working in these challenging environments exposed him to the operational strain and financial losses caused by chronic frontline staff turnover.
Those experiences would later shape the vision behind Staffmate.
After years of navigating high attrition rates, inconsistent service quality, and the rising costs of constant recruitment and retraining, Rugbere identified staff turnover as one of the most overlooked yet value-eroding problems facing African businesses, particularly within hospitality and other service-led industries.
Founded to address this gap, Staffmate is an African HR technology company focused on frontline workforce retention. The platform helps businesses predict employee resignations, strengthen employee financial security, and improve people management practices enabling organisations to retain talent, stabilise operations, and improve long-term productivity.
Staffmate was born from experience, not theory. After years of building hospitality businesses and watching great people leave due to avoidable challenges, it became clear that Africa’s workforce problems need structured, technology-driven solutions,” Rugbere said. “Being selected by the Tony Elumelu Foundation validates the importance of this work and strengthens our resolve to scale our impact across the continent.
With support from the Tony Elumelu Foundation, Staffmate plans to accelerate product development, expand its presence across key African markets, and deepen partnerships with businesses focused on building sustainable, people-first growth models.