On an exciting journey to provide financial access to millions of underserved Africans

We focus on creating a marketplace that allows seamless flow of money and information and through this create opportunities for all actors to access finance and working capital affordably and conveniently.

My previous role was at Cellulant Kenya limited which is a leading digital payments business in Kenya. I led a team of 40+ experienced digital payments experts that run a network of 14 major banks, 3 leading MNO’s and over 60 tier 1 merchants with an annual revenue base of over $10M growing at 40% annually.As part of my role as the General Manager, I oversaw the overall operations of the country, also responsible for new partnerships – signed patnerships with Finserve Africa (Equitel) to power mobile collections across Africa, Standard Chartered Bank to digitize school payments in Kenya, ICT Authority to digitize government collections, numerous mobile banking partnerships with major banks like KCB, CooP, Barclays, Stanbic & Diamond Trust Bank.Over the last 2 years, I have built a team of 40 with diverse skill sets ranging from Software Engineers, Product Managers, Service Managers, Engagement Managers, Data Analysts and Direct Sales. I also put together an experienced Country Management team that runs the business on a day to day basis.To support the consumer business, I engaged with the Central Bank of Kenya National payments team to apply for and acquire a payments license.I was also instrumental in getting Cellulant to become a core member of the Payments Association of Kenya which is the umbrella body for PSP's under the National Payments Act.Core Skills:• Stakeholder engagement – Governments. Regulators, Key Industry players, Shareholders • General Management - Budgeting, Technology Planning and Service delivery, Customer Engagement, Product Management, Talent Acquisition• Business Development – Market entry, partnership agreements, sales.• Contract Negotiations – Government relations, Master agreements, Commercial modelling.• Product Development – Product design, Implementation and Documentation; • Project Team Resourcing – Talent acquisition, Project & Budget Management;• Project Management

As the Group Business Development Manager at Cellulant, I was measured by my ability to onboard ecosystem partners that enriched the Cellulant Payment Gateway. During this time, I led multiple Digital Payments Projects in Africa, recently in 2016, I led the team that developed and deployed a Mobile Banking and Payments solution for Ecobank across their 34 African markets, giving Cellulant a reach in Digital Payments covering 34 countries. Other projects include the Standard Bank Mobile Banking covering 8 countries in Africa, NIC mobile banking project covering 3 countries, Standard Chartered Mobile payments project covering 3 countries. Mobile Operator partnerships in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, Ghana, Malawi, Namibia, Burundi and Mozambique. This network of over 90+ Banks gave Cellulant a leading edge in Digital Payments in Africa.A key success factor for this role was the ability to engage with and align with all stakeholders in each market we chose to operate in. I also had the opportunity to engage with the government and regulators in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Malawi, Namibia and Mozambique.The huge payments dis-integration in Africa is an opportunity for any payments’ business to solve for the challenges in each country, to succeed, all stakeholders must be onboard and at times, you have to participate actively in legislation and policy formulation to create an enabling environment for business and new products.

In 2013, I set out on an incredible journey of setting up the operations of Cellulant Uganda from scratch by setting up infrastructure nodes into the major Mobile Money operators and on-boarding 5 key Financial Service providers for whom we powered their mobile payments. During this period, I was able to sign up 5 commercial partnerships with banks in Uganda and roll out several digital finance projects for banks and Mobile Network operators in Uganda enabling me to generate revenue of $500,000 in my first year and build a team of 11 who run the business to date.This assignment was my first encounter with a regulator, being one of the earlier fin-tech players in the market, I had to engage with the regulator UCC and the largest MNO then MTN to get numerous approvals to launch the first ever Digital Financial Services product.Worked with the Grameen foundation to set up the first even Digital Financial Services platform in Uganda with a savings platform in partnership with Pride Microfinance - link here http://nextbillion.net/blogpost.aspx?blogid=5377Handed over operations to a team of highly qualified Ugandans late 2014 and proceeded to take over a Business Development role at the group office.

As my first assignment when I joined Cellulant, I led a multi-skilled team in Kenya in bidding for, negotiating and implementing a mobile banking project for Stanbic bank in Kenya.We also brought on board NIC Bank mobile banking, Bank of Africa and Ecobank in Kenya. My success with multiple banking installations in Kenya saw me promoted to GM in Uganda to set up operations in that market.

I spent 4 and a half years at Access Kenya, starting off as an Account Manager in charge of over 100 corporate ISP customers. Over the 4 and half year period, I rose to the team leader position, leading a team of 22 Account Managers handling a portfolio of 3000+ corporate customers with a revenue base of over $1.2M monthly.Our core objective as the CRM team was to create deeper relationships with our customers and grow our revenue base from the existing customers. We sustained 40% market share over the 4 years and retained 95% of recurrent revenue YoY.

Led a team of 3 Account Managers. Managed a portfolio of 100+ Corporate customers with retention, development and Growth as key deliverables for the team.

Manage a portfolio of 100+ corporate customers through retention by managing revenue attrition, developing sustainable business relationships and growing revenue through up-selling and cross selling.

Direct Sales and Relationship Management