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Islam Shawky, Co-Founder & CEO, Paymob (Egypt)

Shawky’s impact on the fintech industry in Africa and the Middle East cannot be overstated. He is widely recognised as a pioneer in the Africa digital payments space, having co-founded Paymob. The Cairo-headquartered omnichannel payments facilitator that has a 1,100-person strong team across the MENA and Pakistan. It offers more than 40 payment methods, and it empowers over 150,000 SME merchants to manage and scale their businesses. The company has partnered with the Central Bank of Egypt, banks, telcos, and other fintech companies to push the ecosystem forward.

Through Paymob’s innovative infrastructure technology, SMEs across the MEA region can now accept digital transactions through a variety of methods, including cards, digital wallets, tap-on-phone, and flexible payments with a buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) model. This has greatly enhanced financial inclusion in the region, making it easier for more people to participate in the digital economy.

In recognition of his contribution to the fintech industry, Shawky was named an Endeavour Entrepreneur in 2022, and he was also appointed as a member of the Board of Trustees of the Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center (TIEC). His achievements have not gone unnoticed, with Paymob raising $50 million in Series B funding in May 2022, bringing its total funding to over $68.5 million.

Shawky’s impact on the digital payments landscape is truly remarkable, and his story is an inspiration to entrepreneurs and innovators everywhere. Through his vision and leadership, he has transformed the fintech industry in Africa and the Middle East, making it easier for people to participate in the digital economy and driving economic growth and development in the region.

Benjamin Fernandes CEO, NALA (Tanzania)

Benjamin Fernandes is the founder and CEO of NALA, a digital financial services platform that enables people to access their financial accounts in one application while allowing them to make mobile money payments offline (internet-free). Nala originally started in Tanzania and spread its wings to the rest of East Africa in 2022. In 2023, the fintech start-up has already launched in Europe and has shown promise to achieve a lot more this year.

Fernandez is held in high regard as he has broken a record in the country. In 2017, he became the first Tanzanian in history to attend both the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government. Before founding Nala, he had an eventful and lifestyle. He has worked for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and was at one time revered as one of the biggest sports reporters in Tanzania.

Born and raised in Dar es Salaam, he had the opportunity to study abroad where he got a chance to work for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Tanzanians still freshly remember his decision to bring his skills back home even after he qualified for a hefty salary after as a post-graduate at Stanford, renowned as the institution having the highest post MBA salary in the world).

Sam Chappatte Co-Founder and CEO, KAPU (Kenya)

The man who is majorly credited for the growth of Jumia, Kenya, and pretty much the growth of e-commerce in the East African region. Sam left Jumia in late 2020, and went incognito, reemerging with e-commerce start-up, Kapu. He even managed to persuade former Jumia executives to join Kapu.

Kapu had been in operation for almost a year, but the official launch came in late 2022. Shortly after the launch, the e-commerce start-up raised $8 million in seed funding, which listed it among our top 10 start-ups of the year in 2022, Africa.

Sam prides himself as someone who strives to find ways to make it African’s lifestyle more affordable by inspiring them to shop online. He is a champion of e-commerce with over a decade’s worth of experience in the e-commerce sector and holds a Master’s degree in Management from the ESCP Business School.

Dr Amr Awadallah, Founder & CEO, Vectara (Egypt)

Dr Amr Awadallah wears many hats in the technology sector and has influence in the African continent and beyond. In his technology journey, he has worked on various IT sub-topics and has also worked for Yahoo and Google, and has also founded a couple of start-ups. He is currently focused on AI and ML through his recent, and very new start-up, Vectara, a neural network technology platform.

In 2022, he was appointed to the board of a Saudi Arabia based customer experience analytics company, Lucidya. Vectara also raised $20 million in its seed round in October 2022, a round funded by tech and search pioneers from across tech companies such as Slack and Google, alongside leading technology venture funds. Vectara launched its first product, Neural Search-as-a-Service, which leverages large language models to understand the intent behind user queries and bring meaning to search.

Prior to founding Vectara, Awadallah was the Vice President of Developer Relations at Google Cloud. Before his tenure as VP at Google Cloud he was the Co-Founder and CTO at Cloudera (where he exited for $5.3 billion), a global software company which provides enterprise data management systems to customers worldwide. He was also VP Engineering for Product Intelligence at Yahoo for eight years following their buyout of Aptivia.

Amr holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and a Master of Science in Computer Engineering, both from Cairo University. He got his PhD from Stanford University.

Kenneth Ogwang’ Head of Digital and Technology - Eastern and Southern Africa, Diageo (Kenya)

Ogwang’ is one of the pioneering techies on the frontline of incorporating technology into manufacturing. As the Head of Digital and Technology for Eastern and Southern Africa at Diageo, Kenneth has been using technology to improve manufacturing in the continent. He is a role model to the next generation of CIOs as a previous CIO of the Year winner, bagging the award in 2016.

His latest fully implemented project earned Diageo the Company of the Year, Africa, at the 2022 Digital Transformation (dx100) Awards. The project, Supply Manufacturing Automation: Harford Deployment Programme, Africa, was based on Diageo’s vision to become “The best data insights-driven” consumer product company, unleashing the power of data with consumers, customers, and suppliers to create competitive advantage. Hartford aims at delivering a paperless factory, enabling realtime data and insights that retrospectively complement existing manufacturing execution tools.

It also supported growth across Africa through higher OEE (Overall Equipment Effectiveness) while implementing foundational network infrastructure allowing the markets to continue building future capability on OT (operational technology), cybersecurity, supply analytics, and eventually creating a smart factory. Hartford has been implemented in Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Cameroon, Ghana and Nigeria, a process which begun amidst COVID challenges.

He was also listed among the Top 25 Men in Digital 2022 In Kenya by Soma Awards. This just adds to his multiple awards thanks to his work over the years. Ogwang’ holds a Bachelor’s degree in Statistics & Computing from Makerere University and an MBA in Strategic Administration from the United States International University (USIU).

Adetayo Bamiduro Co-Founder & CEO, Max.ng (Nigerian)

Adetayo is the Co-Founder and CEO of Max.ng, a Nigerian mobility tech platform. Born and raised in Nigeria, Bamiduro met his cofounder, Chinedu Azodo, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). With a career spanning software development, product management, and consultancy, he entered the world of tech entrepreneurship with Max.ng.

In 2022, Max.ng passed the 100 million km range for their total distance covered. It is approximately 260x the distance between earth and the moon. During the same year, the company raised $31 million, thus bringing its total equity and debt financing to $70 million. With strategic partnerships, including one with ride-hailing company Bolt, they co-financed the purchase of 10, 000 low-emission cars for drivers in Nigeria.

With Max.ng, Adetayo has connected last-mile delivery and online-retail infrastructure for Africa by using mobile and web platforms to connect consumers, retail businesses and independent drivers in real-time. Max.ng is eliminating all logistics, payments, and technology barriers that have prevented African retail from attaining escape velocity.

Adetayo holds a BSc in Computer Science from the University of Ibadan and an MBA from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

Pieter de Villiers, CEO and Co-Founder of Clickatell Inc., (South Africa)

Pieter is an entrepreneur who spent over 10 years in Silicon Valley with a passion for Chat commerce and the empowerment of people. He is currently serving as the CEO and Co-Founder of Clickatell Inc., a leading global provider of application-2-person messaging and mobile transaction services provider. He is, however, mostly known as one of the youngest mobile industry veterans with over 21 years of experience in global telecoms, mobile messaging and mobile payments backed by the likes Sequoia Capital.

As of 2022, Clickatell was considered one of the most successful startups in Africa having grown to a more than $1 billion worth start-up. In its latest funding round, Series C round, Clickatell secured $91 million which made it the start-up that raised the most funds in 2022. Furthermore, the Pieter-founded start-up is also among the few start-ups in Africa that have delivered double-digit profitable growth for several years, in the past recent years.

Clickatell boasts an industry-first ability to combine communication and commerce in one comprehensive Chat Commerce proposition and introduced one of the world’s first chat banking solutions on WhatsApp, the world’s largest chat platform. Today, Clickatell is uniquely positioned to capitalise on the intersection between communications (CPaaS, CCaaS) and commerce (digital payments) – offering a complete end-to-end Chat Commerce Platform. The start-up serves more than 10,000 customers, many of which are Fortune 500 companies and leading global brands. Pieter holds a BSc. in Optometry from the University of Johannesburg.

Tesh Mbaabu Co-Founder and CEO, MarketForce, (Kenya)

Tesh is a serial technology entrepreneur who prides himself on being an expert in blending commerce and technology. He is the Co-Founder and CEO of MarketForce, a B2B commerce platform that empowers over 200,000 neighbourhood merchants across five African markets to source, order and pay for inventory, access financing, and earn more by reselling financial services in their communities.

MarketForce is the main thing that puts him on this prestigious list. In 2022, MarketForce was among the African start-ups that registered high growth and was also among the elites that managed to raise a substantial amount in seed funding; $40 million in its Series A funding round was then used to widen its footprint across Africa and scale up its super app for Africa’s informal merchants.

Tesh is also a Partner at Mesozi, an IT holding company offering and investing in tech-enabled solutions across several industries and markets in Africa. He has also Co-Founded Cloud9xp, an African leisure experience booking platform which exited to HotelOnline in 2020.

Prior to founding Mesozi, Tesh was the Founder and Creative Director of a graphic, web and digital design agency, Tesh Technologies Limited (TeshTeq), a venture he started at 18. He holds a BSc in Computer Science from The University of Nairobi.