About the Speaker:

Nolan has been the Head of ayoba since March 2019. He has built a Product- and data-centric culture that has grown to over 2M monthly active users across Africa. Prior to ayoba, Nolan spent 13 years working with a variety of ecommerce startups, providing C-level leadership, operational and corporate strategy advice, and product and project management expertise. His startup journey has covered a wide range of industries, including real estate, financial services, biotechnology, automotive, and recruiting.

Nolan was previously Head of Trust and Safety at eBay UK for four years where he established and implemented European fraud prevention strategy, focused on building a better buyer experience. He also worked as a strategy consultant at Bain & Company and Burlington Consultants.

Nolan has an MBA (with Distinction) from the London Business School, specialising in Finance and Information Technology. He is a CFA Charterholder, and holds Bachelor’s degrees from the University of Cape Town in Information Technology and Actuarial Science.

About the Speaker:

Dr Geetha Thiagarajan is from Electrical Engineering background and with 20+ years of professional experience split between academia and industry.

Geetha is currently serving as Chief Technology Officer, Middle East and Africa at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS). In this role, she is responsible for spearheading TCS Research and Innovation for this geography. Prior to this role, Geetha was serving as Principal Innovation Evangelist for the region. During this tenure, she was running strategic long term co-innovation engagements with several customers in this region on areas like Smart Cities, Internet of Things, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics .

Before moving to Dubai, Geetha was a Senior Scientist in TCS Infrastructure Services lab at Indian Institute of Technology Research Park, Chennai, providing domain know-how in the development of software platforms for building energy management and wind energy prediction. During this tenure, she has authored/co-authored several publications for reputed journals and conferences plus has three patents granted and three under process.

Before joining TCS, Geetha has been an academician for close to 10 years in National Institute of Technology, Trichy and Rajiv Gandhi College of Engineering, Pondicherry.

About the Speaker:

James Kirby is SVP of EMEA at CSG, where he is responsible for go-to-market strategy and sales in the region. His expertise in international managed services and sales helps him craft service offerings that improve the customer experience. James brings nearly 20 years of business building, customer excellence, sales and delivery experience to his role. He has previously held product management, sales and services roles within CSG.

About the Speaker:

Cedric is a digital and financial inclusion professional with 12 years of global experience, working with mobile operators, payment networks, financial institutions and multi-lateral organizations. Over the past 6 years, Cedric has been working on the development of MTN Group Fintech strategy as well as the execution MTN Mobile Money product and business development across MTN Group footprint. MTN Mobile Money is live in 16 markets across Africa and Middle East with more than 38 million active monthly users.

About the Speaker:

George Thomas is our business Development Director. He has strong emerging market experience having worked extensively in regional and global markets. He has been the leading and managing several complex IT environments concurrently.

He has taken up different business development, solutions and services architecture roles and executed effective transformation solutions for large transformation projects throughout his 20+ years of experience in the IT industry.

About the Speaker:

" I am a Software Engineer with a strong fundamental knowledge in programming languages and architecture with multiple projects to showcase. I am passionate about continually learning new technology, have a deep sense of curiosity for technology, self studying and continuously seek to improve my skills. My areas of interest include Big Data, Container Development, Cloud Native development, Data Science and Blockchain. I love building apps, creating solutions and interacting with other developers. I have worked on multiple projects, centered around machine learning, innovative code solutions and UX development. I derive satisfaction from helping others learn by doing. I have enjoyed facilitating Software Development Fundamentals learning to high school learners over the course of 2019."

About the Speaker:

Shaun Strydom is a digital transformation and innovation leader having designed, built and implemented class leading digital citizen, identity and integrated platform ecosystem technologies across various industries and geographies over the past decade. Shaun is seen as one of the global innovators and thought leaders in this space. Has founded and established various businesses including Contactable. Shaun is also a Chartered Accountant and ex Deloitte Partner previously holding various senior executive positions at large organizations in Africa, Europe and the USA.

About the Speaker:

Julius has vast experience across multiple sectors (digital services, financial services, telecoms, mining, construction, transport, renewable energy & entertainment) spanning over 10 years as management consultant and implementation expert. Julius’s experience covers Product Design, Sales & Distribution, Data Analytics & Commercialisation of Products. Julius is versed in Design Thinking, Lean Methodology and Agile. Julius is passionate about starting new ventures and improving established high-performance businesses. Julius looks after MoMo South Africa Products & Service.