CEO

Akshay Grover

Akshay Grover is the Group CEO at Cellulant with the responsibility for driving the strategic direction and expansion of the business across Africa.

Prior to Cellulant, Akshay held multiple C-level positions at iSON, a diversified group with a presence in 30+ countries and 25000+ employees in the MEA and Asia Pacific region. During his stint at iSON, Akshay led the restructuring of its technology business, enabled multiple rounds of private equity capital raise for the BPO business and drove the expansion of the group into the ME, North and South Africa regions via multiple acquisitions. Akshay also played a vital role in evangelizing iSON tower – a newly created digital infrastructure platform in the south east Asia region. In his capacity as the Chief Investment Officer for iSON – Akshay co-led the creation, definition and execution of the investment strategy of ISONs technology investment arm – ‘i3’.

Prior to ISON, Akshay spent 10+ years in investment banking at Ernst & Young and leading investments at the USD4bn+ TMT investment arm of Dubai Holding. During this tenure he has closed transactions in excess of USD 5bn.

A management graduate with specialization in Finance from one of India’s premier business schools, Akshay was selected by a leading credit rating agency as the ‘CRISIL Young Thought Leader’ and was identified amongst the top 15 ‘Leaders’ across the country by the Indian Institute of Management.

Chief Revenue Officer

David Waithaka

David is a seasoned Strategist and Pioneer in the Fintech space in Africa with over 15 years of experience in the industry. He is a commercially astute executive with a background in finance. 

He joined Cellulant in 2007 as part of the business support services team and has been an integral part of managing Cellulant’s expansion into various markets across Africa.

In his current role as Group Chief Revenue Officer, David is responsible for defining the commercial structure with customers, establishing various go-to-market routes and defining commercial partnerships. He manages the teams driving execution across East, Central and North Africa as well as the Global Payments business.

Chief Growth Officer

Milkah Wachiuri

Milkah is a passionate executor who believes in the ability of the African continent to take its place in the world. She enjoys working on truly transforming teams and individuals to realise their potential fully. 

She joined Cellulant in 2012 to build the Group’s Finance Function and built out the finance department as CFO. She also led operations in Nigeria as the COO. Today, Milkah Heads the Growth team -Strategy and People Teams- at Cellulant as the Chief Growth Officer leading the team that drives organic and inorganic growth for the business. Her work in Growth has seen the business and its people through a critical transition period in the company where she steered the key revamp of the People and Brand programs that increased productivity and retention to drive company and employee growth.

Her work entails finding opportunities that drive operational excellence, building on our strategy and continued funding for the business.

Chief Product & Technology Officer

Faizal (Hafiz) Mirza

Faizal is a veteran fintech professional with over 15 years of experience in designing and building products for emerging markets. 

Being the primary engineer from the early startup days of Cellulant, Faizal worked side by side with his fellow founders to build and manage everything technology. Over time he evolved the tech stack as the business grew into dozens of African countries and built a team of over 100 engineers in various disciplines and specializations.

Faizal is now steering product strategy and product management at Cellulant as Chief Product Officer. His day job is building and rolling out Africa’s payment platform of choice. 

Chief Marketing Officer

Moses Abindabizemu

Moses is an all-round C-suite Commercial Executive with close to 20 years experience in leadership and management in the financial technology and telecom sectors across various countries in Africa. 

He joined Cellulant as the Group Chief Consumer Officer in 2019 and is now the Group Chief Marketing Officer responsible for Marketing and Customer Success functions. He is leading the teams working towards building a reputable and trusted brand, driving revenue growth and achieving Customer Delight for Cellulant Customers across the continent.

He is passionate about building a team that is Customer centric, Data centric and growth oriented to achieve growth aspirations of every business that connects to Cellulant anywhere in Africa.

Chief Business Officer

Sike Bamisebi

Sike is an experienced professional with over 19 years of comprehensive experience in all facets of business and financial operations, including interfacing with key stakeholders and planning to ensure the attainment of financial and strategic objectives. She has broad expertise in African expansion and Commercial leadership in the Fintech Space. 

She joined Cellulant in 2020 as the Group Financial Controller in charge of the finance function. She was later appointed Cellulant Nigeria CEO in charge of all market operations in the Nigerian business.

Today, she is the Group Chief Business Officer responsible for the Western and Southern African markets; Nigeria, Senegal, Côte D’Ivoire, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, South Africa, Cameroon, Botswana and Mozambique. 

Chief Risk & Compliance Officer

Frances Diribe

Frances is an experienced solutions focused business leader with expertise in the financial services industry managing risk, compliance and regulatory functions. She has proven success in leading diverse teams and subsidiaries in achieving business, governance and reputation objectives.

Her professional career spans responsibility for multiple jurisdictions and includes extensive governance, risk management, financial crimes, regulatory compliance, stakeholder negotiation and growth strategy experience.

She joined Cellulant in 2022 as the Chief Risk and Compliance Officer in charge of the Risk Management & Compliance function including governance & ethics and policy making across all Cellulant operating markets

Country Manager, Zambia

Gilbert Lungu

A seasoned B2B sales professional with 10 years senior sales management experience, Gilbert has worked in the fields of computer software and hardware sales as well as corporate Internet solution sales. He joined Cellulant in 2017 to lead the Zambia team. He previously held the positions of National Enterprise sales manager at MTN Zambia and most recently Head of Enterprise sales at Airtel Zambia.

He is a member of the Institute of Directors, Zambia and an associate of the Zambia institute of Marketing.

Country Manager, Kenya

Faith Nkatha

Ms. Faith Nkatha is a transformational and influential leader and professional in Fintech in the region with over 10 years of experience. She has both broad and deep experiences and knowledge in Innovation, Sales, Business Development, Payments, Partnerships, Leadership, Product development, Strategy, and Culture Management etc. She is known as a strategic thinker with extensive insights into how present trends will translate into the future, and how to prepare organizations for future-readiness.

Faith works as the Country Manager for Cellulant, one of the leading Fintech and payments companies in Africa. Previously, she worked at the Oracle Corporation leading their Digital Transformation efforts for the Public Sector. She has also worked at Sidian Bank as the Director for Strategy, Monitoring, and Transformation where she provided valuable insights and oversight to the Bank’s Marketing, Customer Experience, Retail and Corporate banking operations.

Country Manager, Malawi

Jackson Malunda

Jackson has over 15 years’ experience in mobile payments, strategic management, fund managements, private equity, business consulting, financial reporting and audit having worked for Global financial service providers in Zambia. He is responsible for the country strategy implementation and running the operation of the business in Malawi. He has a private interest in supporting and promoting entrepreneurs with a stake in Insurance broking, Microfinance, Agency network and Distribution of FMCG products.

Country Manager, Botswana & Zimbabwe

Bathusi Beleme

Bathusi brings on over 7 years’ experience as a seasoned business development professional. Her knowledge of Information and Communication Technology spans across multiple applications and sectors. Over the years she has also gained invaluable experience in marketing. 

Bathusi was the Sales & Marketing Manager at Broadband Botswana Internet, a leading Internet Service Provider in Botswana. She joined Cellulant in 2018 as a Senior Bank Engagement Manager and now leads the Botswana team. As Country Manager for Botswana, her focus is on identifying growth drivers to achieve Cellulant’s Mission. This involves delivering the very best service to our customers, increasing market share and exploring innovative opportunities in Fintech.

Country Manager, Mozambique

Jose Silva Salvador

Jose has over 12 years’ experience in mobile payments, strategic management, business development in Mozambique. His responsible of the country strategy implementation and running the operation of the business. He has private interest in supporting and promoting Business, Banking and FMCG sectors.

He has a Bachelor in Business Administration (Pretoria Damelin College). He as a Certificate of Project Management (Wits Business School & ISCTEM Business School).

Before joining Cellulant as Business Development Manager, He worked for Ecobank Mozambique as Head of Consumer Banking, prior to this he worked at Vodacom Mozambique as Regional Sales Manager.

Country Manager, Tanzania, Uganda

Edwin Kiiru

Edwin is a seasoned information technologist, sales executive and thought leader in digital transformation.

He has over 15 years’ experience in the information technology field, having worked with multinational companies like Oracle, Microsoft and Dimension Data helping large enterprise institutions in public sector, financial services, telcos and tax authorities across Africa to digitize critical functions like finance, marketing, logistics, customer relationship, as well as adopt cloud computing as a concept and value creator to optimize operations.

He joined Cellulant Corporation in 2020 as Head, Global & Regional Merchants to drive commercial partnerships between Cellulant and global customers. In June 2021, he moved to Country Manager role responsible for Tanzania and Uganda. As Country Manager, he is responsible for driving up financial inclusion through expansion of digital payment options for small, medium, and large enterprises.

Country Manager, Ghana

Eric Kortey

Eric is a results-oriented leader with a combined 10 years of experience in the financial sector as well as the Energy sector. He started his career at KPMG Ghana where he rose to become a senior audit associate, with experiences in mining support, petroleum, financial non-banking sector, and NGOs. 

He joined Cellulant Ghana Limited in April 2018 as the Finance Manager and later became a Cluster Finance Manager in June 2020 superintending over 10 markets, namely; Ghana, Cameroon, Morocco, DR Congo, Egypt, Senegal, Cote D’Ivoire, Ethiopia, Tanzania, and Uganda. A role he handled till March 2021.

Eric became the Country Manager of Cellulant Ghana Limited in April 2021. He is responsible for implementing and driving the Group’s strategy decisions within the market. He led the market to acquire its first ever regulatory license (i.e PSP enhanced license) without which Cellulant will be non-operational in Ghana under the Payment Systems and Services Act, 2019 Act 987. Under his leadership, the market gained direct integration with Glomobile USSD to power airtime and data bundle in the market. 

He has a Master of Science degree in Development Finance (University of Ghana), Bachelor of Arts degree in Economics with Mathematics (University of Ghana). He is also a member of ACCA UK and ICA Ghana.