CAPE TOWN, South Africa, January 21, 2016 /PRNewswire/ --
First of its kind hire for Africa
JUMO, the company behind Africa's first mobile marketplace and one of the fastest-growing mobile fin-tech platforms in the world, has today announced the appointment of Ted Pietrzak as Vice-President of Engineering. The appointment marks a real coup for the company being the first American platform level CTO to be recruited by an African company.
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The appointment signals a significant step in the evolution of JUMO as well as a key indicator of the potential of the mobile money market. Pietrzak is an established results-driven technologist with over 25 years of experience as an engineer, software developer and project leader with a particular focus on the payments and e-commerce platforms. A hire of this stature, with competition at an all time high, is groundbreaking for both JUMO and the market alike.
Previously Pietrzak has held positions at leading technology and e-commerce companies, including Paypal, Visa and most recently as CTO at ebay subsidiary Magento, where he has been involved in a wide range of groundbreaking and advanced projects including the development of the Verified by Visa, payment versification system and next generation of the leading e-commerce platform, Magento 2.
Pietrzak will play a major role in the evolution of JUMO's leading payment platform. There will be a particular focus on the development of the platform for broad integration, in order to ensure that ease of access for MNOs and banks, whilst using invaluable experience at Paypal, Visa and Magento to build resilience at scale.
Andrew Watkins-Ball said, "We are delighted to announce the appointment of Ted Pietrzak, it's a home run for us, and a strong endorsement of the exciting potential of our business. Ted's experience and technical expertise is going to be incredibly helpful to solve the problems that we face scaling the product so quickly. We are really excited to have Ted on board our rocketship."
JUMO was launched by Andrew Watkins-Ball, founder and CEO. The Cape Town and Nairobi offices have attracted a concentration of data and technology pioneers from across Africa, including talent from Amazon, Google, GE and Rocket Internet.
ACCESS, JUMO's first product, powers accessible loans for African entrepreneurs, small businesses and individuals, through a purely mobile-based transaction. The service is driven by algorithms which assess mobile wallet and GSM usage to determine suitability for a loan, and identify the best product available from a range of options. New products in development include savings and working capital solutions for businesses.
On his appointment, Ted Pietrzak said, "I can't imagine a more exciting time to join Jumo. Jumo is leading the transformation of financial services in Africa, applying technology to bring unprecedented levels of financial inclusion to people who have simply never had access. Andrew and his team are making history and I'm thrilled to be part of it."
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