EAST AFRICA – Digital payments company Visa has appointed Chad Pollock as the Country Manager and Vice President for East Africa. He takes over his new role effective immediately.
Pollock is a seasoned leader with a diverse background across the finance, technology, and energy industries.
Speaking on the new appointment, Senior Vice President at Visa and Head of Sub-Saharan Africa, Aida Diarra expressed her excitement on having Pollock take on her new role.
“We believe that his experience will help us achieve our goals of driving the digitalization of payments and financial inclusion in the region. His appointment is in line with our vision to continue to build a solid regional team by matching unique strengths and talents with critical business opportunities,” she said.
Before his new role Chad served as Vice President, Head of Global Client Strategy & Operations. During this time, he successfully spearheaded the development of business analytics and commercial operations for Visa’s largest international clients.
Chad has a Bachelor’s Degree in Systems Engineering and a Master of Science in Engineering Management.
Visa Africa Fintech Accelerator program hosts first demo day in Kenya
Visa held its Africa Fintech Accelerator program first demo day on February 13th in Nairobi to showcase innovations from emerging fintech startups from 18 countries across Africa.
Launched in June 2023, the program aims to enable Africa’s expanding startup community by bringing expertise, connections, technology, and investment funding.
During the event, the first-cohort startups showcased their innovations to key ecosystem players, funding partners, angel investors, and venture capitalists.
The first program participants were selected from more than 1,000 applicants across diverse sub sectors including merchant payment solutions, lending infrastructure, Banking-as-a-Service, and B2B marketplaces.
The fintechs that participated in the first demo day included Duqha, Kenya, Power, Kenya, Workpay, Kenya, OkHi, Nigeria and Eversend, Uganda, among others.
The program is now accepting applications for its second cohort. Seed to Series A startups operating in Africa and that fall under the following categories are encouraged to apply on the Visa website, with applications open until February 29th.
In line with Visa’s pledge to invest US$1 billion in Africa by 2027, the accelerator aims to strengthen Africa’s payment ecosystem through innovations and technologies, focusing on digitizing economies, upskilling talent and building capacity.
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