The news
- Flutterwave has hired six new executives from notable financial companies such as Cash App, Paypal, and Western Union.
- The new appointments come after three finance executives announced their exit from the company in November.
- The company CEO, Gbenga Agboola, said the wealth of experience of the six executives will help the company maintain sustainable growth.
All six executives have a collective experience of over 100 years working at large financial companies.
Amaresh Mohan, the first Risk Officer for the African unicorn, worked at global banks including Citibank and Bank of America. He also held leadership roles at Stripe and PayPal.
Steven Huynh who has about 20 years of experience working in financial companies such as Binance.US and Wyre —which recently shut down — will join the company as VP, Global Expansion & Payment Partnerships.
Stephen Cheng joins the company as Executive Vice President of Global Expansion and Payment Partnerships.
Amanda Ortega who was formerly a regulator with the State of Wyoming’s Division of Banking, joins Flutterwave as Head of Compliance, US. The company’s new VP of Compliance & Risk Operations is Chris David from Cash App.
The only Nigerian on the list of new hires is Adewale Ayantoye, who worked previously at American eCommerce company, Etsy. He joins Flutterwave as VP, of Risk Management.
Flutterwave and foreign executives
Flutterwave is not new to making global moves and backing them up with foreign hires. In 2021, it hired Jimmy Ku as the Head of US Growth as it planned to offer payment services to US-based clients, local businesses, and companies.
Ku has co-founded five startups and has over 17 years of consulting, startup, and investment experience.
Don't miss out on Africa's financial revolution
Give it a try, you can unsubscribe anytime. Privacy Policy.
The three executives — Oneal Bhambani, Oscar Lan, and, Rebecca Mendel — who exited the company in November 2023 were also from large financial companies.
Bhambani, for example, was formerly CFO at American Express.
The company also announced this month its acquisition of money transfer licences for 13 states in the United States.
These new hires could be pivotal to the company’s moves in the US. Flutterwave could very well be on its way to becoming one of Africa’s truly global companies.
However, there is a question of how the massive salaries of these executives will impact the company. Competitors like Paystack laid off 33 employees in November 2023 to scale back its operations outside Africa.
