By Aduragbemi Omiyale
A former director with a leading payments firm, Mastercard, Mr Emmanuel Efenure, has been hired by Flutterwave as Head of Risk for Africa.
The graduate of Accounting from the University of Benin (UNIBEN) will head the Risk Group of Flutterwave, which was recently created from the company’s Compliance Team to enable faster development and implementation of Risk initiatives.
The appointment of Mr Efenure followed the recent hiring of senior management members by Flutterwave, including Gurbhej Dhillon, former Goldman Sachs Managing Director, as CTO; Oneal Bhambani, former Vice President of American Express, as CFO; and Mansi Babyloni, former Senior Manager at EY and PwC, as CPO.
Flutterwave said it employed these talents ahead of its much-awaited initial public offering (IPO) in the United States.
“The scale of our business and the speed of our growth mean we must be extremely cautious about those we let on our platform.
“Emmanuel comes with over 22 years of risk and compliance to improve our processes and ensure we keep the bad actors away.
“He is not only an expert in the field, he also understands the risk landscape in the industry and the continent. We’re excited that he has joined us and look forward to all the great processes and systems he will bring to Flutterwave to improve our risk profile,” CEO of Flutterwave, Mr Olugbenga GB Agboola, said.
In his remarks, Mr Efenure said, “I’m thrilled to join Africa’s leading payments technology company to improve the risk processes for Flutterwave Africa operations.
“What we do is important to keep customers, partners, the company and the payment ecosystem safe. It excites me to work with this team of talented people building solutions for businesses in Africa and connecting them to the global payments system. I can’t wait to get started.”
While at Mastercard, Mr Efenure was in charge of Customer Engagement and Performance, responsible for leading customer compliance and risk efforts for sub-Saharan Africa.
He also developed and executed Mastercard’s safety and security strategy for the region and provided strategic guidance on risk and compliance matters to the business, key partners and Mastercard customers in Sub-Saharan Africa.
In his new role, he will oversee the continued development and execution of Flutterwave’s risk, security and scheme compliance strategy for Africa, including delivering healthy growth of the company’s business and ecosystem in a changing risk landscape like Africa.
He will be the primary point of contact for all risk-related projects, processes and operations and lead the risk management efforts for Flutterwave in Africa.
Mr Efenure has experience in risk and business operations, having held similar positions at the United Bank for Africa (UBA) Plc, Standard Chartered Bank and Mastercard.
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