Messaging, Payments & Platforms – Beyond Social Media & Networking

Stephany Zoo is the Head of Marketing at AZA, a digital foreign exchange and treasury solution for frontier markets. Prior to joining AZA, she helped launch SAP’s flagship SME product in China, and consulted for a number of Chinese SOE’s, including Ping’An and China Telecom. Entrepreneurial at heart, Stephany founded e-commerce site BUNDSHOP.com, and League X, a boutique tech branding firm, where her clients there were the likes of BTC China. Her other passion projects include She Loves Tech, a global women in STEM competition, and the China Africa Tech Initiative, to encourage private sector cross-border collaboration. A University of Pennsylvania Social Impact Fellow and C100 NextGen Ambassador, she also sits on the WEF Global Shapers Advisory Council. She graduated from Princeton in Economics, minoring in East Asian Studies.

Eddie has been a leader in transforming how financial services are delivered in Kenya and Africa over the last 15 years for some of the largest local and global banks such as Standard Chartered and KCB. He has led multiple mobile money integrations, mobile banking deployments, online banking deployments, and new digital products, as well as launch the first teller less branch and mobile virtual network (MVNO) fully dedicated to financial services. He has also performed the highest digital banking transaction in Africa when climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro to attempt it successfully on a mobile phone.

His most recent posting was the Managing Director for Opera Software, leading deployment of Opera News, Opay and Okash platforms across Africa against the Opera mini browser base of over 150 million users. He has since founded and runs Wapi Pay, the first Africa Asia payment gateway supporting trade and cross border commerce.

Previous to that he spent 10 years in Australia undergoing his education and work experience in developing mobile technology software. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Systems and Applied Statistics from Murdoc University in Perth Australia and is completing an MBA in technology and Innovation and holds multiple certificates in change and transformation.

Akinwale Goodluck is the Head of the GSMA in Sub-Saharan Africa and has primary responsibility for the attainment of the GSMA’s objective in Africa of connecting everyone and everything to a better future. He leads GSMA’s objective to serve as a guiding beacon for the mobile industry in Africa, focusing on collaboration between mobile operators, governments and other ecosystem players to overcome the physical, social and economic barriers to GSMA’s vision for a better future. Akinwale joined the GSMA in February 2017.

Akinwale Goodluck is a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Nigeria and has had a career spanning Investment Banking, Legal Practice and in the last 15 years been engaged in the ICT & mobile communications sector working for MTN Nigeria Communications Limited for 14 years, 7 of which was at Executive level with primary responsibility for the management of the Regulatory, Commercial Legal, Reputation, Corporate Governance and Stakeholder management risks for MTN Nigeria. Akinwale provided leadership for the Regulatory objectives of the MTN Group Limited and all its 23 Operations spread across Africa and the Middle East. He was appointed by the GSMA to Chair the GSMA Chief Policy & Regulatory Officers Group Sub Saharan Africa, in January 2015 for a two-year term, providing Regulatory Policy and Strategy for mobile telecommunication companies operating in Sub Saharan Africa.

Akinwale has served on the Board of several Companies among which are the MTN Nigeria Foundation, Nigeria Internet Exchange Limited, The Digital Bridge Institute, the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria, the Lagos State Innovation Council and he continues to serve on the Board of the Redeemer’s International School and other private companies. Akinwale has been recognized as an authority, respected resource person and much sought after speaker locally and internationally in the realm of ICT Regulation & other utilities.

He is an alumnus of the Lagos State University, The Nigeria Law School and the Harvard Business School. Akinwale is an avid cyclist, a friend of the Arts particularly theatre and a firm believer in Social Responsibility.