Unicorn financial technology company, OPay Global, has appointed James Chona as its Chief Executive Officer for their Zambia operation.
According to James’ LinkedIn profile, until recently, he was Airtel Money Country Director where he had served for 3 years. He joins Opay which has in less than three years, gone from a curious startup known for its motorcycles in Lagos, Nigeria, to a financial services company worth $2 billion. The latest valuation comes after it raised $400 million from a round led by SoftBank, the Japanese investment firm, with Sequoia Capital China, and five other large firms participating, according to an article published by the world economic forum.
The former Airtel money man scored three major achievements during his tenure at one of Zambia’s largest mobile money companies. According to his status update, he achieved;
- Successive Revenue growth of over 100% Year on year for three years consecutively.
- Having been recognised as the best Airtel Money OPCO for two years consecutively.
- Unprecedented growth of Airtel Money Customer by addition of a million Customers every year for three years.
His new role takes the tech veteran into familiar professional territory. OPay provides individuals with a point-of-sale machine and underlying software, so they can act as banks and ATMs. This is an arena that James is all too familiar with. The company processes $3 billion in transactions every month, and, in May 2020, reported having over 300,000 agents across Nigeria and will be seeking to replicate their fortunes in Zambia.
The graduate of telecom’s engineering from Copperbelt University is passionate about seeing and contributing to many Zambians having access to digital financial services. “I will not rest until AT LEAST 80% of adult Zambians have access to formal financial services”, read a statement from James on his professional social media page on 12 January 2022.
