Our vision

At Ezra we believe that with the right help and investment, anyone can become someone.

Our Values

Creative

We don’t have a templated approach to everything we do. Our creativity rests in solving problems and finding solutions flexibly and fast.

Collaborative

Every one of our clients is a partner. So when we say we’re collaborative it’s not just lip service, it’s the only way our business can operate successfully.

Fast-moving

Opportunity doesn’t wait around. We Think fast. And act faster. To turn potential into reality for our clients.

People First

Colleagues, clients, partners, end-users… our business and our products are built on seeing and understanding people as people first and foremost.

Friendly

We value the simplest of things: like doing business in a warm and respectful way. It improves everyone’s days.

Nairobi
Dubai
Singapore

Meet our leadership team

Meet our highly experienced, customer-obsessed team.

Yannis Benlachtar
Yannis Benlachtar
CCO
Yannis Benlachtar
CCO

Career Highlights

Led and delivered 30+ micro-loan projects in Africa, Asia, Middle East and Europe.

Digital Lending Achievements

Developed solutions for airtime credit, digital loans and device financing deployed in over 30 countries

Employers

Nortel Networks, BT, Upstream, Channel VAS

Simon Lee
Simon Lee
CTO
Simon Lee
CTO

Career Highlights

Over 25 years experience leading technology teams in the telecommunications and software industries across Europe, Asia and Africa.

Digital Lending Achievements

Lend a company into profitability through the optimisation and evolution of the lending and recovery platforms and associated products and services

Employers

Safaricom, Airtel Africa, Telkom Kenya, Nokia Networks

Mariam Hussain
Mariam Hussain
CPO
Mariam Hussain
CPO

Career Highlights

Over 15 years of experience in Product, design, UI/UX and Growth. Led two major fintechs with 60 M+ registered and 25 M+ monthly active users.

Digital Lending Achievements

Launched and scaled digital lending product for individual with more than 1 M Monthly active users and $ 10 M in disbursements.

Employers

Telenor Pakistan, Jazz Pakistan (Veon Group), Telenor Microfinance Bank ( Ant Financial Company).

Russel Edwards
Russel Edwards
CFO
Russel Edwards
CFO

Career Highlights

Chartered Accountant with over 15 years experience leading teams within the FinTech, Telecommunications, TV & VOD and retail industries in Africa, Asia and Europe.

Employers

LendTech, AVI, MultiChoice, 
Blue Label Telecoms and PWC.

Andrew Goodrich
Andrew Goodrich
Chief Risk Officer
Andrew Goodrich
Chief Risk Officer

Career Highlights

Over 30 years in the consumer finance space, in South Africa, Middle East and the broader African continent – with 15+ years in director, C-level or Executive roles.

Andrew has been involved in FinTech for over 12 years, providing consultancy services to FinTech businesses in Africa whilst also co-founding South Africa’s first digital BNPL business, MobiCred.

More recently, Andrew was an Executive within the MTN FinTech structure where he was responsible for driving the strategy for and building MTN’s BankTech vertical, including a real-time scoring, rules engine and account management cloud solution, developing FSP/Banking funding relationships, product development, credit risk and predictive analytics.

Digital Lending Achievements

Co-founded mobiCred, a digital / online BNPL business for the e-commerce landscape, offering mass market virtual credit and integrated and accessed via payment gateways for e-merchants

Setup and established JUMO’s credit risk and prediction capability as to support the launch of nano bullet loans across various markets.

Initiated and built MTN’s BankTech vertical capability as a means to development, deploy and manage/support nano/micro lending products across MTN’s footprint

Employers

MTN, JUMO

Meet our board of directors

Allan Green
Chairman
Allan Green
Chairman

Allan Green is a seasoned entrepreneur and technology investor for over 20+ years. He has transformed numerous companies in his capacity of advisor, investor and board member, including industry leaders like Gemalto and Ingenico.

Peter De Caluwe
CEO, Thunes
Peter De Caluwe
CEO, Thunes

Peter de Caluwe is the Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Thunes. Under his leadership Thunes has transformed into a world leading fintech that powers payments for the world’s fastest-growing businesses. Peter drives Thunes through rapid business and geographical expansion, challenging the status quo for cross border payments.Previously he was CEO Payments at Naspers and also Ogone (now Ingenico ePayments).

Sergi Herrero
Director
Sergi Herrero
Director

Sergi Herrero is currently serving as Board Member of MerchantE, an end-to-end payment platform that processes +$20B/year and provides full stack ecommerce services to SMEs. He is also a Member of the Supervisory Board of Intix, a rapidly growing company that provides real time actionable transaction data for banks and securities houses around the world.

Mr. Herrero previously served as Group co-Chief Executive Officer and Member of the Supervisory Board of VEON, a global telecommunications holding with +200M subscribers and traded in NASDAQ and Euronext. Before that, Mr. Herrero served as Global Director of Payments and Commerce Partnerships at Facebook, where he helped to build and expand Facebook’s successful payments and commerce business. Previous to that, Mr. Herrero held senior executive positions at the financial services company Square and the French bank BNP-Paribas.

Mr. Herrero holds a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering and a Master of Science in Telecommunication Management both from Ramon Llull University in Barcelona. He also completed a program in Angel Investing and Venture Capital at Stanford University.  

Sunil Sabharwal
Director
Sunil Sabharwal
Director

Sunil Sabharwal has spent over two decades as a board member and C-suite executive for global companies like GE Capital, First Data Corporation, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and Coopers and Lybrand. He has also invested in and worked with leading global fintech corporations such as European payment services company Ogone (now part of Ingenico), Paysafe and IRIS Analytics.

Nicholas Smalle
Director
Nicholas Smalle
Director

Nicholas Smalle is a Partner at Apis. He has been with Apis for 6 years and has led on transactions spanning Insurance, Asset Management and Payments. Prior to joining Apis, he was at Old Mutual where he was responsible for OM’s Strategic Investment Fund, an on-balance sheet investment vehicle that focused on the expansion of Old Mutual’s operations into key African markets. Preceding that he was at Standard Chartered and McKinsey and Company.

Nic has completed a Master of Business Administration (MBA) postgraduate degree at INSEAD, and is also graduate of the University of Cambridge with a Master of Philosophy (MPhil) in the field of Bioscience.

Rotimi Oyekanmi
Director
Rotimi Oyekanmi
Director

Rotimi Oyekanmi has over 33 years’ experience in Financial Services, private equity investing, M&A; advisory, and senior management with leading institutions in Africa.

Prior to joining Apis, he was Chairman of RenMoney until 2016, Group Head, Ecobank Capital Nigeria until 2013, CEO of Renaissance Group West Africa and MD of Renaissance Partners (Private Equity arm of Renaissance Group).

Rotimi was with African Capital Alliance (ACA) for 18 years, where he served as Chief Investment Officer. He was also responsible for establishing the SME Fund for ACA in 2001 and was CEO of the Fund from inception, as well as being a Principal in Capital Alliance Private Equity Fund (Nigeria’s first structured fund).

Rotimi lives in Lagos, Nigeria and enjoys providing business advice to financial institutions and other businesses.

Speak to our partnership team