Flutterwave Appoints New Executives to Head its Finance and Engineering Fronts

Flutterwave wraps up the first half of 2022 with key appointments in its finance and engineering fronts.This is coming barely a month after the fintech company was alleged of financial misconduct and also few months after the launch of Flutterwave 3.0 which will require innovation from the engineering team.

The recent appointments employ the expertise of American Express’ ex-Vice President, Oneal Bhambani who will be operating as Flutterwave’s Chief Financial Officer; Marcus’ Former Head of Lending Engineering who will be the company’s Chief Technology Officer; Kabbage’s Former Controller Rebecca Mendel and Daniel Eidson who was previously Kabbage’s Head of Treasury and Tax.

Meet the new Executives:

Oneal Bhambani
On the 14th day of June, 2022, Flutterwave announced its employment of Oneal Bhambani into the position of Chief Financial Officer (CFO).

Previously employed as American Express’s Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Head of Capital Markets at Kabbage, the new recruit has high-class experience in managing large-scale financial operations.

Oneal had helped lead the sale of Kabbage and its integration within American Express’ Global Commercial Services segment. He was responsible for all of the company’s financial operations and functions including IPO-ready financial and operational controls.

It is for this reason that Flutterwave believes that his addition into the company will see to the latter’s growth, accelerate the company’s expansion, further develop credit products and prepare for a potential IPO in the future.

Both Rebecca Mendel and Daniel Eidson will be working directly under Oneal in various capacities.

“I am looking forward to partnering with Flutterwave’s team to enable solutions for our customers in Africa and across the globe. I fully expect to apply best-in-class strategies learned from my tenures at American Express and Kabbage”, Oneal had said while commenting on his appointment.

Gurbhej Dhillon
His employment was announced by Flutterwave on the 30th day of June, 2022, into the position of the company’s Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

His engineering career began at Jetblue, where he was Application Developer; after which he had worked at Goldman Sachs where he served as Managing Director, Technology Fellow, CTO; and at Marcus where he was Head of Lending Engineering.

Over the years, Gurbhej has launched several platforms that have significantly facilitated the growth of businesses while improving customer experience and established strategic partnerships with several Fortune 500 companies.

During his time with Flutterwave, he will be tasked with the responsibility of further developing the company’s innovative technology platform which currently supports integrations with partners like VISA, Mastercard, Discover Card Networks, and customers like Uber, Flywire, etc. He will focus on improving the architecture and infrastructure, as well as providing leadership enabling other engineering and product leaders to create the best solutions that support business growth for customers.

“I am delighted to be joining the Flutterwave team at such an exciting time for the company… It is a very crowded market with lots of new entrants so it is vital that we as a company continually look to innovate our products and services, improve our existing architecture and create endless possibilities for everyone”, Gurbhej had said while commenting on his appointment.

What you should know about Flutterwave:

Since its inception in 2016, Flutterwave’s mandate has been to create endless possibilities for customers and businesses in Africa and the emerging markets; and indeed, they have lived up to this dream. In just six years, the brand has processed over 200 million transactions worth over $16 Billion across 34 countries in Africa and has served over 900,000 businesses worldwide.

“It’s been a fulfilling journey to where we are today—in the span of one year, we have almost doubled our 2016 to 2020 transaction value to over $16 billion. We tripled our customer numbers; all due to the support we have received and continue to receive in Africa and across the world”, said the company’s Founder and CEO, Olugbenga GB Agboola.

On February 16, 2022, the company announced that it had raised $250 million in a Series D funding round. The round which was led by B Capital Group, and with the participation of Alta Park Capital, Whale Rock Capital, Lux Capital, among others has elevated the company’s value to about $3 billion; hence, making it the highest valued African start-up and the Continent’s fastest growing Unicorn.

What to expect from these developments:

These appointments have taken place at a crucial time for the company – a few weeks after the scandal on frozen funds and the recently concluded Series D funding round.

The new funds will help put into motion Flutterwave’s expansion plan to boost customer acquisition in existing markets and growth through M&A; and also introduce new products and services

The Flutterwave 3.0 event – a virtual event held on the 18th of February 2022 – saw the introduction of some of these new products and services. They include: Fintech-as-a-Service, Capital, Grow and Card issuing, etc. There were also improvements to existing products, such as a new powerful dashboard, Barter v4, and an AI-powered compliance process.

The new appointees are renowned experts in their various fields and it can be expected that with their experiences they will help steer Flutterwave into clearer horizons.

And the fact that the team has been diversified in terms of nationality, has also stirred greater expections for the expansion plans. As the company’s Founder had said while commenting on the latest funding round “our solutions are used across the globe to connect Africans to the world and the world to Africans”, we look forward to seeing Flutterwave becoming building currents across the globe.

“Our story is that of resilience and hard work. Our growth so far is due to the support of our customers, our partners, the banks, the public, the regulators, and importantly our people,” said CEO Olugbenga.