In this episode of the Africa Series, Patrick Awori spoke to Hilda Moraa, founder and CEO of Pezesha; a Kenyan headquartered digital financial marketplace platform that connects quality SMB to working capital from investors on its marketplace.

Hilda is a trailblazer in the Kenyan and African FinTech space. From founding and exiting her Fintech startup in 2015, Weza Tele, she has done it all, rising to both national and international acclaim. She now runs Pezesha, a digital financial ecosystem connecting and empowering the underserved in Africa through financial education, credit assessment and connecting SMB with affordable financing.

Here is what they talked about:

What Pezesha does and the recent developments at Pezesha
Partnerships that Pezesha is currently engaged in or looking to develop to deliver services to customers in your markets
Open banking trends, and environment in Kenya/East Africa, and how is Pezesha positioned to play a leading role in the space
Hilda's and Pezesha's experience as part of the first cohort inducted into and eventually exiting from the Kenya CMA Regulatory sandbox in 2020. Basis/rationale of regulatory sandboxes in accelerating innovation in Africa’s FinTech industry
How has COVID 19 impacted how you normally do business at Pezesha? How do you plan to sustain growth in the “new normal”?
As part of a Kenya Government COVID-19 ICT & Innovations Advisory team appointed in 2020, wider interventions to cushion and support the ICT based economy of Kenya that are currently in play, and what lessons about these efforts so far that other African policymakers could draw from your experience
Opportunities for FinTech actors to enhance the long-term social development of your domicile markets and African communities in general
How can the sustainability impact best be measured?
Key advice for listeners considering a similar career as employees or entrepreneurs: resilience!
Best way to learn more about Hilda/Pezesha and reach out