BigFive Digital Network Podcasts

We engage Zapper CEO Brett White on the stage of small business in South Africa one year into the pandemic. We also discuss innovation, fintechs vs banks, and the technologies that will drive the payments space in the years to come.

Episode 14: Brett White, Zapper

Lauren Kagori works with Pezesha, a financial inclusion platform in East Africa that is trying to solve to problem of poor access to capital for small businesses through crowdfunding.

Episode 13: Lauren Kagori, Pezesha

Flutterwave's head of global partnerships chats with the BIG5D Podcast about her company's meteoric rise to become of just a few tech unicorns in Africa. Among the topics covered include Flutterwave's $170 million Series C round, its new deal with PayPal, and the complexities of simplifying payments in Africa.

Episode 12: Omosalewa Adeyemi, Flutterwave

Cloudone's TallOrder point of sale solution is designed for a mobile-first present and self-service future in the retail, dining, and hospitality industries.His company's newest product VerPay, adds a needed trust layer to take payments over a voice call.This episode also features a discussion of the battered state of South Africa's hospitality industry in the wake of the pandemic and how the industry will change permanently in the future.

Episode 11: Dana Buys, CEO, Cloudone.mobi

This is the first in the BIG5D Podcast's Fintech Founders Series, This episode features OZÉ CEO Meghan McCormick.Meghan explains her journey from American Peace Corp veteran and management consultant to founding a small-business fintech based in Ghana that helps SMMEs get organized with SaaS tools and get access to capital on fair terms.Meghan comes to everything with a core mission of creating jobs by helping small businesses thrive.

Episode 10: Meghan McCormick, Co-founder & CEO, OZÉ

The pandemic has created challenges for the region’s logistics players — ride-hailing services, food delivery apps, and others. But there is also a tremendous emerging opportunity to offer an ever-widening array of services. We will explore this landscape with Uber’s Kartik Taneja.

Episode sponsored by MatchCraft (www.matchcraft.com)

Episode Nine: Kartik Taneja, Head of B2B Solutions, EMEA, Uber

This episode of BIG5D.TV features an interview with Samantha Naidu, CEO of Volt Africa. We discuss the optimal digital solution set for African SMEs, particularly in times of crisis.

This episode was sponsored by Duda: www.duda.co/

Episode Eight: Samantha Naidu, Volt Africa

Today’s guest is Colin Timmis, the South Africa country manager for Xero -- the global cloud accounting platform.

We had a great conversation about what it takes to get SMMEs to overcome their anxiety about technology and use it to their advantage.

This episode is sponsored by Duda

Episode Seven: Colin Timmis, Xero

Cape Town entrepreneur Grant Greeff shares his experience of trying to save one company, EHire, while launching another, OpenRoute, in the midst of a global pandemic.

Episode 6: Grant Greeff

This is the podcast version of the BIG5D.TV video series. This episode features a conversation about sales during the COVID-19 pandemic with Wayne Bischoff, CEO of Mediamark, a media sales house in South Africa, and George Lieth, EVP Sales at Vendasta, a Canadian martech company. The original interview was conducted in July 2020.

Episode 5: Featuring Wayne Bischoff & George Leith

This podcast features a conversation on the challenges of building location databases in emerging markets. Our guest is Trevor Nadeau, founder & MD of Local Knowledge FZE, a listings management company based in UAE. Trevor has spent decades in the region learning the ins and outs of building location databases in challenging environments. Great discussion for anyone who is interested in the digital opportuity for small business in the AME region.

Episode 4: Trevor Nadeau, Local Knowledge

This episode of the BigFive Podcast features a conversation with Gustav Praekelt of Praekelt.com. Gustav is an engineer and developer whose company creates UX design and engineering solutions for corporate clients. Our conversation centered around how conversational applications are transforming small business in emerging markets.

Episode 3: Gustav Praekelt, Praekelt.com

Louw Barnardt is a chartered accountant by training and an entrepreneur by nature. He is the co-founder and MD of Outsourced CFO, a Cape Town start-up than gives SMEs and fellow start-ups access to financial expertise that they cannot otherwise afford in the early stages of their growth. OCFO also offers cloud accounting solution based on Xero. We talked about startups, the Cape Town scene and how the cloud has transformed how businesses are formed today.

Episode 2: Louw Barnardt, Outsourced CFO

Ezana Raswork, is founder and CEO of Africa118, a directory of business listings throughout Africa and a provider of digital marketing services to Africa SMEs. On the podcast we hear Ezana’s founding story, how Africa 118 is trying to address clear market need, his optimism about business opportunities in Africa and the environment for entrepreneurship on the African continent and how it can be improved.

Episode 1: Ezana Raswork, Africa 118

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