Zakaria Hersi, the former Managing Director of Efritin has been appointed by Truecaller as its Director of Partnerships for Africa. According to the company, Hersi will be operating from Truecaller’s African headquarters in Nairobi Kenya,
The company revealed that Zakaria will be leading Truecaller’s expansion in the region where he forges partnerships with various ecosystem players.
Zakaria is vast in launching marketplaces around the world. Notably, he helped Swedish Investment firm Kinnevik launch Saltside in Nigeria where he was the Managing Director of Efritin.com.
“I’m excited to join Truecaller in such interesting juncture. My aim is to build upon the strong foundation that we have as a brand here and double up the pace of our growth and ambitions in the market. In the coming months we plan to roll out more partnerships and new services localized for the market.” said Hersi.
During his tenure at Efritin, he spoke to TechCity on the things that need to be done for tech companies to thrive in Nigeria.
“Infrastructure needs to improve drastically as much – and as soon – as possible. For us, we are doing as much as possible on a lower level. We went from zero people to 180 employees, a lot of them are young and vibrant, coming out of schools. We’re helping to invest in a lot of people on the team and hopefully they will move on to the next level in their lives; they will start creating more companies and more jobs but they still need the infrastructure to be able to do these,” he told TechCity.
Now with Truecaller which helps people know who’s getting in touch, filter out unwanted calls and SMS, Hersi is expected to deploy his knowledge of the unique wiring of the various African markets particularly Nigeria, to foster partnerships, record growth and increase the company’s profits in Africa.
Truecaller aims to build trust everywhere by making communication safe and efficient. Headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden, the company was founded in 2009 by Alan Mamedi and Nami Zarringhalam. Investors include Sequoia Capital, Atomico and Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers.
