CEO search for African fintech
TITC runs retained CEO searches for fintech and financial services businesses across Africa. For boards and investors appointing the person who carries the licence, the P&L and the regulator relationship.
The hire that keeps going wrong
Most CEO searches at this stage are really transitions. The founder has taken the business as far as one person can, and the board needs a chief executive who can run the next chapter without breaking what works.
Two ways it goes wrong. You hire the polished multinational executive who's never operated below 500 people and can't function in a 60-person business. Or you promote internally for loyalty and inherit the same ceiling you were trying to clear.
In a regulated business there's a third risk. The regulator has to accept your CEO as fit and proper. A first-time chief executive can stall a licence or a banking relationship before they've started.
What good looks like
Someone who's already scaled a regulated business through the stage you're entering. Who can carry a SARB or central bank relationship without coaching. Who reads African market structure on day one instead of month eighteen. And who can manage a board and a cap table without turning every meeting into a negotiation.
How we run it
CEO mandates are confidential by default and usually involve a live founder. We manage the human side as carefully as the search itself, and we assess for regulator credibility and board temperament, not just the CV.
Common questions
When should a fintech replace a founder-CEO?
When the constraint on growth is the founder's bandwidth or skill set, not the market. Usually around a Series B, a licence step-up, or a multi-market move. The signal is the board spending more time on the CEO than on the business.
Can TITC find a CEO regulators will accept?
Yes. Fit and proper credibility is part of how we assess and shortlist. We know which profiles SARB, the FSCA and central banks across the continent will take seriously for a regulated mandate.
Do you handle founder transitions discreetly?
Every CEO mandate runs confidentially. We've managed searches where the incumbent founder is moving to Chair, to a product role, or out entirely.
Discuss a mandate
Weighing a CEO change or appointment? Tell us the decision behind it.