Field Credit Officer

Turaco promotes Todwell to Africa commercial Chief as expansion gathers pace. Turaco has promoted Cedrick Todwell to Chief Commercial Officer, Africa, as the microinsurance company steps up expansion across the continent and Asia. Todwell, who joined the company in 2024, took up the new role on October 1 and will oversee commercial strategy, revenue growth, partnerships and market expansion across Africa. His promotion comes as Turaco says it has reached more than eight million people through partnerships with banks, microfinance institutions, fintechs, telecommunications companies and other distributors. The company operates in Kenya, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, Zambia and Tanzania, with expansion opportunities in Rwanda. It entered Pakistan in 2026 as part of its move into Asia. Turaco is also seeking to strengthen its position as an insurer, with licensed operations in Kenya and Uganda and a microinsurance underwriting licence in Nigeria. It plans to launch in two additional African underwriting markets by the end of this year, subject to regulatory approvals. Todwell has been involved in the company's commercial growth in East Africa, working with country teams and partners to expand distribution and revenue. In his new role, he will focus on growing market share, strengthening partnerships and developing new business opportunities across the continent. Turaco's growth has been driven largely by partnerships with firms including M-KOPA, Absa, ASA International, VisionFund, Opportunity Bank, Advans, Safaricom, Airtel, dfcu Bank, Moniepoint and One Acre Fund. The partnerships allow the company to distribute insurance through financial and digital services already used by customers, targeting consumers who have traditionally had limited access to insurance. The company is also using artificial intelligence in areas including customer onboarding, engagement and claims processing as it seeks to reduce the time and cost involved in delivering insurance services. Turaco co-founder and CEO Ted Pantone said Todwell's promotion would help the company accelerate growth while strengthening its operations in existing and new markets. "Cedrick's promotion reflects both the significant contribution he has made to Turaco's commercial growth over the past two years and our ambition for the next phase of the business," Pantone said. Todwell said his focus would be on strengthening existing operations, expanding across Africa and building partnerships that create long-term value. Turaco won Innovation of the Year at the African Insurance Awards organised by Africa Re in June. It was also ranked 29th among Africa's fastest-growing companies in the Financial Times' 2026 ranking and second among Kenyan companies. Founded in 2018, Turaco provides life, health and asset insurance through embedded partnerships with financial institutions, fintech companies and telecommunications providers. The company says its long-term goal is to insure one billion people globally.

Brain drain vs brain gain: the complicated truth about African tech talent migration. Few conversations in Nigeria's tech sector come back as reliably as the one about who is leaving. "Japa", the Yoruba-derived word for fleeing, has become shorthand for the engineer who takes an offer in Toronto or the product manager who relocates to London. The reality of African tech talent migration is messier than the slang suggests. Some people leave, some return, and a growing number stay put while working for employers abroad. Each pattern has a different cost and benefit for the continent. Engineering & Technology A drain that founders say they feel. Speaking at The Platform 2026 on 1 May, Moniepoint CEO Tosin Eniolorunda argued that Nigeria does not yet have enough senior technical talent living in the country to build companies that can scale globally. Techloy's report on his remarks says he named japa as a central reason. The comments drew pushback from people who say Nigerian engineers are already globally competitive and are held back by infrastructure, funding and policy. Both views can hold at once. The dispute is less about quality than about where that quality is located, and who gets to deploy it. What the visa data actually shows. The strongest official numbers point somewhere unexpected. UK Home Office figures obtained by Sunday Punch show 49,498 work visas granted to Nigerians between 2021 and the first quarter of 2026, second only to India. Of those, 42,893 came through the Health and Care Worker route. Outside healthcare, 3,398 Nigerians received Skilled Worker visas, a pool that includes accountants and management consultants as well as software developers and IT professionals. On the UK route, then, the exodus has been mostly a nursing and care story, with technology a much smaller share. The same data shows approvals falling sharply after tighter rules took effect in 2024, including a rise in the Skilled Worker salary threshold from £26,200 to £38,700. The figures have limits. They cover one destination, and they do not capture people who leave on student visas or move to the United States, Canada, or the Gulf. They do suggest that "everyone is leaving for the UK" overstates the case for tech specifically. Geographic Reference The third path: leaving without leaving. A growing share of Nigeria's technical workers are not emigrating at all. MyJobMag's 2025 remote work report, cited by allAfrica, puts remote jobs at about 17 percent of the Nigerian total, against a global average of 28 percent. Stakeholders quoted in the same report say global hiring has pushed up salary expectations and made retention harder for local employers. Government is leaning into this. Communications Minister Bosun Tijani has said the 3 Million Technical Talent programme, which has trained more than 117,000 people, is being paired with outsourcing firms and aims to place fellows in remote roles with international companies. One industry executive quoted by TechEconomy expects most of the programme's graduates to stay in Nigeria over the next five years, many of them employed abroad remotely. The same piece cautions that remote exporters of code still depend on reliable power and broadband. This is brain drain without the departure. The worker stays, spends locally and earns in stronger currency. The employer, and often the seniority and mentoring that come with the role, sit elsewhere. Whether that counts as gain depends on how much of the income, spending, and skills transfer lands at home. Money returns, capability is harder. Remittances are the most visible return flow. The World Bank reported that Nigeria received $19.5 billion in 2023, about 35 percent of all remittances to sub-Saharan Africa. That figure covers migrants in every profession, and it supports households and foreign exchange supply. It does not rebuild an engineering bench. A nurse's or developer's remittance helps a family but does not train the next senior engineer at a Lagos firm. Returnees and the friction they meet. There is real evidence of movement in the other direction. Nairametrics' May 2026 profile of ten diaspora Nigerians who came back to build businesses includes Maya Horgan, who launched Ingressive Capital in 2017 to back African technology startups. Returnees bring capital, networks and operating experience, and they can reduce the trust gap with foreign investors. Coming back is not frictionless, though. A University of Pretoria study of returnee entrepreneurs in Nairobi's tech-enabled SME sector found a pattern it calls "returnee liability". Most returnees overcame institutional hurdles, but interpersonal gaps persisted, creating information disadvantages and higher transaction costs compared with local founders who never left. Brain gain, in other words, is not automatic when someone books a flight home. Business Formation What a realistic response looks like. The evidence points to a retention problem that is partly about seniority. Programmes like 3MTT can widen the base of entry-level talent, but the TechEconomy commentary draws a sharp line between volume and depth, and Eniolorunda's complaint is about the latter. Senior engineers leave or go remote when local roles, pay, and infrastructure cannot compete. Nigeria's policy options follow from that: keep power and broadband reliable enough that remote workers can live and work here, create senior-level domestic roles that match global offers, and lower the friction for returnees. None of these is quick, and none depends on stopping people from leaving. The better question may not be how many people go, but where their work, income, and expertise end up. A developer in Abuja employed by a European firm, a founder who returns from London to build a fund, and an engineer who emigrates and sends money home are all part of the same migration story. They leave the continent with very different balance sheets.

Moniepoint CEO Tosin Eniolorunda named among TIME100 Next 2026 leaders. Discover more Shop African Art Nigerian fintech executive Tosin Eniolorunda, co-founder and Group Chief Executive Officer of Moniepoint Inc., has been named among the 100 emerging leaders featured in TIME100 Next 2026. The recognition places Eniolorunda among a group of individuals identified by TIME as helping shape the next generation of global leadership. TIME describes TIME100 Next as an annual list recognising rising figures across different fields and industries. (TIME) Eniolorunda among African figures recognised. Eniolorunda is the Nigerian business and technology executive highlighted in the supplied report as the only African in the business, technology and artificial-intelligence categories of this year's TIME100 Next selection. Discover more The wider TIME100 Next list covers several fields, including business, technology, politics, science, sports, culture, advocacy and the arts. TIME CEO Jessica Sibley said the 2026 honourees were pushing boundaries and creating new possibilities in their respective fields and communities. The 2026 edition was released digitally on September 30, with the TIME100 Next event scheduled for October 29 in New York. (Time Media Kit) From fintech founder to global recognition. Eniolorunda co-founded Moniepoint in 2015, alongside Felix Ike. The company, formerly known as TeamApt, has developed into a major financial technology platform serving businesses and individuals. Discover more Track Exec Orders Open Bank Account Moniepoint says it now serves 20 million businesses and individuals and describes itself as Nigeria's largest merchant acquirer, with its platforms supporting payments, banking, credit and business-management services. (Moniepoint Inc.) The company's growth has also attracted significant international investment. In October 2024, Moniepoint announced a $110 million Series C funding round, led by Development Partners International, with participation from Google's Africa Investment Fund, Verod Capital and Lightrock. (Moniepoint Inc.) Focus on financial infrastructure. Eniolorunda has consistently positioned Moniepoint's work around improving financial access for African businesses. More recently, he has advocated building credit services on top of Nigeria's existing payments infrastructure, using transaction data to help businesses that have historically had difficulty accessing formal credit. (Moniepoint Inc.) Moniepoint's platform has expanded beyond payments into areas including business banking, credit, cross-border services and business-management tools. (Moniepoint Inc.) Tony Elumelu writes Eniolorunda's citation. Tony Elumelu, Chairman of Heirs Holdings and founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, wrote Eniolorunda's citation for the TIME100 Next recognition. Elumelu, himself a previous TIME100 honouree, highlighted Eniolorunda's background and his development as an African entrepreneur. Eniolorunda, in responding to the recognition, credited the achievement to the Moniepoint team and the businesses and individuals using its services. He said the recognition would reinforce the company's commitment to developing financial infrastructure and serving its customers. Another Moniepoint executive recognised by TIME. The recognition follows another major TIME acknowledgement for Moniepoint. The company's Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Felix Ike, was named to TIME's inaugural Executives of the Year: Tech & Data list earlier in 2026. TIME's media calendar confirms the 2026 Executives of the Year: Tech & Data and TIME100 Next editions as part of its September/October 2026 publication schedule. (Time Media Kit) Moniepoint was also included in TIME's 100 Most Influential Companies in 2025, according to the supplied report. Other personalities on the TIME100 Next list. The 2026 TIME100 Next cohort includes personalities from a wide range of fields. Among the names highlighted in the report are actor Joey King, NBA player Tyrese Maxey and Filipino tennis player Alexandra Eala. Kenyan education entrepreneur Wawira Njiru, founder of Food4Education, is also identified among the African figures on the wider list. This distinction is important: describing Eniolorunda as the only African across the business, technology and AI groupings is different from saying he is the only African person on the entire TIME100 Next 2026 list.