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Cellulant has appointed Darren Makarem as chief financial officer, bringing in a payments executive with experience across global platforms.
This completes a leadership shake-up at the Kenyan fintech as it strives to grow across Africa.
Makarem joins from Agoda, where he served as global CFO and oversaw a payments network handling more than $12 billion in transactions each year.
He has worked on multi-currency systems and high-volume payment operations, areas that are important to Cellulant’s business.
His appointment comes weeks after Michael Muriuki was named chief product and technology officer. Together, both hires fill key roles at a time when the company is rebuilding its leadership team after several exits.
Cellulant processes over 4.5 million transactions daily and operates in more than 20 African markets. It turned a profit in 2024 and is now looking to expand further as digital payments continue to grow across the continent.
Speaking on the appointment, Peter O’Toole, Cellulant chief executive said, “Darren Makarem doesn’t just understand the numbers; he understands the customer. He will leverage these insights to build a finance centre of excellence, ensuring our financial operations are as innovative, agile, and customer-centric as our products.”
Before Agoda, Makarem worked at Binance as regional CFO for Asia-Pacific and Latin America. He later led OnRamp as chief executive. Those roles gave him exposure to digital assets and evolving payment systems.
Now at Cellulant, he is expected to focus on financial discipline and support the company’s expansion into cross-border payments.
He said, “What excites me about Cellulant is the quality of what has already been built. My priority is to ensure the business has the financial discipline, insight, and operational support to move fast, stay bold, and keep delivering.”
Cellulant is aiming to take a larger share of Africa’s digital payments market, which is projected to reach $1.5 trillion by 2030.
The company is also competing with other fintech firms and banks that are building their own payment systems for large business clients.
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