ALFRAHA NGWESEJI MMARE
A STRATEGIC LEADER DEVELOPING INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS WHILE BUILDING THE NEXT GENERATION OF LEADERS
Alfraha Mmare is a seasoned and results driven leader with solid expertise within the banking and virtual payment sector. Alfraha brings with him a wealth of knowledge in card business (both issuing and acquiring) ranging from sales, relationship building and management, recruitment, retention, query resolution and offering World –class customer service. Alfraha’s solid background spans for over 27 years where he grew his career into progressive leadership roles, starting as a Technical Support to Vice President and Head of Acquiring at Barclays Bank, Kenya. Following his departure from Barclays Bank in October 2019, Alfraha is an established advisor, sits on various boards and a seasoned digital payments consultant. He has applied his wealth of knowledge in the industry into supporting financial institutions establish card acquiring (merchant business) and enhancing Agency
banking profitability by providing innovative, efficient and cost-effective solutions and ways of doing business. Additionally, having worked within the banking sector, he serves as a business consultant and advisor to start-ups, supporting them in establishing sustainable and growth-oriented businesses. Alfraha launched his career as a Data/Telecommunications Technician at Kenya Posts and Telecommunication Corporation (now Telkom Kenya) in September 1989 where he held responsibility for maintaining the Data Communication switch-KENPAC. He transitioned into the card payment sector in 1996, where one could say was the launch into his digital payment career. He progressed into the role as a PDQ (Point -Of -Sale) Technician in Barclays Bank of Kenya Limited at Barclaycard Centre where he oversaw PDQ operations. Utilizing his leadership skills, Alfraha achieved the promotional as the Team Leader Technical Support in 2000 and progressed into the role as a Merchandiser in 2004. His role as a Merchandiser served as the building blocks to gain an in-depth understanding of virtual payment and card systems. His innate ability to add value and deliver results through his leadership, led him to achieve the role as an Account Manager in 2007. Alfraha’s ability to drive operational efficiency and enhance the overall customer experience served as an asset of value at Barclaycard Centre.
Alfraha visionary approach has enabled him to guide and mentor his teams through economic downturns and support them into evolving into high performance employers both individually and in their career aspirations. His leadership skills have been the driving force in empowering his teams to drive performance improvements and elevate a work culture that embraces profitability. He brings with him expertise in launching and rolling out new initiatives from the ground up. His strategic approach to developing policies, recruitment of teams and establishing systems to ensure sustainability have been an anchor to the companies he has worked in.
Alfraha’s entrepreneurial and hands on leadership approach is augmented by a solid grounding and application of strategic business management techniques combined with utilizing technology to enhance the delivery of results. He achieved the position as the Country Acquiring Manager in Tanzania in 2008 where he spearheaded the card acquiring business across the country. During his tenure, he turned around the Tanzania acquiring business from annual Volume turnover of USD 25M to USD50M in two years (2008 – 2010). In addition to this, he increased Market share by winning back MOST of the card business from the key and core merchants by enhancing relationship, pro-actively managing the merchants and fast-tracking query resolution. His achievements went without recognition because he achieved the progressive role as the Regional Acquiring Manager in 2011 where he directed the card acquiring business for Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. He successfully
turned around the acquiring business in Uganda from the downward trend to growing the business by 30% in 2012 compared to 2011.
A STRATEGIC LEADER DEVELOPING INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS WHILE BUILDING
THE NEXT GENERATION OF LEADERS
+254 722 509 431 | alfraha.mmare@gmail.com | www.linkedin.com/in/alfraha-mmare
www.virtual-pay.io
ALFRAHA NGWESEJI MMARE
There’s a quote by Vince Lombardi that states “Leaders aren’t born, they are made. And they are made just like anything else, through hard work. And that’s the price we’ll have to pay to achieve that goal, or any goal.” A key factor that can be derived from Alfraha’s career journey is his hard work ethic combined with his will to implement innovative approaches to achieve and exceed company goals. Following his role as the Regional Acquiring Manager, he achieved the Executive position as Vice President andHead of Cards (Issuing and Acquiring) at Barclays Bank Uganda in 2014. A key achievement within his role was successfully initiating, building and managing the credit card issuing for Barclays Uganda from scratch to launch. His successful strategies resulted in the issuance of over 1800 Visa credit cards within one year. In 2017, he transitioned into the position as Vice President/Head of Acquiring at Barclays Bank Kenya. He successfully managed to steer the team and achieved a historical turnover of Ksh4.3B (the highest turnover ever in acquiring) within six months of taking over the Head of acquiring role. In addition to this, he developed non-traditional acquiring solutions to grow POS utilization and acquiring income growth while saving costs. He also played a key role in rolling out and launching key
initiatives and projects including agency banking, Dynamic currency conversion and Visa on Mobile. In November 2019, Alfraha took the big step of stepping down from his corporate career and established is Virtual and Card Payment Consultancy. His approach to enhancing interoperability within payment systems is derived from his growing up in a small village in Taita Taveta, which is a few Kilometres from the Tsavo National Parks. Growing up within a region that has a wealth of natural resources steered him towards his successful career growth. He learned about growing crops and trees from a very young age and this transpired into his career where he created growth strategies within the banking industry. A key aspect of his focus on enhancing the digital payment systems was inspiration derived from his mother.. Throughout his career while working at Barclays bank, Alfraha developed innovative systems, frameworks and approaches to enhancing digital payment and
transactions, particularly with the focus on interoperability.
In 2019, the world changed as we know it and technology became a key asset to everyday life. Where once people could easily go to the bank and make transactions, the world was steered into leaning into technology to make these transactions. One could say that Alfraha’s extensive experience within digital payments and transactions serves as an asset of value in today’s world. Adding to this, a clear factor that has risen is the focus on Climate change and developing environmental solutions. It is clear, as we move forward in this world, the key is developing innovative solutions to reduce our carbon footprint, enhancing environmental sustainability and developing solutions to enhance transactions at a global scale. Alfraha’s ability to inspire and lead teams to achieve the full potential has evolved into providing strategic approaches to startups and entrepreneurs enabling them to grow sustainable businesses.
Since February 2022, Alfraha has played an instrumental role at Virtual Pay International Limited, a leading Global Payment Provider focused on providing payment innovation and seamless integration with merchants. As a key player in the industry, Alfraha’s strategic approach to enhancing interoperability payment solutions will serve as an asset of value for future entrepreneurs and agrobusinesses. Virtual Pay’s mission is to create straightforward, intuitive, and user-friendly, end-to-end payment products that enable the business owner to receive payments effortlessly so that entrepreneurs can focus on growing their business. Throughout his career, Alfraha has ensured an unfailing ability to meet targets both in terms of excellence and strategic developments. Quality and innovative solutions are at the forefront of Alfraha’s thinking and the customer relationship is a key component.
Alfraha is an advocate for enhancing environmental sustainability and for the past 5 years, he has played an active role in planting 2,000 trees per year in the Taita Taveta county. While growing up, he had the advantage of seeing the buffalo cross the national park in search for water. However, over the past few years, climate change has had an adverse effect in the region causing high level droaughts. Buffalo will cross the National Park in search for water and many have died due to the draught in the area. Alfraha has a goal of growing more trees and establishing boreholes to restore the environment in Tsavo with natural rivers. His motto is not just about planting trees or seedlings but growing trees to establish a sustainable environment.
Alfraha is a big believer that we all have the capability of creating a positive impact in our world today. He is an established leader and key player in the financial world and his aim is to transfer his wealth of knowledge into the next generation. The world is constantly changing at a fast pace and it’s important for any company, individual and organization to stay ahead of the curve. We all had to adopt to new changes when the world shut down in 2020 and moving forward, leaders need to equip those around them with innovative and non-traditional methodologies to be impactful. Alfraha’s innate ability in creating strategic alliances with key leaders to support key business initiatives has served as an asset of value in providing innovative approaches to his clients. Having worked across the African region, Alfraha has a wealth of knowledge and in-depth understanding on developing key solutions to enhance economic growth, environmental sustainability and development in the African Context. Alfraha has achieved remarkable success in spearheading the launch of new products while driving efficiency and productivity through the savvy implementation of process improvements. While we live in a global world, the African region requires an individual who not only understands the pain points within Africa but also is equipped with the ability to establish new approaches at a Global context. While Africa may be seen as a developing continent, she is rich with resources and a people ready to build their capacity and knowledge on how to advance in technology and establish environmental sustainability. Alfraha continues to advocate a continuous focus on operational excellence where he supports
organizations in strategically positioning their deliverables to achieve future demand and achieve cost-effective expansions in line with their organizational values. He continues to cultivate robust relationships across several organizations to create long-term value, including, supporting them in identifying, shaping and transforming their commission of delivering their services. His solid background has equipped him with the ability to transform ideas into long-term sustainable business operations using strategic planning and implementing operational transformation. His extensive knowledge on the virtual payment and economic market trends coupled with his in-depth understanding of delivering operational change and business acumen, ensures that business he supports maximize on efficiency without compromising on delivery and service quality. When we look at the evolving world around us, we as leaders have the responsibility of not only being intuitive to the changes in our environment but building capacity in the next generation of leaders.
The African continent has a large scope for growth, sustainable development and innovation. As much as the continent has faces poverty, vulnerability and corruption, there is a generation of tech savvy entrepreneurs and environmentalists ready to apply their skills to build the economy. Alfraha’s extensive experience within the virtual payment arena combined with his passion for tackling climate change, he brings with him a unique set of skills that will be valuable for future generations. Alfraha’s professional but personal approach has won over many high-end clients, while also serving as an advisor and mentor to the next generation of leaders. Ultimately, Alfraha would like to leave behind a legacy for his children and children’s childrengrandchildren, where they can live in an environment that’s sustainable and be part of the leaders that will bring a positive change in society.
A great quote by Sharad Vivek Sagar states “Some of the world’s biggest challenges can be solved by some
of the world’s most marginalized communities themselves. The moment you inject information, education,
and an entrepreneurial spark in a community, it gets empowered enough to inspire, build, and uplift itself.”
+254 722 509 431 | alfraha.mmare@gmail.com | www.linkedin.com/in/alfraha-mmare | www.virtual-pay.io
