“Be anything.”
It sounds like the sort of advice printed on a graduation card. Freddie Omany’s older brother meant it literally.
Long before he found himself helping move millions of mobile money transactions across Africa every day, Omany, PawaPay Kenya country director, taught French. He translated documents. He worked in government communications. He chased unpaid invoices for Booking.com, a digital travel platform, across Francophone Africa. None of those jobs looked remotely connected at the time. Looking back, he insists they were all preparing him for the same thing.
We meet on the sidelines of Road to Moonshot in Nairobi, where PawaPay is one of the event partners. He is difficult to categorise.
Originally published by TechCabal.