Cellulant Taps Ex-Agoda CFO as New Finance Chief in Renewed Pan-African Push

Why It Matters

The appointment equips Cellulant with seasoned payments leadership, essential for scaling cross‑border services and maintaining financial discipline amid fierce fintech competition in Africa.

Key Takeaways

• Darren Makarem joins Cellulant as CFO.
• Makarem brings $12B payments experience from Agoda.
• Cellulant achieved profitability in 2024, processing 4.5M daily transactions.
• Exec team targets cross‑border payments in 20 African markets.
• Focus on financial discipline and innovative settlement rails.

Pulse Analysis

Cellulant’s decision to bring Darren Makarem on board reflects a broader trend of African fintechs recruiting global talent to accelerate growth. Makarem’s tenure at Agoda, where he supervised a $12 billion payments volume, and his roles at Binance and OnRamp, provide a rare blend of customer‑side insight and regulatory savvy. This expertise is poised to enhance Cellulant’s financial architecture, enabling more agile capital allocation and tighter risk controls as the company scales its product suite across the continent.

The African digital‑payments landscape is on a rapid ascent, with forecasts projecting a $1.5 trillion market by 2030. Cellulant, already processing over 4.5 million transactions each day and achieving profitability in 2024, is well‑positioned to capture a larger slice of this growth. The new finance leadership dovetails with recent operational wins and a strategic push into enterprise‑level services, where robust financial reporting and settlement efficiency are critical differentiators against both fintech rivals and traditional banks expanding in‑house capabilities.

Looking ahead, Makarem’s mandate centers on building a finance centre of excellence that can support alternative settlement rails and cross‑border expansion across more than 20 African markets. By embedding financial discipline into product development, Cellulant aims to deliver faster, more reliable payment experiences while navigating evolving regulatory frameworks. This integrated approach could set a new benchmark for fintech scalability in emerging markets, reinforcing Cellulant’s position as a leading pan‑African payments platform.