South African HR tech company, SmartWage has appointed Thamsanqa Moyo as its new Chief Technology Officer (CTO). Smartwage helps employers deliver paperless payslips to their employees via WhatsApp.
Thamsanqa Moyo, a former CTO of Pan-African agency, WPP Scangroup, and Managing Director – Consulting at Wunderman Thompson South Africa, steps into the CTO role with more than 15 years of experience leading technology teams at fast-growing companies across a host of industries.
Amid his eclectic mix of work experiences, Thamsanqa has successfully helped build teams of over 100 employees and set up a Customer Experience Consulting division in one of the largest agencies in South Africa. As a result, he is well-equipped to shape SmartWage’s future product and engineering strategy.
Speaking on the appointment, Thamsanqa said, “I’m excited by the massive opportunity SmartWage has in the South African market, and the fact that I get to continuously work with an exceptional team to deliver value to millions of people.
“Throughout my years of experience in building products, my main lesson has been that empathetic listening is the key to understanding customers. If you don’t listen first, you’ll end up building a fancy product that no one will use. That’s what we did for our payslips feature – we started by listening to our current and potential clients. What we found was that printing and delivering payslips was an overarching pain point for employers in South Africa. So, we built our WhatsApp-based password-protected payslip feature, and we wouldn’t have done this had we not listened first.”
CEO and co-founder, Simon Ellis noted: “As we move forward on our rapid growth trajectory, we are incredibly excited to welcome Thams to the CTO role. He has an impressive track record of success and is, without a doubt, the exceptional leader and technologist we need to advance our exciting and ambitious growth plans moving forward.”
SmartWage in April secured $2 million in seed funding to support its vision to transform Africa’s workforce through digital inclusion, particularly for frontline employees like cashiers, restaurant staff, security personnel, and healthcare workers.
