Page 99 - 2018 Powerlist

Mariéme Jamme Technology
CEO, SpotOne Global Solutions; Advisory Board
Member, Data-Pop Alliance

In her role as CEO of SpotOne Global Solutions, an
organisation which helps companies gain a foothold in
Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia, Mariéme has
supported major organisations and high-profile individuals
from Google to Ernst and Young, the Africa Progress Panel
chaired by Kofi Annan, the Obama administration and
former Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
The Senegal-born Briton is also the founder of
iConscience, which enables business experts and like-
minded individuals to share their expertise and experience
in the name of sustainability, development, ethics and
morals.
In May this year Mariéme was appointed a member of
the board of directors of the World Wide Web Foundation,
while at the same time being honoured as a Global Visionary
by UBS Bank. Since 2015 she has been an advisory board
member of Data Pop Alliance, a global coalition promoting a
people-centered Big Data revolution.
Forbes named her one of the 20 youngest powerful women
in Africa and she is often called the diplomat of technology.
She was named a Young Global Leader by the World
Economic Forum for her activism work in empowering Martin Ijaha
and investing in young girls and women in Africa through
Creative learning, entrepreneurship, science, technology, Founder/CEO Neyber
engineering, art, mathematics and Design (STEAMD).
Co-founder of Africa Gathering, one of the leading
platforms in Europe that enables businesses, governments, In just three years Neyber, the company founded by Martin,
investor and entrepreneurs to share ideas about Africa has become the market leader in its sector.
for positive change, Mariéme has also joined forces with As a child, Martin would watch his mother, a nurse, and
a group of African leaders to create Accur8Africa, a new her colleagues all put money into a jar every week. At the
platform aiming at enabling governments, businesses, end of the month one of them would take the pot of money
entrepreneurs and the civil society in Africa to measure the and the whole process would begin again. Across Africa this
success of sustainable development goals. is known as sou-sou, which means the pooling of funds,
and in the Caribbean it’s called pardna, a method of people
saving and borrowing together.
Inspired, former Goldman Sachs investment banker
Martin set up financial services tech firm Neyber, taking the
idea of sou-sou and teching it up.
Following an initial year-long partnership with Police
Mutual, a not-for-profit financial service provider to the
police family, the company raised £2.5 million in seed
financing in 2015 to launch its consumer lending programme
in January 2016. Martin leads a growing London-based team
of 70 – his workforce has almost doubled in the past year. He
is looking to employ 50 more people over the next year.
The firm, which has been described as a ‘game-changer’,
is a cloud-based service that works with UK employers
to offer their employees access to affordable borrowing,
directly from their salaries – all at no cost to employers.
Loans range from £500 to £50,000.
Martin says: “Our smart technology offers an easy
to implement financial solution that drives employee
engagement, increases productivity and reduces employee
stress. Our mission is to reduce debt repayments for
UK employees by pioneering the creation of workplace
communities that will enable employees to borrow and save
together at fairer rates.”
Neyber is seen as an alternative to products offered by
financial service providers with high interest rates.

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