...appoints Zakaria Hersi to spearhead expansion in Sub-Sahara Africa
Truecaller announced today a partnership with VConnect, Nigeria’s leading business discovery and engagement platform, in which Truecaller integrates VConnect’s Business directory to its app.
This allows users to efficiently identify VConnect’s service providers.
Last year Truecaller and VConnect launched Truecaller Priority in Nigeria enabling businesses on VConnect to quickly identify if a call is a potential prospect.
Many users searching for businesses on VConnect.com, call the numbers mentioned in their profile.
These numbers, which are routed through VConnect intermediate numbers, are marked as ‘Priority’ in the Truecaller app.
Speaking on the occasion, Naveen Luthra, Director – Growth and Partnerships at VConnect said, “This step of integrating our business listings on Truecaller platform, will further empower SMEs in Nigeria to get more visibility and new customers. This partnership deepens the relationships between two organisations, to bring about digital inclusion of small businesses here.”
Truecaller further revealed it will be setting up headquarters in Nairobi and has recruited Zakaria Hersi as Director of Partnerships for Africa.
In this position, Zakaria is spearheading its expansion in the region where he forges partnerships with various eco-system players.
“I’m excited to join Truecaller in such interesting juncture. My aim is to build upon the strong foundation that we have as a brand here and double up the pace of our growth and ambitions in the market. In the coming months we plan to roll out more partnerships and new services localized for the market.” said Zakaria Hersi, Director of Partnerships, Africa at Truecaller.
Zakaria has a background of launching marketplaces around the world, and has helped the Swedish Investment firm Kinnevik launch Saltside in Nigeria where he was the Managing Director.
He also had two stints working for Swedish based company Besedo, where he helped open offices in Colombia and Mauritius.
During his period at Besedo he worked closely with some of the largest marketplaces (eBay, Match.com & OLX) in Europe and South America, and was responsible for post-merger integration of the company and French AI company IoSquare.
Late last year Truecaller launched its Developer Program with Truecaller SDK, its mobile identity product for digital start-ups and app developers, and announced that they will be doubling down on their monetization initiative, and introduce its Truecaller Priority program in Sub-Sahara Africa.
Truecaller has become one of the fastest growing consumer apps in Africa, and has consistently been topping the App Store Charts across the continent for the past two years.
