board of directors

Mairo Bashir

Mairo brings over seventeen years of financial and banking industry experience to Pagatech. She is currently the Chief Executive Officer of CreditCorp Ltd, a consulting and advisory services firm.

Prior to CreditCorp, Mairo was Executive Director United Bank for Africa (UBA) and Director of UBA Capital and Trust Limited, a fully owned subsidiary of UBA.
Prior to UBA, Mairo was a staff member of International Merchant Bank (IMB). At IMB she worked in various departments and divisions including operations and credit and marketing.

Mairo holds a Bachelors of Science in Business Administration from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, and Kaduna.

Tani Fafunwa

Tani has over 16 years of Senior Management experience in the Information Technology industry. He is currently the Managing Director of Resourcery Plc, the leading systems integrator in Nigeria. From complex local area networks to hardware and software, data security solutions, Resourcery provides innovative business solutions to customers that include most of the blue chip organizations in the finance, energy, manufacturing and services industries.

Prior to Resourcery, Tani was a Product Manager for Ungermann-Bass, a network equipment manufacturer in California. He also was a Partner at IMPS of Amherst Massachusetts, a provider of hi tech products to the West African market.

Tani has a Masters in Business Administration from the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University.

Ngozi Edozien

Ngozi is currently the Head of Actis West Africa based in Lagos, Nigeria. Actis is a leading private equity investor in emerging markets and has been investing exclusively in these markets for nearly 60 years. At Actis, Ngozi is responsible for all aspects of Actis’s private equity business in West Africa. Actis is currently invested in a number of companies in West Africa including: Diamond Bank, Mouka Foam, UAC, and Exoro (Seven Energy). In addition, the firm has real estate assets in Ghana and Nigeria as well as infrastructure interests throughout the region.

Prior to Actis, Ngozi was the founding CEO of EVHA, an innovative investment vehicle focused on expanding access to healthcare goods and services in sub-Saharan Africa. Ngozi began her career in investment banking at Solomon Brothers and then at JP Morgan. Post MBA, Ngozi worked for McKinsey & Co. in London and Paris. From 1999 to 2005, Ngozi was Vice President Strategic Planning and Business Development for Pfizer. Prior to joining EVHA, Ngozi was the Regional Director for Pfizer Inc in Anglophone East, West and Central Africa from 2005 to 2008.

Ngozi holds a Bachelors of Art in Social Studies from Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges, Harvard University and a Masters in Business Administration from Harvard Business School, Harvard University.

Tayo Oviosu

Founder, CEO

Tayo has over twelve years of experience in a variety of technical and business roles in High-tech and Private Equity. Most recently, he was Vice President at Travant Capital Partners where he was responsible for executing the firm’s investment strategy in West Africa.

Prior to joining Travant, Tayo was a Manager, Corporate Development, at Cisco Systems in San Jose California. In that role, he was responsible for strategy, acquisitions, and private equity investments in four technology sectors - Virtual Computing, Application Networking, Security, and Network Management. Tayo also helped lead Cisco’s investment expansion in Africa. At Cisco, Tayo led numerous acquisition and private equity investment opportunities, including the $130m acquisition of Reactivity, and investments in Aquantia (10G Base-T, Series A), and Guardium (Database Security, recently sold to IBM). Tayo was also responsible for the private sale of 22% of Cisco’s South African operations to a consortium of investors in 2007.

Prior to Cisco, Tayo was a Senior Consultant at Deloitte Consulting in the CRM and Technology practice. At Deloitte he worked on cases in five industries – high tech, telecom, pharmacy retail, government, and healthcare. He was primarily responsible for leading technical implementation teams.

Tayo also had stints at start-ups Biomorphic VLSI as a Semiconductor Chip Design Engineer, and Event411 as a Software Engineer.

Tayo earned his Bachelors of Science degree in Electrical Engineering, cum laude, from the University of Southern California. He also has a Masters in Business Administration from the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University.