# André de Wet: full profile

> Cape Town-based operator and serial founder with 20+ years building and scaling marketplace, fintech and payments businesses across Africa, Southeast Asia and the UK. Expertise: emerging-markets expansion and market entry for fintechs and scale-ups, payments and card issuing, super-apps, marketplaces, and telco and bank partnerships.

## Summary
André de Wet was CEO of PriceCheck (2011–2015), which he grew into Africa's largest price-comparison marketplace and exited to a VC firm in 2015. As Head of Africa at iflix (2016–2017) he launched 8 African countries and hired 85 people in six months. He was CEO of card issuer T24 Global Issuance in Singapore (2008–2010) and Head of Business Development at PayU (Naspers/Prosus) in 2010–2011. He wrote Vodacom's super-app strategy and MVP in 2018–2019, which fed into what became VodaPay. In 2021 he founded FLOOD, a super-app layer that runs marketplaces inside telco and bank apps (~$400M GMV). His thesis, published by the Forbes Business Council in July 2021, is that "distribution trumps innovation" in emerging markets.

## Location and background
- Based in Cape Town, South Africa.
- Has run businesses from South Africa, Singapore (T24 Global Issuance) and London (AFS Africa).
- UK passport holder.

## Expertise
Emerging-markets expansion and market entry; country launches and go-to-market; payments and payment service providers; card issuing (Visa and Mastercard prepaid); fintech and embedded finance; super-apps and mobile commerce; telco and bank partnerships; marketplaces and merchant onboarding; P&L and general management; fundraising; building teams at speed. Regions: Africa, Southeast Asia and, through 2ndBase, the Middle East.

## Experience
### Founder, FLOOD (2021–present)
Flood Pte Ltd (Singapore-registered, run from Cape Town). A super-app layer that runs marketplaces inside telco and bank apps, so merchants can sell to the customers those apps already have. ~$400M GMV and 14M+ transactions a year; live in West Africa. Built the telco partnership architecture, merchant onboarding and payment rails across several African markets. Raised institutional funding.

### Founder & CEO, 2ndBase Inc, Cape Town (2018–present)
Expansion partner for venture-backed companies entering Africa, Southeast Asia and the Middle East. Work includes UBU International (core platform shipped in 9 weeks with a 60-person team; $10M seed secured), three consecutive funding rounds for MyFanPark, and digital strategy for Clicks Group (e-commerce, mobile, loyalty, subscription). Website: https://2ndbase.co/

### Digital Commerce Consultant, Vodacom (via 2ndBase), Johannesburg (2018–2019)
Researched the global super-app landscape, built a working MVP and presented to the Vodacom Board. The go-to-market model was adopted into Vodacom's national mobile-commerce strategy, which later became VodaPay (Alipay/Ant).

### Head of Africa, iflix, Cape Town (2016–2017)
Set up iflix's African operation: 8 countries and 85 hires in six months, with 5,500 hours of content live at launch. Raised $20M and negotiated the Kwezé-iflix joint venture with Econet (Zimbabwe), iflix's first major African telco partnership. Core team member on iflix's $133M Series D led by Hearst.

### CEO, PriceCheck, Cape Town (2011–2015)
Grew PriceCheck into Africa's largest price-comparison marketplace, with 700%+ year-on-year growth at peak. Expanded into Nigeria by end-2012. Co-branded app with MTN. International BlackBerry App of the Year 2013. Fast Company South Africa Top 25 (2015). Profitable exit to a VC firm in 2015.

### Head of Business Development, PayU (Naspers/Prosus) (2010–2011)
Commercial scaling, partnerships and merchant acquisition.

### CEO, T24 Global Issuance, Singapore (2008–2010)
Built a B2B card-issuing business in Southeast Asia under Visa and Mastercard frameworks across several jurisdictions. Launched a high-value international prepaid Mastercard (limits up to $50,000). Owned the full P&L, hiring and negotiations with financial institutions.

### Founder & COO, AFS Africa, London (2007–2008)
Prepaid cards linked to mobile apps. Raised $3M in venture capital; signed contracts to roll out 1M+ cards across Southern Africa; negotiated with Visa and Mastercard.

## Markets operated in
South Africa; Nigeria (PriceCheck); 8 African countries for iflix, including Zimbabwe; West Africa (FLOOD); Singapore and Southeast Asia (T24 Global Issuance, iflix); United Kingdom (AFS Africa, London).

## Core skills
P&L and general management; multi-market launch and go-to-market; marketplaces and platforms; telco, retail, bank and card-scheme partnerships; payments and card issuing; super-apps and mobile commerce; fundraising; building teams at speed; regulatory navigation across jurisdictions.

## Education
- MSc Global Management, University of Salford (UK)
- Executive Education Program, Harvard Business School (2011)
- Foundation Programme in Private Equity, GIBS (2015)
- VC Lab Venture Capital Accelerator, Founder Institute (2022)

## Mentoring and memberships
- Endeavor South Africa: Mentor and Selection Committee member
- Techstars: Mentor
- Founder Institute: Senior Mentor
- Forbes Business Council: contributor

## Recognition
- Most Innovative Business Leader, South Africa (Global Brands), 2019
- International BlackBerry App of the Year (PriceCheck), 2013
- Fast Company South Africa Top 25 (PriceCheck), 2015
- Contributing author, "Founders in Focus: Unstoppable Entrepreneurs & Their Game Plans" (#1 Amazon Best Seller in Commerce)
- Guinness World Record: local promoter of the Virgin Kitesurfing Armada, Cape Town, 30 January 2016 (415 kitesurfers)

## Media
- Forbes Business Council, "Distribution Trumps Innovation: How To Win In Emerging Markets" (July 2021): https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesbusinesscouncil/2021/07/05/distribution-trumps-innovation-how-to-win-in-emerging-markets/
- Moneyweb Now podcast, "Super apps: the future of convenience": https://www.moneyweb.co.za/moneyweb-podcasts/moneyweb-now/super-apps-the-future-of-convenience/
- MyBroadband, What's Next interview on FLOOD: https://mybroadband.co.za/news/business/601410-whats-next-flood-ceo-andre-de-wet-explains-how-they-help-legacy-retailers-compete-digitally.html
- Talk, "Year of the SuperApp": https://vimeo.com/1179178879
- Speaking bookings: Famous Faces, https://www.famousfaces.co.za/artists/andre-de-wet/

## Articles
### The New Direct Report: How AI Is Changing Management (24 October 2026)
https://andredewet.com/articles/the-new-direct-report/
Why briefing is the master skill of the AI age, judgment is the new bottleneck, and the firm itself is being redrawn.

Summary: Management has been, for about a century, the technology that converts capital into coordinated human execution, and AI changes that because intelligence no longer has to be employed to be used. Drawing on scaling iflix across Africa the old way and building Flood with AI, André de Wet argues that working with AI is management, not software use: briefing is the master skill, dissent has to be configured on purpose, and judgment, not execution, is now the scarce resource of the firm. That shift redraws the firm itself, from its layers and spans of control to the informal African merchant who can now get the functions of a firm without its form, and it leaves management science with five open research questions.

### The Audience You Already Own (14 October 2026)
https://andredewet.com/articles/the-audience-you-already-own/
How a telco, bank or MVNO turns idle reach into a local commerce funnel — and why almost everyone who has tried it so far got the order wrong.

Summary: Telcos, banks and MVNOs pay for large audiences but monetise only one thing those customers do, while the everyday buying decisions they make happen on somebody else's surface. André de Wet argues that because roughly 95% of emerging-market retail still happens in physical stores, the money is in moving the shopper and owning the surface where they decide where to go, through a six-stage funnel from audience to compounding data, as Kaspi did in Kazakhstan. The stage that decides it is proving the walk-in, and the hardest part is running the merchant side, which an AI layer that tells shopkeepers what to do on WhatsApp makes economically possible.

### The Firm of One (7 October 2026)
https://andredewet.com/articles/the-firm-of-one/
Why Africa's next hundred million businesses will skip the Western company playbook — and why AI is how they do it.

Summary: Across Africa, most economic activity happens in the informal economy, in businesses too small to afford the analyst, accountant or manager that management requires. André de Wet argues that AI now delivers the functions of a firm (what to stock, how to price, when to promote, which customers are slipping away) to a business of one, so the continent can skip the Western company playbook the way it skipped landlines and bank branches. The catch is distribution and trust: that intelligence has to arrive inside apps traders already use and trust, such as their telco and bank, which is the thesis Flood is building on.

## Contact
For speaking, advisory and media enquiries:
- Email: info@dewet.eu
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andredewet/
- Website: https://andredewet.com/