Scaling platform and ecosystem plays across fragmented or informal African markets rarely goes to plan when the playbook comes from somewhere else. Sameer has built and turned around exactly these businesses himself, giving growth-stage founders and corporates a commercial narrative that can actually execute in markets where the textbook approach doesn’t apply.

He’s a Fractional CEO based in Johannesburg with 20+ years of experience across the African continent, working with JSE-listed corporates, multinational FMCG and financial services groups, strategy consulting firms and technology startups. His expertise runs across platform and ecosystem strategy, digital and data transformation, commercial strategy and innovation deployment, fintech and informal-market monetisation, and strategic partnerships and venture structuring. He’s a faculty member at GIBS lecturing digital strategy and innovation, sits on the advisory boards of CIRT, Q-Hop, SUMET and MetaPOS, and mentors through the Allan Gray Orbis Foundation and Seedstars Global Mentor Network.

After a decade leading strategy and innovation at scale across AB InBev and Standard Bank, he took over as General Manager of RedCloud Technology’s South African business and turned it around in under 12 months, delivering 10x growth in trading volume and 5x growth in revenue. He’s also held full P&L or acting CEO accountability more than once, including as CEO of Keystone Analytics, where he directed the global growth of a data analytics platform.

Sameer’s operating principle is straightforward: leadership means owning the outcome, not advising from the sidelines. He’s currently building SGVP, a venture and strategy firm structured to operate inside the businesses it works with, the same mindset he brings to every fractional CEO mandate.