Massimiliano Spalazzi has been appointed as CEO of Jumia Nigeria replacing Juliet Anammah who is now the of chairwoman of Jumia Nigeria and the Head of institutional affairs across Africa.
Jumia Group’s co-CEO and Co-Founder, Jeremy Hodara who announced the replacement of Juliet Anammah said Massimiliano Spalazzi has been appointed as the new Jumia Nigeria CEO, saying Spalazzi had served as CEO for Jumia Emerging countries between January 2015 and January 2019 and CEO Jumia Market from January 2015 to September 2017.
Hodara made the announcement while sharing Jumia’s vision for 2020 at a recent press conference in Lagos.
It won’t be an easy job for Massimiliano Spalazzi because Jumia’s focus now is on profitability and since Nigeria is Jumia’s biggest market, he has a lot on his plate.
As part of efforts to cut losses, Jumia took some drastic measures last year despite listing on the New York Stock Exchange. It exited Cameroon and Tanzanian markets, downsized in Kenya and offloaded its entire travel business in Africa to Travelstart.
In its 3rd quarter report, the ecommerce startup said that its operating losses stood at $55 million, which is higher than the $45 million it recorded in the same quarter in 2018.
As Chairwoman of Jumia Nigeria, Anammah says that she will be supporting Massimiliano Spalazzi for the smooth running of Jumia Nigeria no longer be fully involved in the day to day activities of Jumia Nigeria.
As part of the vision for 2020, Spalazzi says the company will keep looking to make goods more affordable for consumers, foster faster deliveries with Jumia x-press, and concentrate more in the delivery of fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) and essential commodities.
The ecommerce startup has also intensified efforts to make JumiaPay a stand-alone fintech company.
It is no surprise that Jumia wants to give more attention to JumiaPay considering JumiaPay’s performance in the 3rd quarter report.
According to the Q3 report 2019, the number of JumiaPay transactions hit 2.1 million, up 262% from the same period 2018, demonstrating robust traction of digital payments on our platform.
The report also revealed that approximately 31% of orders at Group level were settled via JumiaPay compared to 16% a year ago, demonstrating our ability to leverage the marketplace flywheel to drive the adoption of JumiaPay.
JumiaPay which was introduced in 2016 as the payment vehicle of Jumia is available in six African countries of Nigeria, Egypt, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Morocco and Kenya.
It is not only in Nigeria that ecommerce startup recently made changes. In Ghana, Diana Owusu-Kyereko was named the new CEO. Owusu-Kyereko took over from Ore Odusanya.
