Stafford Masie talks around Digital Innovation and Disruption, and are applicable to any audience because technology is a transversal matter, irrespective of industry or theme.
Stafford has been in the ICT industry for more than 25 years. His career foundations started in mid 90’s working for Telkom, Dimension Data and then Novell as a software engineer. After spending 7.5 years living in the USA working for Novell based in Utah, he notably was responsible for establishing Google’s presence in South Africa (2006).
He led their team in launching the African versions of Google Search, Adwords, Google Maps and Streetview as well as the local version of YouTube – in other words, the Southern African Google business eco-system and strategy.
After leaving Google in 2010, he founded several fintech businesses and has since established several technology start-ups that have expanded globally. He’s known for the ‘Payment Pebble®’ and ‘Payment Blade®’ which he invented and which were launched via ABSA in South Africa and ANZ Bank in Australia and New Zealand.
They are presently being launched throughout the Asia Pacific region. During his time in the fintech arena he raised capital via an international venture capital firm and also the USA based Visa Inc (who also acquired an equity stake in one of his businesses).
Stafford continues his entrepreneurial journey today as an inventor and mentor within early-stage technology start-ups. Presently the two most notable of which are GATTACA – an artificial intelligence platform – and another which focuses on bitcoin crypto currency innovations.
Stafford joined WeWork (an American commercial real estate company that provides shared workspaces for technology startups and services for other enterprises) and was their General Manager for Africa and launched their first presence on the African continent for 2.5 years.
He also guest lectures at several business schools such as Wits/UJ Business School, GIBS and Henley, participates in television and radio broadcasts and is an international guest keynote speaker on the influence of technology on modern life, society and education.
Over the past 7 years his focus has turned to the Bitcoin blockchain network and all aspects of crypto currencies. Many of his recent keynotes entails deciphering this world to audiences and inspiring enterprises with these new tectonic technological shifts.
He served on the Advtech board for 7.5 years and is currently an independent non-executive director on several boards including the CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research) & Discovery Bank.
He serves as a non-executive director, of the board of ADvTECH (the largest private school education body in Africa) and, after being approached by the Minister of Science and Technology, accepted an invitation to join the board of the CSIR (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research).
Masie has also been appointed as one of the specialist advisors to the Office of the President of South Africa.