Jumia has appointed Charles Ballard as new Kenya CEO replacing Juan Seco who left the firm a few months ago to join fintech player Mukuru.
Charles Ballard has been with Jumia Kenya since 2019, when he joined as Head of Performance and Planning, in 2021 he became the Chief Operating Officer overseeing the expansion and deployment of Jumia activities in Kenya. In 2022, he was named Senior Vice President – Commercials.
Before joining Jumia, Charles worked as a Retail consultant at Sagaci Research in Kenya from 2015 to 2019, and before as Deputy CFO at ACTED (international humanitarian NGO) from 2012 to 2015. Charles holds a Master’s degree from the ESSEC Business School (France) and a Bsc in International Development from the London School of Economics – UoL/LSE (UK).
Charles has lived in Kenya for almost a decade and is married with two children.
Charles’ promotion to Kenya CEO represents an opportunity for another ‘homegrown Jumee’ to grow. He is a perfect example of the breadth and depth of the career paths that Jumia has to offer, and we plan to grow an even stronger team to pursue the work we have started. He will also continue to be intensely involved with Customer Experience initiatives at the core of our business.
Seco who was appointed in July last year as the new CEO for Jumia Kenya took over from Betty Mwangi who left the company to pursue interests away from Jumia. Betty took over from former CEO Sam Chappatte who joined Jumia in 2016. before his appointment as CEO, Juan was the Chief Financial Officer of Jumia Kenya since 2015.
Seco became part of the founding team of JumiaPay, as Chief Operating Officer in 2017, overseeing the expansion and deployment of JumiaPay across Jumia markets. In 2019, he was named Senior Vice President of Consumer Financial Services leading fintech initiatives and the JumiaPay App, which is now available in eight countries.