Business creates the wealth that funds every public service, so every government department should see helping business succeed as part of its job.”

– Anne Cantelo, Founder of Onyx Media and Communications

��

The first thing you need to know about running a business in Britain today is that…

��

Nearly half of private-sector employment is in businesses with fewer than 50 employees, yet political debate too often assumes businesses can fund specialist teams to manage compliance and have steady cash flow and large profit margins. SMEs and startups often have one founder or a tiny leadership team worrying about sales, recruitment, tax, regulation and customers.

Tax increases for employers have to be funded. That means freezing recruitment or wages, increasing prices or cutting suppliers. These are all measures that impact growth. Fantastic businesses fail not through lack of ambition or ideas, but because simply keeping the business functioning can become overwhelming.

��

The biggest challenge facing UK founders that politicians don’t completely understand is…

��

Cashflow. The government could use its teeth to reduce the problem significantly. Some of the worst payers are large corporations, many of which benefit from government contracts. I know from experience that 60 or even 90-day payment terms are still common.

Instead of yet another ‘code’ or initiative the government should make prompt payment a condition of doing business with the public sector: large companies should automatically be excluded from public contracts unless 90% of supplier invoices are paid within 30 days.

Small businesses shouldn’t provide interest-free working capital to much larger companies. Government has enormous purchasing power; using it to change payment behaviour and that would transform cashflow for thousands of SMEs.

��

��

The promise I would most like to see your government keep is…

��

To be more supportive of growth. Test every major policy affecting business against a simple question: will this make somebody more or less likely to start, grow, employ people or invest in a business in Britain?

I’d also like HMRC to bring far more real-world business experience into their decision-making. An otherwise viable business can have a short-term cashflow problem. An inflexible decision that pushes it into insolvency destroys the business and jobs; it also means the Treasury loses tax that might have been collected if that business had been given reasonable time to pay.

��

Please don’t…

��

Mistake government activity for economic progress. I’ve seen government from both sides, working within it and subsequently running businesses and advising private-sector organisations. Governments are good at creating strategies, initiatives, taskforces and announcements, then measuring meetings held and people consulted. Those measures are largely irrelevant.

Businesses measure success differently: customers won, products launched, exports made and profits generated. Government should judge business policy by outcomes too. What impact have its policies had on growth? Are insolvencies rising or falling? Are businesses of different sizes employing more or fewer people? Measure what actually matters. E.g. Do they know these top line figures for the impact of the rise in employer NI contributions?

��

What would make the UK a more attractive place to build and scale a company is…

��

A stable, proportionate tax and regulatory environment that rewards growth. The simultaneous increases in employer NI and the minimum wage were disastrous for many small businesses. Where did the government expect them to find the money? It demonstrated how poorly the reality of tight margins is understood by those making the decisions.

We also need a fairer international tax system. British SMEs can compete for the same customers with multinationals whose structures enable profits to be taxed elsewhere. We should move towards taxing multinational profits where customers and economic activity are located. Small businesses shouldn’t find that, proportionately, the much bigger business next door has a lower tax burden.

��

What gives me confidence in Britain’s future is…

��

The people building businesses here. Working in technology PR means I see innovations long before most people hear about them and have worked with some amazing people. I’m continually struck by the quality of British founders and their ability to identify problems and create commercial solutions.

AI in particular is creating opportunities for smaller companies to compete in ways that would have required enormous resources even a few years ago. Britain has the talent, universities, entrepreneurial culture and international reputation to benefit enormously from that, provided we create the right environment around them.

��

What worries me most about the next five years…

��

We aren’t attracting the brightest and best into politics. Parliament has a recruitment problem. At £98,599, becoming an MP can mean a huge pay cut for high-calibre candidates. i.e., those who are at the top of their professions, running businesses or senior figures in public service, charities and unions.

I’d double MPs’ salaries. The additional £64m a year is tiny in government spending terms. In return, ban second jobs and outside interests.

I can hear the screams of protest, but this isn’t about rewarding current MPs. If a business isn’t attracting candidates of the calibre it needs, it changes what it’s offering. Parliament should too, or we will continue to witness a revolving door at Number 10.

��

If you take one thing from this letter, let it be this:

��

Give businesses confidence to plan. Entrepreneurs are risk-takers, but there is a difference between calculated commercial risk and unnecessary political uncertainty.

A founder should be worrying about whether customers will buy their product, whether they can beat their competitors and whether their next hire is the right one, not trying to second-guess what government might change next.

Create a stable, competitive environment and give businesses the space to do what they do best.

��

��My hopes and dreams for 2030…

��

I hope by 2030 we’ve stopped debating Brexit. Entrepreneurs understand that every disruption creates winners and losers. The winners are those who stop complaining first and start adapting fastest.

Innovations in AI, crypto and autonomous vehicles are moving very quickly, so present huge opportunities and challenges to governments. Outside the EU, Britain has greater freedom (agility and flexibility) to develop regulatory frameworks that nurture innovation while protecting society. But that advantage is worthless unless we act quickly enough to use it.

By 2030, I’d want government to point to measurable outcomes: investment, productivity, exports and successful British businesses. Entrepreneurs measure success by results. Government should too.

The post Dear Mr. Prime Minister: Anne Cantelo, Founder Of Onyx Media And Communications appeared first on 91̽��.

��

I started in social media, but my work has grown far beyond posting content. Over the past five years, I’ve worked across content strategy, paid media, influencer campaigns, digital account management and campaign planning.

I’ve had the opportunity to work on brands such as McDonald’s South Africa, The Glenlivet, Hotel Sky, Ribs & Burgers and a number of hospitality, lifestyle and FMCG brands. That range has taught me how differently people connect with brands, and why there is no one-size-fits-all approach to marketing.

What has kept me in the industry is that no two days are ever the same. One week I’m building a content strategy for a product launch, the next I’m working on paid campaigns, briefing creators or analysing performance. Marketing gives me the opportunity to combine creativity with problem-solving, and that’s what I enjoy most.

��

What is the biggest mistake brands make on social media?

��

Treating social media like a noticeboard.

A lot of brands are focused on what they want to say, instead of what their audience actually cares about. The strongest content usually sits at the point where the brand’s objective, the audience’s interests and the culture of the platform meet.

People don’t open Instagram or TikTok looking for adverts. They’re there to be entertained, inspired or learn something. Brands that understand that tend to create content that feels native to the platform instead of interrupting the experience, and that’s where stronger engagement usually comes from.

��

How do you balance creativity and performance?

��

I don’t see them as separate.

The creative idea has to be strong enough to stop someone, but the strategy behind it has to make sure it reaches the right audience and supports a real objective. I’ve worked on campaigns where the content needed to build brand love, drive engagement, support a launch and still perform through paid media. That balance is where the real work happens.

I think the best campaigns are the ones where creative and media work together from the beginning instead of being treated as separate conversations. When both teams understand the objective, the work is not only more impactful but also easier to measure and optimise over time.
��

What excites you most about social media right now?

��

The fact that brands can participate in culture in real time.

Social media has made it possible for a good idea to travel far beyond its original audience. It has also given smaller brands, creators and communities more power. What excites me is seeing brands move away from overly polished content and start showing more personality, relevance and understanding of the people they are speaking to.

I also enjoy how quickly the industry evolves. New features, creator behaviour and consumer expectations are constantly changing, which means marketers have to keep learning. It’s one of the few industries where staying curious is just as important as having experience.

��

What advice would you give someone trying to enter the industry?

��

Build proof of how you think.

A portfolio should not only show finished work. It should show your ideas, your strategy and how you solve problems. Create mock campaigns, break down work you admire, share your point of view and stay curious. In this industry, your thinking can open the door before your job title does.

I also encourage people not to compare themselves to someone who’s been doing this for years. Everyone starts somewhere. Focus on becoming better with every project, ask questions and don’t be afraid to put your work out there. Consistency is often what creates opportunities.

��

What has your career taught you so far?

��

That good marketing is rarely just one big idea.

It is research, timing, collaboration, understanding the audience, managing feedback and still protecting the strength of the idea. Working across different brands and industries has taught me how to adapt without losing the strategy.

It’s also taught me the importance of listening. Some of the best insights come from conversations with clients, consumers and teammates. Marketing is ultimately about people, and the more you understand them, the stronger your work becomes.

��

What is next for you?

��

I want to keep building work that sits between culture, creativity and performance.

I’m especially interested in growing further across social media strategy, paid media and integrated campaigns, while continuing to work on brands that want to do more than simply be visible. I want to create work that people notice, remember and respond to.

Long term, I’d like to contribute to shaping how brands approach digital marketing by creating work that is both commercially effective and culturally relevant. The industry moves quickly, and that’s exactly what keeps me excited about where my career is heading.

The post A Conversation With Siphesihle Yokwe, Social Media And Paid Media Specialist And Founder Of Mvelo Mediahouse appeared first on 91̽��.

��

Virtual Africa started with a question that stayed with me for years:��Why are some of the most talented people I know struggling to access global opportunities simply because of where they live?

Throughout my career, I worked alongside incredibly skilled African marketers, designers, writers, strategists and creatives. They consistently produced world-class work, yet many international businesses either didn’t know they existed or still held outdated perceptions about African talent.

At the same time, I noticed another challenge. Businesses, particularly startups and growing companies, needed high-quality marketing but couldn’t always justify the cost of large agencies or building in-house teams.

That’s where Virtual Africa came from.

We’re a marketing agency powered by African freelancers. Instead of relying on a traditional agency structure, we’ve built a network of exceptional freelance specialists across the continent. Every project is delivered by a team assembled specifically for that client’s goals, whether that’s growing a brand, launching a product, generating leads or creating content that genuinely connects with people.

What makes us different is that African freelancers aren’t simply supporting the work, they are the business. They are the strategists developing campaigns, the designers shaping visual identities, the copywriters telling brand stories, the video editors producing engaging content, and the marketers helping businesses grow.

For me, Virtual Africa has always been about more than marketing. It’s about creating meaningful opportunities for African professionals while giving businesses access to world-class talent that may have otherwise been overlooked.

��

In your experience, where is the current freelancing industry headed?

��

I believe we’re witnessing one of the biggest shifts in the way businesses build teams.

Companies are becoming less focused on where someone is based and far more interested in whether they can deliver results. The traditional idea of hiring everyone under one roof is changing, and businesses are embracing flexible teams that bring together the right expertise for each project.

That creates enormous opportunities for freelancers, especially those in emerging markets.

I also think we’ll continue to see the line between agencies and freelancers blur. Businesses still want strategy, accountability and consistency, but they also want access to specialist skills without the overhead of large in-house teams.

That’s exactly the model we’re building at Virtual Africa. We combine the flexibility and creativity of African freelancers with the structure and quality clients expect from a professional marketing agency.

��

What most excites you about the opportunities present for freelancers?

��

Without question, it’s the opportunity to redefine where world-class work comes from.

For decades, many creative and marketing industries have been centred around a handful of global cities. Today, technology has levelled the playing field. A strategist in Johannesburg can collaborate with a designer in Nairobi, a video editor in Lagos and a copywriter in Cape Town to deliver campaigns for businesses in London, New York or Sydney.

That’s incredibly exciting because geography is no longer the biggest barrier to opportunity.

For African freelancers, this means they can build international careers while remaining rooted in their own communities. They can earn globally, develop their skills and contribute to the growth of the continent’s creative economy.

I believe we’re only beginning to see what’s possible, and I’m excited to help create more of those opportunities through Virtual Africa.
��

What has been the biggest challenge you’ve had to overcome along the way?

��

Changing perception.

One of the biggest challenges isn’t finding talented African freelancers, we have an abundance of exceptional talent. The challenge has been helping businesses recognise just how skilled, innovative and professional that talent really is.

Too often, conversations about Africa focus on limitations rather than expertise and innovation.

Every client we work with is an opportunity to change that narrative.

Once businesses experience the quality of work, the professionalism and the creativity our teams deliver, those assumptions quickly disappear. Building trust takes time, but the results speak for themselves.

��

What is your number one piece of advice to aspiring freelancers who want to start?

��

Think like a business owner from day one.

Don’t just ask yourself,��“What service can I sell?”��Ask yourself,��“What problem can I solve?”

The freelancers who build lasting careers aren’t always the most technically gifted. They’re the ones who communicate clearly, understand their clients’ goals and consistently deliver value.

I’d also encourage freelancers to invest in collaboration. One of the biggest misconceptions is that freelancing has to be a solo journey. Some of the strongest results come when specialists with different skills work together, and that’s exactly what we encourage at Virtual Africa.

��

What can we hope to see from Virtual Africa in the future?

��

We’re building far more than a marketing agency, we’re building a platform for African talent to thrive.

As Virtual Africa grows, we’ll continue expanding our network of freelance marketers, designers, copywriters, strategists, video editors and digital specialists from across the continent, connecting them with businesses looking for innovative marketing solutions.

Our vision is to become the agency businesses think of when they want exceptional marketing powered by African talent.

More importantly, I hope Virtual Africa contributes to changing the global narrative around Africa. I want more businesses to see the continent not simply as a source of talent, but as a source of innovation, creativity and leadership.

Because the future of work isn’t limited by geography, and neither is talent.

The post A Chat With Tshimologo Leburu, Founder And CEO At Virtual Africa On How African Freelancers Can Build Marketing Strategies for Global Businesses appeared first on 91̽��.

Artem has built and scaled digital products from early-stage concepts to revenue-generating businesses, including a non-custodial crypto wallet that reached 1M+ users, 200K+ MAU, and $4.5M in revenue.

Performa was created around an issue the team has repeatedly encountered: the more businesses start operating across cryptocurrency and fiat, the bigger appears the lack of effective infrastructure to host both of these systems.

Global digital-native companies often have their financial operations scattered across multiple platforms: they may accept payments in stablecoins, settle part of its revenue in fiat, pay contractors globally, split incoming funds between partners and manage treasury across wallets and bank accounts, all through separate systems.

Performa brings these processes into one operating layer. Its core range of services include Receiving Payments, for custodial and now non-custodial crypto acceptance, payment links, and invoices; Sending Payments, for bulk payouts to teams, contractors, vendors, and partners via CSV; Exchanging, for fiat on/off-ramp flows and structured access to vetted OTC partners and Managing Finances, which lets businesses monitor connected wallets in one dashboard, with simple KYB required to start.

��

Are Digital Products More Important Than Ever?

��

I would say yes.

It has been a while since digital products were simply online versions of existing services. For many companies, they are now the main environment in which customers interact with their products and go through the entire journey, from discovering and evaluating to onboarding and making a payment.

This means that the quality of each step of the journey shapes how people perceive the company itself. So in order to win a customer’s trust, the interface, speed and reliability of any product should appear impeccable. Especially, it concerns the payment stage as the final and most trust-driven one. A confusing checkout, failed transaction or missing confirmation can undo all the work that went into attracting and converting the customer.

At this point, a smooth payment experience is a basic expectation: nothing should stand between the customer’s willingness to pay and the successful completion of the transaction. Customers may prefer one of a plethora of methods and businesses need to support that choice without creating additional complexity in their own accounting and financial operations.

��

What Does Increased Adoption Of Both Cryptocurrencies And Stablecoins Mean For The World Of Digital Products?

��

It means that businesses can no longer treat crypto payments as a future possibility. They are already a significant part of the landscape, and their share is likely to keep growing. More people are using stablecoins and customers will increasingly expect them to be available, especially when it comes to global payments.

Crypto will not overpower fiat overnight but the sentiment towards it is obviously changing. Stablecoins are a practical alternative for the usual payment methods, and in my opinion, businesses need to be ready to adapt to this new option. Those that begin integrating crypto payments now will be better positioned than those forced to catch up once they become a standard customer expectation.

��

What Are The Biggest Challenges Companies Face When They Handle Both Crypto And Fiat Currencies?

��

The biggest challenge is that once businesses integrate crypto payments into their existing flows, they quickly discover just how fragmented their financial data ends up being. Most platforms serving this market are either fiat-native operators adding crypto as an extra feature, or crypto-only infrastructure built and priced for enterprise-scale companies.

Neither model fully reflects what most SMBs actually need and that is why often businesses are forced to use multiple services to meet their operational needs.

In reality, a company integrating a crypto layer needs to be able to choose between fiat and stablecoins depending on the specific invoice, payout or settlement it is handling. That becomes difficult when funds and transaction data are spread across platforms with different withdrawal rules, spreads and fees.

The problem becomes more serious as transaction volumes grow. A large share of the work like moving funds, reconciling transactions and preparing payouts, is still handled manually, which consumes time and increases the risk of error. What may be manageable with a small number of transactions quickly becomes a bottleneck when the business scales.

��

What Problems Does Performa Go About Solving In Space?

��

Performa is designed to remove the operational gaps between receiving money, converting it, allocating it and paying it out. Instead of using separate providers for all sorts of functions, businesses can manage these processes within one financial workspace. This gives a clearer view of where funds are, how they are being used and what needs to happen next.

The platform supports crypto invoices and payment links, payment orchestration and revenue splitting, mass payouts through CSV or API, and access to vetted OTC partners. The broader goal is to help SMBs use fiat and stablecoins according to the needs of each transaction without forcing them to build their own infrastructure or coordinate several disconnected platforms manually.

What Has Been Your Biggest Achievement To Date?

��

Payments is one of the most competitive areas in fintech, and the bar keeps rising as regulation becomes more demanding. Building a high-quality product that would still be accessible to SMBs, while creating a sustainable business around it, is a major challenge in itself.

I believe we have managed to solve it by building a strong product discovery process that keeps us focused on developing only the functionality customers genuinely need and are willing to pay for. This approach is already paying off: we are receiving great feedback from large clients, which is a strong signal for a young product that we are solving a real problem and moving in the right direction.

��

Do You Think Crypto Will Overtake Fiat As The Preferred Digital Payment Method?

��

I do not think crypto needs to replace fiat to become central to the future of payments. The broader trend towards global, always-on commerce is not going away, and crypto expands the range of tools available to businesses and consumers, particularly where traditional payment rails are slow, expensive or limited by borders.

The companies most likely to win the market, will be those that abstract the user experience away from the underlying rails. Customers should simply be able to choose the fastest, most convenient option and have the transaction work seamlessly. The future is therefore not crypto versus fiat, but infrastructure that allows both to operate as part of the same experience.

Why Are Digital Asset Classes Growing?

Digital asset classes are growing because crypto has reset expectations around how money should move. It allowed people to transfer funds globally, at any time and often within minutes. Once such a seamless experience became possible, the same expectations naturally extended to how people want to spend, save and access other financial products.

Another important shift contributing to digital assets’ growth is that they are expanding beyond crypto-native instruments. Stablecoins provide access to digital dollars, while tokenisation can make assets such as equities, funds or private-market investments easier to work with. In my view, today’s growth is being driven less by speculation than by the gradual redesign of how financial assets are accessed.

��

What Is Next For You?

��

We have reached the point where the core idea behind Performa has been validated, so the focus now is on turning a strong early product into a more complete financial operating platform. That means improving the functionality already in use, making onboarding increasingly self-service and ensuring the product remains straightforward as customers’ transaction volumes and operational needs grow

We are also broadening the infrastructure around it. The next phase includes support for more local currencies, virtual IBANs and open banking integrations. Taken together, these additions will move Performa closer to its long-term goal: giving businesses one place to manage crypto and fiat without treating them as two separate financial systems.

The post Meet Artem Kirillov: General Manager At Performa appeared first on 91̽��.

��

Because the mismatch is one of timescales, not volume. Data centre demand is arriving on grids that are already managing the retirement of coal and some nuclear capacity, rising penetration of intermittent renewables, and the electrification of heating and transport. Each of those is a decade-long trend, and they are compounding rather than resolving. On the supply side, the response times are slow, new transmission takes years to consent and build, large transformers have multi-year lead times, and grid connection queues in several markets now stretch into the 2030s. A temporary shortage clears when supply catches up. Here, the demand drivers are growing faster than the delivery mechanisms can respond, and that gap is structural.

��

Many people see speed and sustainability as competing priorities. Why do you think that has become a false choice for data centre developers?

��

The choice is only real if the assets deployed for speed, are dead ends. Rushing to power can lock in long-term carbon and forfeit future optionality, but it does not have to. The generating assets most deployed on data centre sites, such as gas engines, have credible routes to de-fossilisation. Combined cooling and power raise the overall efficiency of the plant by putting the engine’s heat to work. The fuel can move from natural gas to biomethane or biomethane blends today, and to hydrogen as supply develops. The operating role can shift from baseload to backup and grid support as cleaner grid supply arrives. Carbon capture, combined with biomethane, can take the plant to net carbon negative. Biomethane addresses a growing credibility gap in the industry: it closes the distance between renewable energy claimed through certificates and offsets and renewable energy physically used on site. The question a developer should ask is not “fast or clean” but “does this asset have a transition path or not.” If it does, speed and decarbonisation are sequenced rather than opposed.

��

How can energy autonomous strategies help developers bring new AI capacity online faster without abandoning long term decarbonisation goals?

��

Onsite generation removes the grid connection queue as the binding constraint on delivery. A developer with dispatchable generation on site can energise a facility on the equipment lead time rather than the utility’s timeline, which in constrained markets is the difference between years. The decarbonisation goal survives if the strategy is designed as a bridge rather than a destination: fuel-flexible assets, contracts that allow the operating role to change, and a plan for how the onsite plant transitions from primary supply to backup and flexibility as grid capacity arrives. Energy autonomy done properly is not a rejection of the grid. It is a way of arriving at the grid on your own schedule, with assets that still have a job when you get there.

��

You mention building infrastructure for transition instead of replacement. What does that look like in practice, and why is it becoming more important?

��

Replacement thinking assumes each asset is scrapped when something cleaner arrives. Transition thinking asks how the same asset changes role and fuel over its life. In practice that means specifying engines that can move from natural gas to biomethane or hydrogen blends; designing the electrical and control architecture so a plant built as primary power can later operate as backup, peaking, or grid support; recovering heat where there is a thermal use for it (and/or leaving space for integration of absorption chillers); and writing commercial arrangements that preserve those options rather than foreclosing them. It matters more now because the industry is deploying generating capacity at unusual speed. Decisions made in the next three years will sit on sites for twenty. Building for transition is how you avoid owning a fleet of stranded assets in the 2030s.

��

How can onsite generation, battery storage and hybrid energy systems change the role data centres play within the wider energy network?

��

They turn the data centre from a passive load into a controllable one. A facility with generation and storage behind the meter can reduce its draw at peak, export or provide balancing services when the grid is stressed and absorb power when it is abundant. That changes the negotiation with the network operator: a flexible load is easier to connect than an inflexible one, because it adds less to peak demand, which is what the system is built for. Most grids carry substantial unused capacity outside peak hours. Facilities that can flex into that headroom get connected faster and become part of how the system balances, rather than another problem it must absorb.
��

The UK has seen investment in onsite generation slow following policy changes. Do you think current grid constraints could lead to a renewed focus on these energy strategies, and what would need to change?

��

Yes, and the logic has already shifted. The earlier wave of UK onsite generation was built substantially on embedded benefits, and when charging reforms removed much of that value, the investment case weakened. The new case does not depend on tariff arbitrage. It depends on connection timelines: when the alternative is waiting years for a grid connection, onsite generation is valued on speed to power and on the revenue a flexible asset can earn, which is a more durable foundation than a charging methodology.

What needs to change is partly structural. Unlike other markets such as the USA, the UK offers little support for integrated microgrids that combine generation, storage and load behind a single connection. The policy landscape instead favours grid-level balancing: standalone batteries and dedicated solar built for export. That leaves the UK well supplied with flexibility at system level but poorly equipped to serve large loads that need power faster than the connection queue allows. Beyond that, the fixes are mostly about clarity. Planning treatment of onsite generation at data centres remains inconsistent, connection reform needs to reward flexible loads with faster access, and the flexibility markets need enough visibility for developers to underwrite against them.

��

Looking ahead over the next 10 to 15 years, what should developers be doing today to make sure the data centres they build remain resilient, flexible and commercially viable?

��

Treat power as a strategic asset rather than a procurement line. Concretely: buy optionality in the generating plant, meaning fuel flexibility and the ability to change operating role over the asset’s life; design for grid interactivity from day one, because a facility that can flex will be worth more to the system than one that cannot; take thermal output seriously where there is a use for it, since rejected heat is unmonetised fuel; and stress-test the commercial structure, not just the engineering, against a decade in which power markets, carbon rules, and grid access regimes will all move. The facilities that stay viable will be the ones designed on the assumption that conditions change, rather than the ones optimised for the conditions of 2026.

The post Interview With Alex Marshall, Group Director At Clarke Energy, A Rehlko Company On The Data Centre Industry appeared first on 91̽��.

Yonchev has spent his career at the intersection of technology, media, and the creator economy. He was Managing Director of Social Chain AG, the publicly listed social media and e-commerce group that reached a peak valuation in excess of €500 million, before co-founding Flight Story, the group he built with Steven Bartlett.

He is also the founder of Cocreatd, the venture business through which Potentially was originated. Along the way he has worked with some of the world’s biggest brands, including Amazon, Apple, Coca-Cola, TikTok, Google, Disney and Uber.

Potentially was founded with co-founder Sukhveer Sanghera, an aerospace engineer whose career spans NASA Langley, LedgerX and Polymath, where he was Founding CTO. The company recently listed on AIM under the ticker AGI, joining a small group of AI companies choosing London’s public markets over the traditional venture capital path.

The company’s thesis is simple. As AI models improve and commoditise, the lasting value will not sit with the models themselves but with the people and businesses creating with them.

Potentially brings the world’s leading models into one protected environment, built on the principle that everything you create should remain yours, and that you should be able to earn from it. The company describes this as Create. Protect. Monetise.

��

In The Social Media Age, Is Quality Of Followers And Engagement Becoming More Important Than Quantity?

��

The last few years have seen a shift from connection-based algorithms, built on who you follow, to recommendation engines. That means follower count is less relevant than it has ever been. If you signal the right things with your content, you can achieve exceptional distribution regardless of audience size.I have never been a fan of followers at all costs.

What matters more today is cultivating a deeper connection with your audience, which means moving people beyond a single social channel and into places like email lists and podcasts, where you can have a direct relationship with a community.

��

How Is AI Working Alongside Social Media To Build Big, Powerful And Meaningful Companies And Ventures?

��

We tend to view technology moments in isolation. The last few years have been dominated by conversation around generative AI. But zoom out and consider the accelerant that came before it. Social media democratised attention, so ideas now spread across the internet like a virus. Combine that with the ability to make content, software, anything digital, faster and at a fraction of the cost, and you have uncharted territory.

You are seeing new expectations around the velocity at which a startup can grow and commercialise, and new expectations around value, which is reflected in the scale of fundraising behind AI companies. Social media is the fuse. AI is the bomb.

��

What Is Your Outlook For The British AI Industry And Innovations?

��

The UK has a tremendous legacy of driving industry. We have some of the best academic institutions in the world, we have the financial institutions, although they could do more to support early-stage companies, and we now have a government with genuine enthusiasm to compete in AI. I am bullish on the UK for all these reasons.

But we have to play to our strengths. The UK has some of the highest energy costs in the developed world, which makes it hard to compete at the infrastructure level, whether that is chips or data centres. Where we can compete is everything that sits above the models, and that is ultimately where Potentially wants to add value.

��

What Spurred You To Start Potentially?

��

I am someone who obsesses over how technology gets applied in the real world. Over a year ago, we made a bet. If you consider the innovation curve, the velocity at which models are improving, and the enormous capital expenditure required to build them, it becomes clear that models will commoditise.

At the same time, people and businesses are starting to grapple with the true cost of AI, and there is a growing unease across the industry about AI displacing people and changing jobs. So we took a contrarian bet, one that is becoming less contrarian by the day. We back the collective. We bring all models into one protected environment, we believe everything you create should remain yours, and we want to empower you to monetise it.

My personal view, which seems lost on many in the industry, is that technology should always be in service of people, not in service of itself. When I met Sukhveer Sanghera, an incredible technologist and engineer, we shared the same view of the future. We knew that at Cocreatd we had to take on a big, audacious bet. That bet is Potentially.

��

What Do You Want Potentially To Change About Who Owns And Benefits From AI?

��

We are living through a period where things once thought unthinkable are now possible. We are democratising the ability to create products and services in a way we never have before. It is an amazing time. But I do not believe the value being created should be absorbed by the big labs and the models alone. They are pioneering remarkable technology and deserve to share in the prosperity, but the biggest beneficiary should be people and businesses.

If you build the right infrastructure, the right environment, and the right network effects, that future is possible. And it is a future worth building.

What Is The Biggest Thing Companies Are Missing Out On When It Comes To Utilising AI?

��

Around 90 per cent of all model usage sits with Google, OpenAI and Anthropic. They make brilliant products, and I use them myself. But there is extraordinary innovation happening across every domain and every modality that most people have simply never experienced. There are models that do very specific tasks exceptionally well, and almost nobody knows they exist.

My prediction is that people will increasingly use different models for different things and that is exactly where we want to help.

��

Everyone Is Talking About AI But Are We Ignoring Human Ingenuity And The Human Brain’s Creativity By Over-Relying On AI?

��

It is a real problem. The brain, like anything, atrophies without use. We have spent decades learning how to remember things. Now we need to remember how to ask the right questions.

There is a broad shift happening where humans move from execution to judgement. The big question becomes: how do you practice good judgement? That comes from knowledge and experience, and we must be careful not to outsource the very things that build them.

��

How Can The UK Challenge The AI And Creator Powerhouses Of The USA And China?

��

I do not think we are framing it the right way. We cannot compete in every area, but we can collaborate across every area. The important thing is working as a collective, which is why we take the view that the future will be built by many contributions, not a few.

��

Do You Think That The UK And Europe Overregulate AI, Rather Than Foster Innovation, Growth And Creativity?

��

I have some empathy for regulators. This is hard. An entire rule book has to be rewritten. But regulators need to be pragmatic and recognise that this is a global race. We need legislation that does not put the UK and Europe at a disadvantage.

There are legitimate things to be concerned about, so I understand the caution. But the decisions regulators make over the next few years may determine the region’s prosperity for decades. The stakes are that high.

��

How Do You Get A Company Like Potentially Listed On The LSE So Quickly From It Being Founded?

��

Business is often simpler than most would have you believe. A business is a mission: a team of people in relentless pursuit of doing the best they can. A big part of our early progress has been taking a high-conviction bet, assembling the best team we possibly can, and choosing an alternative funding path in the capital markets.

Most of our contemporaries are exclusively venture-backed, and I understand why. My view is that if we are to be a serious company, being a regulated entity with the right governance from the earliest stage will force us to make the right decisions. I am not afraid of being accountable.

��

What’s Next For You And Potentially?

��

We have a truly ambitious mandate, so the next few months are heads down. Launching our first product. Continuing to build the team. Using early feedback to iterate quickly. And working towards being a sovereign champion for the UK.

��

Join the waitlist to access Potentially first at��

The post Meet Oliver Yonchev: Co-Founder Of Potentially AI appeared first on 91̽��.

��

I’m Chief AI Officer at IFS. My background is in agent-based modelling and how complex systems behave, a lens that still shapes how we approach applied AI.

At IFS, our strategy is centred on industrial AI. I have always been a strong believer that AI has to be embedded deep within a product and when it is surfaced to users, it has to be domain-specific and easy to use.

We don’t start with the technology and ask where AI can help. We start with the industries we serve – the practical, day-to-day problems a technician, a planner or a manufacturer faces and work back to the technology. IFS software is where agents become real: work orders, schedules, parts, the systems that connect a decision to an operational outcome.

��

You’ve engaged in major policy discussions, including conversations around AI policy in the UK. What first drew you to AI, and what keeps you excited about the technology today?

��

What drew me to AI was the idea that it could help us answer big, complex questions that we weren’t able to tackle before. While that is still the case, what keeps me on my toes today is that you can’t answer those questions in a vacuum and the practical reality of how you deliver AI-based solutions is still a rapidly developing area. The immediate challenge for many businesses is building practical AI capabilities that can operate reliably.

What is genuinely exciting from an engineering perspective is building the technology backbone to deliver AI capabilities. We are moving towards a thread of intelligence where we can take real-time data feeds from assets, run predictive AI algorithms under the bonnet, and connect intelligent systems across complex business processes. The challenge is making that thread reliable and governed in industrial environments. When you have thousands of processes, systems and sources of information, enabling AI to select the right capability while maintaining strong governance becomes a fascinating structural shift.

��

Why should UK businesses and startups care about the launch of the Sovereign AI Power Index?

��

The reality of enterprise implementation is a long way behind the hype train. There’s huge excitement, but most companies are still trying to understand what AI actually means for their operations. The Sovereign AI Power Index is valuable because it shifts the focus away from pure technology ambition onto operational readiness.

For UK businesses and startups, AI leadership is not about rushing to adopt the latest, greatest generic LLM, which would still need to guess its way through a complex task. Leadership is about readiness: the data foundations, governance, infrastructure and organisational maturity to take AI out of the pilot phase and into meaningful, complex industrial workflows, securely.

��

The index measures countries on areas including compute capacity, capital formation, regulatory readiness, data sovereignty and intelligence capability. Where do you think the UK currently stands weakest, and what would realistically unlock improvement?

��

The biggest hurdle right now is moving from experimentation to scale. Plenty of organisations are still running experiments, with far fewer having crossed into enterprise-grade deployment. Unlocking that takes architectural discipline. Developing AI features is expensive and requires real infrastructural changes. To scale, you need to automate more of the data science work required to create the models, then get them running and usable in production.

We’ve been building automated pipelines that push the complexity into the background. If the UK wants to improve across the Index’s core dimensions, we need less shallow experimentation and more investment in data readiness, industry-specific knowledge structures, and the infrastructure that translates technical capability into predictable operational value.
��

Is AI sovereignty actually achievable for countries like the UK, or are we really talking about managing long-term dependency on a small number of global technology providers?

��

I see AI sovereignty as a question of control, resilience and data boundaries rather than complete independence from global technology providers. No country or company is likely to build every part of the AI ecosystem in isolation; the investment and infrastructure required means organisations will continue to work with specialists. The important question is whether you retain control: over how those technologies are applied, where your data sits and how AI is governed within your operations. If you’re an airport, wind farm operator or manufacturer and those things live in someone else’s platform, a supplier’s commercial decision can disrupt critical operations.

That’s why we’re building an intelligence sovereignty architecture at IFS. The reasoning sits on top of the customer’s systems of record and data, inside boundaries they set and can audit, with the model layer kept interchangeable underneath. Customers can draw on the best available models without surrendering control of the things that are genuinely theirs. Sovereignty, in practice, isn’t a wall around your border – it’s keeping ownership of your data, your decisions and your ability to operate, wherever your models come from.

��

The index is designed to benchmark readiness, not just ambition. What separates countries or organisations that pilot AI from those that scale it successfully in real industrial environments?

��

It comes down to being outcome-focused rather than chasing the technology for its own sake. If you just throw AI at your business without understanding the problem you’re solving, it just creates more complexity and more systems to manage.

The organisations that do well do not usually make a big-bang transition. They run architectures in parallel – keeping their stable legacy systems running while identifying specific areas where AI can deliver value. Focusing on a clear operational outcome and capturing that in the design makes it much easier to test, govern and scale across the enterprise.

��

Do you think the biggest constraint on improving a country’s AI score is regulation and infrastructure, or something less discussed like workforce readiness, trust and frontline adoption?

��

Infrastructure and regulation matter, but workforce readiness, trust and organisational change are just as important. The next phase of AI adoption is not just about building more capable models; it’s about making systems reliable, governed and usable in the real world. In industrial environments, adoption depends on trust and practical usefulness. Field technicians, factory operators and engineers do not need AI for its own sake – they need tools that help them solve problems and make better decisions. That trust comes from governance, auditability and clear boundaries: knowing how a decision is made while maintaining human oversight. It’s why it can help to think of agents as a workforce, not software – they need identity, role-based access, separation of duties and audit trails.

Get the design right and the payoff is tangible: when a technician can use IFS Copilot through natural language to access information or complete a workflow instead of digging through documentation, AI stops being an abstraction and becomes a practical tool that helps them do their job more effectively.

��

The UK often talks about becoming an AI superpower. What do you think is the biggest obstacle standing in the way of that ambition?

��

The biggest obstacle might be the definition of “superpower” itself. If it means matching the US or China on frontier models – the largest clusters, the most compute, the most capital – the UK won’t win that race, and the real risk is pouring resources into trying.

The UK’s actual advantage is somewhere else. We have world-class industries, including aerospace, life sciences and financial services, sitting on deep, specialised data and decades of hard-won domain expertise. That’s precisely where applied, industrial AI creates value, and it’s the layer the frontier labs can’t easily reach, because they don’t have the domain knowledge or the trusted data to operate in it. A country that leads in applying AI to hard, regulated, real-world problems is a superpower in the sense that it actually changes economic outcomes.

So the obstacle is less a missing capability and more a misdirected ambition.

��

How important is AI readiness when it comes to attracting investment, talent and high-growth businesses to the UK?

��

It’s become increasingly important. Investment and high-growth businesses gravitate to environments that support modern technology architectures, innovation and rapid execution. True AI readiness is not just about having access to models; it is about the data foundations, governance and operational capabilities to turn those models into measurable outcomes. Showing that an ecosystem supports speed, auditability and data control will matter more and more for attracting investment and talent.

��

If you could recommend one priority for policymakers looking to strengthen the UK’s AI position over the next five years, what would it be?

��

I’d spend it on accountability for autonomous action and resist the temptation to write one big AI Bill to deliver it. A single all-encompassing Act tries to pin down a moving target and ages badly as the technology shifts. Regulate where the risk actually lands, sector by sector, and anchor it to one durable principle: when an AI agent or model takes an action in the real world – moves money, reschedules an aircraft, changes a maintenance plan – accountability is clear and auditable in the same way it is for employees. Firms build in the oversight, the logging and the ability to roll back, because they carry the consequences. It’s also technology-neutral, so it survives the next model generation and gives industry the confidence to move agents out of the sandbox and into operations that matter.

It also keeps humans in frame, which is the part that risks getting lost. Accountability can never sit with the software; it sits with the organisation that deploys it and benefits from it. Get that one principle right and you’ll have done more for safe adoption than an impossibly broad framework.

The post A Conversation With Bob De Caux, Chief AI Officer At IFS On Sovereign AI Power Index appeared first on 91̽��.

I came to this through products distributed globally, where the payment infrastructure enabled us to reach that market in the first place. You could localise the product and run the marketing, but if a customer couldn’t pay the way they normally do, none of the rest would count. The infrastructure beneath the checkout was carrying the product to market, as distribution does.

This grows harder to ignore as cross-border commerce expands, roughly three times faster than online retail as a whole. A company moving into new regions is taking on more of the exact conditions in which a home-market payment setup begins to fail.

��

Why Does The Payment Function So Often Stay Seen As A Cost Rather Than A Contributor?

��

Part of it is where the first decision gets made. When a company is formed, the choice of payment provider usually falls to finance or legal, and it depends on where the business is registered. A provider such as Stripe gives you the methods available in that home jurisdiction, which often has little to do with how people pay in the markets the company later wants to enter.

The choice is reasonable on day one, but becomes a constraint by the time expansion begins.

The other part is internal language. Payments use a great deal of specialist terminology, and the people who run them tend to report progress in those terms, which falls flat outside the team.

In recent polling of payments executives, around half still said their function is seen internally as a cost center, and a large majority said explaining payments to colleagues is a constant challenge. When the value cannot be put in terms that the rest of the business uses, it stays invisible, and so does the revenue being lost.

I place payments close to the product for that reason. Finance can tell you what the payment infrastructure costs, along with FX and if you use crypto methods, mining fees. Finance does not track the dynamics behind declines, though, or the detailed analytics on why payments fail. It does not own the technical infrastructure, the UX or the UI nor does it build the retry flows that bring a customer back for a second or third attempt after a payment fails.

The product team sits closer to all of that. Within the GDPR, it can gather data about the customer, their device, where they are and how they intend to pay, which determines whether the company can grow where it wants to.

��

What Does A Weak Payment Setup Block When A Platform Enters A New Market?

��

Three problems tend to stack up. The first is payment methods, which are deeply local. Customers in Saudi Arabia reach for MADA, customers in Brazil use PIX, customers in the Philippines use GCash, and when their preferred method is unavailable, a large share leave without buying, even when they wanted the product.

Offering the methods people in a market trust has a measurable effect on revenue. Bain has estimated that getting payment methods right can lift average order value by close to half.

The second is price. A single worldwide price ignores differences in purchasing power, so a subscription that sells comfortably in Western Europe can sit beyond reach in Central Asia or Southeast Asia, where the same figure means something quite different to the person paying.

The third is the movement of money underneath, the currency conversion and routing that carry their own costs and failure rates. None of this shows up on a headquarters dashboard. It surfaces when a company reads its own transaction data country by country, and the stakes are high, because roughly four in five shoppers say one disappointing experience is enough to send them to a competitor.

What Changes When A Company Starts Treating Payments As A Profit Centre?

��

The data collection changes first, and the decisions follow. While payments sit under cost, the conversation about them rarely moves past shrinking fees. Once they are read in terms of revenue, it widens to cover money lost on failed transactions that can be recovered, conversions that can be improved, and customers who stay because paying is easy.

A good deal of the work is translation. A line in a report about improved routing logic carries little weight with leadership. The same change, described as a higher share of successful payments, a lower cost per transaction, and recovered revenue that used to disappear on failed payments, gives them something to act on. The mechanics themselves carry money.

Optimising how transactions are routed can cut the cost of some card payments by as much as a quarter.

I would start with the cost side rather than with ambitious projects, because it earns credibility. The first numbers worth looking at are the decline rate, the approval rate, and the recovery rate, each split between new and returning customers. FX, chargebacks, and refunds sit outside this first look.

Read this way, the data points to revenue that can be recovered rather than fees to be trimmed, and that is what makes the case for finance. Showing them a block of recovered revenue makes the argument for the larger work far easier, and once that case lands, payments earn a place in the decisions about which markets to enter next.

The companies furthest along build that into their structure, placing payments under a cross-functional group that the chief financial and chief product officers share, so it no longer sits within a single operational team.

��

Where Should A Team Start If They See This Problem In Their Own Numbers?

There are three steps, and they work best in order.

Start by identifying where transactions are failing, country by country, and the reasons for the decline. Any competent payment provider has analysts who will prepare this on request. The data usually exists already and has simply never been read by the region. Once it is, the decline rates show where the setup is holding the business back.

Next, prioritise by the revenue being lost, not by the size of the market. A smaller market with a high rate of failed payments can be losing more recoverable income than a large one where almost everything goes through. The money to be won back often sits quietly in the markets, failing at checkout.

Then work through each group of declines individually, because the fix varies from one market to the next. Two cases show how differently it can go:

• Large, costly market — the issue is trust. The company already spends heavily to acquire customers, so a failed payment means it paid to bring someone in and lost the sale at the last step. The fix is usually in the data sent with each transaction: the more an issuer receives about the customer, the operation, and the service, the more it trusts a cross-border payment. That alone can add one to three points to the approval rate, and it recovers revenue without touching the marketing budget
• Smaller market — the issue is the method. Approval can fall low enough that most interested customers never pay, because they do not use cards. They pay through local alternatives. Offering the method people actually use lifts approval. The volumes remain smaller than in a market the size of the United States, but there is still revenue to be earned

The thread running through all three steps is that this is revenue the company has already paid to reach. The customers chose the product and arrived at checkout; only the payment step lost them. Reading the decline data and fixing the largest reasons before the next acquisition campaign changes what the same budget returns.

The post A Conversation With Marina Shulga, Product Leader In Payments And Digital Infrastructure: Why Payment Infrastructure Decides Where Products Can Grow appeared first on 91̽��.

��

For more than 35 years, has worked with leading organizations across oil and gas, chemicals, mining, utilities and manufacturing to improve accuracy, strengthen compliance, reduce risk, and make faster, more informed decisions. At the core of what we do is helping industrial operators bridge the gap between the field and the back-office to make it easier for industrial owners to understand and control contractor spending and on-site activity. As President of Management Controls Inc. (MCi), I lead a mission-driven organization where open communication and servant-style leadership are central. My focus is on the big business problems our customers face, and helping our teams deliver solutions that reduce waste and improve performance.

��

What does Management Controls do and what problems are you helping industrial organisations solve?

��

Our platform, myTrack, is a contractor data and spend management platform that gives owners real-time visibility into who’s on site, what they’re doing and what they should be paid. Contractor labor is one of a plant’s top three costs, yet it’s often tracked with paper timesheets and invoice portals that let contractors self-report hours; that creates massive cost leakage, safety risk and quality erosion. We automate contract enforcement through proof of presence via badge/gate data and hard-code contract terms for contractors (also known as vendors) for things like overtime and lunch rules, meaning owners pay only for work actually performed and can eliminate over-billing while vendors get the benefits that are outlined in their contracts, a win-win scenario.

��

��

Management Controls’ myTrack platform focuses on contractor data and spend management. Why is contractor management such an important issue for industrial businesses today?

��

Contractor management matters because contractor labor is a huge, and often overlooked, cost. It has historically been the “wild west.” Owners precisely measure raw materials and power use to the ounce or kilowatt, yet labor is tracked by paper timesheets or portals where contractors enter what they want to be paid. Owners simply don’t know if people were present or whether contract terms were satisfied. That lack of visibility creates real cost leakage and safety exposure, especially when headcount and activity ramp up during major projects. MyTrack brings proof of presence and automated contract rules into the workflow so owners stop overpaying and contractors get what they actually earned.

��

When production ramps up, what are some operational pressures that people outside refining and energy may not immediately see?

��

When production or turnarounds ramp up, the headcount and sheer volume of activity surges; it becomes an orchestra with tons of moving parts. Many contractors are unfamiliar with the plant, creating safety risks; poor planning and scheduling cause people to wait for equipment, permits or safety inspectors; handoffs across shifts can be weak; and under pressure people start cutting corners or rubber-stamping invoices to get through the night. All of that raises tensions, causes rework, and creates opportunities for mistakes and inefficiencies that most outside the sector don’t see.

��

How do maintenance activities, contractor oversight and cost control become more challenging during periods of high output?

��

During high-output or turnaround periods, the schedule is compressed, and everything is high-pressure and expensive — long days, multiple shifts and heavy expectations to get the plant back online. Contractors are brought in by the hundreds or thousands, often as temporary vendors rather than new employees, which increases complexity because crews may be inexperienced or unfamiliar with site rules. Without good handoffs and real-time oversight, things get missed, reworked, or approved without proper review. The volume and speed make manual tracking impossible, and that’s where mistakes, leakage and quality erosion happen.

��

Management Controls’ platform provides real-time visibility into contractor activity and costs. How important is real-time data when companies are trying to improve efficiency and avoid costly mistakes?

��

Real-time data is essential. In a manual world, the contractor initiates payment by submitting timesheets or invoices; MyTrack flips that model by using gate/badge feeds for proof of presence and by encoding the actual negotiated contract terms into software so the owner can calculate earned hours and dollars. When you can see in real time who arrived, when they left, and whether the contract rules apply, you stop over-billing and find blind spots that would otherwise be invisible. That immediate visibility lets owners make course corrections, prevent leakage, and improve efficiency without being physically on site.

��

Based on your experience working with industrial organisations, what are some of the most common inefficiencies or hidden costs that companies overlook?

��

There are three massive cost areas for plants: the product they make (raw materials), power/electricity use, and contractor labor — and the first two are tightly measured while the third oftentimes is not. Common inefficiencies we see are paper timesheets or portals that let contractors self-report hours, lack of cross-plant contract visibility since different plants or project types use different rules, and poor planning or scheduling that causes people to stand around waiting for permits, equipment or safety coverage. All that multiplies across thousands of people a day and turns into real cost waste.

��

Looking ahead, what trends do you think will have the biggest impact on industrial operations, contractor management and workforce planning over the next few years?

��

One trend to keep an eye on is the increase in geo-fencing and mobility solutions, as this will expand visibility for midstream and linear assets where there are no gates for badge tracking. But the biggest trend starting now and that will grow over the next few years is automation and AI-driven insights. Not AI buzz for the sake of it, but machine learning and analytics that connect the dots and surface blind spots. Using technology to analyze contractors and access data lets us uncover opportunities owners didn’t even know existed. For example, showing a customer they could save hundreds of thousands of dollars by implementing a small process change. As an industry slower to adopt cutting-edge technologies, we will continue to see the industry shift towards using data and AI to provide actionable insight that drive measurable operational savings.

The post A Chat With Ken Naughton, President Of Management Controls, On How Technology Is Transforming Contractor Oversight appeared first on 91̽��.

��

Growing up in Kenya I never saw fintech as a technology trend or an exciting industry to work in. I saw it as something that fundamentally changed people’s everyday lives.

Money paid school fees, supported extended families, kept businesses running and connected communities. Then M-Pesa arrived and transformed something that had always been difficult into something incredibly simple. Suddenly, people could move money instantly, securely and without needing traditional banking infrastructure.��

What struck me then and still influences how I think today is that M-Pesa was successful because it solved a genuine human problem and removed a very real friction from people’s lives. That lesson has stayed with me throughout my career, whenever I think about product development or payment infrastructure, I always come back to one question: does this genuinely make life easier for customers? �� Technology at its best is when people barely notice because everything simply works.

��

Many people still look to London and Europe as the centre of fintech innovation. Do you think Europe still has lessons to learn from Africa?

��

Absolutely and I think that’s a conversation the industry is only just beginning to have.

There is still a perception that innovation flows from developed markets into emerging ones, but payments tell a very different story. African fintech was forced to innovate because traditional banking infrastructure wasn’t always accessible. Rather than building around legacy systems, innovators built entirely new ways for people to access financial services.

Europe has exceptional financial institutions, strong regulation and a sophisticated fintech ecosystem, but it can sometimes become focused on adding features rather than removing barriers. In contrast, many African fintech solutions began with a very simple question, how do we solve a real problem for the largest number of people?

As someone who has worked across Kenya, Cyprus and now the UK, I’ve seen how different markets approach the same challenges. The technology may differ, but the customer expectation remains the same and people want financial services they can trust, understand and use with confidence. That’s something every market can learn from.
��

You’ve worked across three different financial markets. How has that influenced your approach to building regulated fintech businesses?

��

Working internationally has taught me that while regulations, banking systems and customer expectations differ, trust is universal.

Every market has its own complexities, but people everywhere expect financial services to be secure, reliable and straightforward. They don’t think about safeguarding requirements, payment rails or compliance frameworks. They simply expect their payment to arrive when it’s supposed to and that’s why I’ve become increasingly passionate about infrastructure. Customers only notice payment systems when they fail, but when they work well, they’re almost invisible and that’s exactly how it should be.

My legal background has also shaped how I think about fintech as regulation is often seen as something that slows innovation, but I see it differently. Strong governance and thoughtful compliance create confidence and confidence is what allows businesses to scale sustainably.�� Building regulated financial services isn’t simply about launching products quickly, but�� it’s about creating systems that people and businesses can rely on over the long term.

��

Artificial intelligence is reshaping financial services. Where do you see the biggest opportunities, and where should the industry be cautious?

��

AI has already changed the way many of us work and I use it every day to research, organise information and improve productivity. But I don’t believe AI replaces expertise, instead I think it amplifies it.

Those with deep industry knowledge will really see the benefits because they know which questions to ask and how to interpret the answers and that is particularly important in financial services, where regulation, risk and customer trust remain central.

I see enormous opportunities for AI to improve operational efficiency, strengthen compliance, detect fraud and help organisations make better decisions. Those are meaningful advances that can improve both customer experience and business resilience.

However, I also think we need to avoid treating AI as a solution in itself as technology should support better judgement, not replace it. Fintech companies to combine intelligent automation with experienced human decision-making, particularly in highly regulated environments.

��

Looking ahead, what do you think will define the next decade of fintech?

��

I think we’re entering a much more mature phase of fintech. The conversation is gradually moving away from disruption for disruption’s sake and towards building resilient financial infrastructure that customers can rely on every single day by removing friction, building trust and solving meaningful problems.

Cross-border payments will continue to evolve, AI will become more deeply embedded in financial services and collaboration between fintechs and traditional financial institutions will become increasingly important.

But if there’s one lesson I’ve carried with me from watching M-Pesa transform everyday life in Kenya, is that that great financial innovation is about making people’s lives easier.�� Whilst technology changes quickly, human needs don’t. The fintech companies that keep that principle at the centre of everything they build will be the ones that define the next decade.

The post A Chat With Sophie Njagi, Fintech And Payments Expert And CEO Of Eqwire On What Europe Can Still Learn From Africa’s Biggest FinTech Success Story appeared first on 91̽��.