Caroline Cherotich, a consummate techpreneuer who has served at heart of technology, ecommerce and money transfer businesses in Kenya and internationally. She’s the visionary of several companies, taking the risk to set them up either with others or on her own. Caroline is a seasoned enterprenuer and one of the pioneers of money transfer and payments gateways in Kenya. She’s the current CEO of Kendy Money Transfer Ltd, Chair of Atlantis Finance Ltd, a micro lender she setup together with others; Vice Chair of Kenya Forex and Remittance Association (KFRA), and director at the Kenya Private Sector Alliance (KEPSA) where she represents KFRA.

Caroline was a founding shareholder of Afripayments LLC, a $5Million company registered in Delaware USA in 2006 for purposes of conducting money transfers between the USA and Africa with offices in Baltimore, Maryland. As Manager International Business Development, Caroline is remembered for spearheading the partnership between Afripayments LLC and the Postal Corporation of Kenya (PCK) through the famous Postapay brand, co-developed by PCK and Afripayments. Caroline was charged with the responsibility of signing up of Money Transfer Operators and facilitated signing of contracts for payouts in four countries – Rwanda, Uganda, Sudan & Burundi, contracts that she secured for the company.  The success of the JV saw her appointed the General Manager of Afripayments Kenya in 2009, a subsidiary of Afripayments LLC. It is here that Caroline experienced the challenges of the political landscape as ‘political’ interference led to the cancellation of the deal between PCK & Afripayments LLC. It saddens her that Postapay, which at its height contributed over 50% of PCK revenues, had to stop operations and today is not a major money transfer brand in Kenya.

In 2011, Caroline took the boldest step yet, setting up their own company, Kendy Technologies Ltd, with a vision to transform it to a money transfer operation. The company was in the meantime setup to provide middle ware technologies for overseas money transfers to Kenyan banks. Chase bank was their first client. From Kendy Technologies spawned Kendy Money Transfer Ltd, the change of name necessitated by Central Bank’s requirement to acquiring a remittance license.

For two years, Caroline painstakingly lead the company in the acquisition of a remittance license in Kenya and it was not until 2013 that Kendy was awarded the license in a process that begun in 2011. Caroline and her team then went on to setup a sister company, Kendy Money Transfer Company (Uganda) Ltd which is until now going through licensing in Uganda.  Kendy Money Transfer was set up with a vision to facilitate transfer of money across African countries. The target being the African expat/immigrants who need to transfer an average of $100 at a cost of less than $5 per transaction to their home countries.

While innovation is the core pivot around technology operations, Caroline has learnt that in the African business landscape, adaption to unexpected turns in the regulatory environment is imperative if any start up is to survive. Kendy Money Transfer together with all other licensed remittance companies suffered a major government-ordered shut down in April 2014 for period of four months. She maintains that the shut down was purely a knee-jerk reaction by the government to external events. The reinstatement all companies ordered shut in August 2014 could be a pointer to the validity of her statement.

What kept her going in the four months of silence is that earlier in 2013, Caroline went to Mauritius to setup a switch dubbed Connect Africa Payments with a vision to interconnect several licensed remittance companies for mutual benefit by exchanging remittance traffic between them. Caroline was fully engaged in the business of Connect Africa as Kendy was under a new management team.  In 2016, Connect Africa Payments was among the Top 100 Fintech companies in Africa, and furthermore won the ‘most voted’ company at the Awards ceremony in Sandton South Africa in October 2016.

2016 saw Caroline found two more companies; a micro-lender (Atlantis Finance Ltd), which offers loans holding car logbooks as security; and a technology company (Aysha Technologies Ltd) which deals in early learning computing devices.

1st September 2017 has seen Caroline take back the helm as the CEO of Kendy Money Transfer Ltd, with plans of acquiring a majority stake underway.

Caroline is BSC and MSC holder both in IT. She’s a mother of two daughters. She credits her success to passion, focus plus a strict and firm upbringing.