Masie, Stafford

Stafford has been in the ICT industry for more than 25 years with his career starting in the mid-90s working for Telkom, Dimension Data, and then Novell as a software engineer. After spending 7.5 years working for Novell, he became very involved in helping to establish Google’s presence in South Africa. He led Google’s team in launching the African versions of Google Search, Adwords, Google Maps, and Street View, as well as the local version of YouTube. He played a key role in aiding the developement of the Southern African Google business ecosystem and strategy. After leaving Google in 2010, he founded several fintech businesses and has since established multiple technology start-ups that have expanded on a global scale. He is known for inventing the ‘Payment Pebble®’ and ‘Payment Blade®,’ which were launched via ABSA in South Africa and ANZ Bank in Australia and New Zealand.