Elizabeth Rossiello

Elizabeth Rossiello is the CEO and founder of AZA Finance, a global payments and fx fintech. Founded in Nairobi, AZA Finance empowers companies with and within Africa to move money, exchange currencies, make payments and settle easily across all major African and G20 currencies (including digital currencies).

Elizabeth founded AZA Finance in 2013. In her previous roles as a rating analyst for global institutions across sub-Saharan Africa, Elizabeth consulted for organisations like the Grameen Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Acumen Fund. Throughout this experience, she saw first-hand how African businesses and currencies were consistently undervalued and underserved by the “developed world,” in part due to pervasive Western stereotypes about the continent. She realised that Africa’s embrace of financial technologies like mobile money posed an invaluable opportunity to change the narrative. The right company could bridge the financial services gap between G20 and African countries, which would unlock Africa’s trillion-dollar growth through new jobs, partnerships and investment. She decided to found AZA Finance (then Bitpesa) to realise this vision, starting by bringing blockchain and digital currencies to the African market. AZA Finance has since expanded to a presence in 10 African markets, executing more than £200 billion in global transactions across 115+ countries and 300+ currency pairs, including stablecoins and digital currencies. Its incredible mission and growth were recognised by Fast Company in 2021 as a Global Top 10 Most Innovative Company. AZA Finance recently announced an Africa Women Leadership Program, hosted in partnership with Naaw, that will empower women from across Africa to succeed in the fintech sector and build meaningful careers while maintaining a positive work-life balance.

Elizabeth is committed to expanding access to financial technologies and global markets. Elizabeth co-chairs the World Economic Forum's Council on Blockchain in service of this vision, in addition to sitting on the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution Global Advisory Board. She was recently named as a 2021 Bloomberg New Economy Catalyst, a curated group of CEOs and leaders driving development and impact. She was also recently named to the Standout 45 of the Innovate Finance Women in Fintech Powerlist 2022. Elizabeth holds an M.A. in International Business and Finance from Columbia University.