Pan-African eCommerce giant, Jumia, has announced several management changes, including the establishment of a new management board and the resignation of co-founders Jeremy Hodara and Sacha Poignonnec as co-CEOs.
Since Jumia’s founding in 2012, Hodara and Poignonnec have been in charge. During their tenure, the company has grown to include 11 countries, been listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2019, and developed a logistics and payments division.
The supervisory board has named Francis Dufay as interim CEO while the search for a new CEO is ongoing. Dufay, who has been with Jumia since 2014, has held a number of top leadership positions, most recently serving as executive vice president of Africa and managing the company’s e-commerce operations in Africa. Dufay, like Hodara and Poignonnec, worked at the international consulting company Mckinsey before to joining Jumia in 2014.
Antoine Maillet-Mezeray, who was formerly the group CFO of Jumia, has also been promoted by the supervisory board to executive vice president of finance and operations. The corporation will be making numerous other senior management changes over the next few months, of which these two are only the first.
The company will provide additional information on this announcement and business priorities on its Q3 earnings call scheduled for November 17, 2022.
The duo, Mailet-Mezeray and Dufay are tasked with “reducing operating losses and setting the business on a clear path to profitability, through stronger cost discipline, targeted monetization initiatives, and a more simplified and efficient organization,” according to the statement.
Jumia has been making losses since its inception, reporting $57.2 million in its 2022 second-quarter report.
“As we look ahead to the next chapter of Jumia’s journey, we want to bring more focus to the core e-commerce business as part of a more simplified and efficient organization with stronger fundamentals and a clearer path to profitability,” Jonathan Klein, Chairman of the Supervisory Board, said in the statement.
