Leadership
Paul Tekle-Tsadik
Head of Product | Financial Services & Infrastructure | Strategy Consultant & Angel Investor
Paul is a product leader and strategy consultant with a career spanning stablecoin payments infrastructure, enterprise SaaS delivery, African fintech advisory, and iGaming/mobile money platforms — bringing regulatory depth, commercial rigour, and a track record of building product functions from the ground up across multiple African markets.
About Paul
As Head of Product at Block Markets Africa (October 2024 – December 2025), Paul was the first product hire at a pre-seed stablecoin payments startup — building the product function from zero, defining requirements for a multi-tenant API-first architecture, growing transaction volumes 46% in six months, and standing up KYC/KYT compliance orchestration across three African corridors. He partnered with the CEO to translate product capabilities into commercial narratives for investors and clients.
Paul founded Angolela Strategy Group in August 2019, advising VC/PE firms on African market entry, delivering digital transformation for Standard Bank and Nedbank, and working with MTN on payments infrastructure expansion. One portfolio client, PAGATECH, was subsequently acquired. He continues as Managing Consultant and Partner.
Earlier, he was promoted to Product Lead at Specno, managing multi-product delivery across 10+ concurrent B2B SaaS client teams — cutting delivery cycle time by 25% and lifting client satisfaction by 62%. At Kurtosys, he directed US$1–5M enterprise implementation programmes for JP Morgan, BlackRock, and TD Bank with zero project cancellations. His foundation was built at Regis Management (six years, four promotions), where he led product strategy across iGaming, mobile money, and AML/KYC compliance platforms in Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa.
Focus Areas
- Multi-product platform strategy — regulated fintech, stablecoin payments, API-first architecture
- African market entry & ecosystem advisory — VC/PE, MNOs, enterprise financial institutions
- Enterprise product delivery — B2B SaaS, programme management, cross-functional leadership
- Regulatory & compliance — AML/KYC, KYT, African financial corridors and regulator relationships
How Paul Works With You
- Builds product functions from zero — at Block Markets Africa he was the first product hire, defining architecture requirements, compliance frameworks, and commercial narratives simultaneously, giving him a clear-eyed view of what it takes to stand up a product operation in a resource-constrained environment.
- Brings regulatory and commercial fluency together — a career spanning AML/KYC compliance, African regulator relationships, stablecoin payments corridors, and enterprise institutional clients means he navigates the technical, legal, and commercial layers of financial services products without treating them as separate problems.
- Operates credibly at every scale — from coordinating with government stakeholders in Nigeria and Kenya as Senior Product Manager at Regis, to directing $1–5M programmes for JP Morgan and BlackRock, to advising VC/PE firms on African market entry as a founder. He scales up and down without losing commercial precision.
Listen to Paul's short audio introduction (coming soon).
Paul's detailed CV and LinkedIn export will appear here.