Meet our Top 50 Thriving Female Founder for 2019 Edition
The World Economic Forum named Darlene Menzies one of six top Female Technology Entrepreneurs in Africa for 2017. She is a technology innovator and serial entrepreneur with 15 years’ corporate ICT experience in the banking sector. Darlene is the founder of Finfind, South Africa’s leading online SME access to finance solution, recently white-labelled by sefa to manage their direct lending requests, and the award-winning small business cloud accounting system SMEasy, currently being rolled out in Africa by MTN, branded as MTN EasyAccounting.
Darlene has raised more than R40m in early-stage funding from multiple venture capital companies to develop and commercialise disruptive innovations that address SME market gaps in Africa. She has won a South African Innovation Entrepreneur award, the Country Award for Best Business Product at the 2013 World Summit Awards, and Nokia’s Global Judges’ Choice Award (top 10, from 85 countries and 1700 systems). Zurich-based STARS Group has identified her a future Global Leader.
Darlene is a public speaker, media spokesperson and recognised expert on the SME sector. She is quoted in the national press on matters of entrepreneurship, small business development, and innovation.