Osaro Jackson, a Nigerian operations and fintech professional, has built a career spanning traditional payments, ride-hailing, digital commerce and stablecoin infrastructure, with experience managing operations and payment systems across several African markets.
Jackson’s career in large-scale operations gained prominence in 2020 when, during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, he was tasked with training 5,500 drivers across Nigeria for a ride-hailing platform within one month.
A few months earlier, he had also recruited and deployed more than 300 partner drivers within five days for a new market launch.
His professional journey began in traditional payments and merchant acquisition, with roles at Unified Payments, Amplified Payment Systems and other Nigerian financial services companies between 2013 and 2018.
He subsequently moved into operations at Bolt and later Glovo. At Glovo, he became interim Head of Operations within 30 days of joining the company following a greenfield market launch in Lagos.
Jackson moved further into fintech infrastructure in 2022 when he joined Binance as Growth Manager for Africa. Within 18 months, he was managing profit and loss responsibilities and team operations across the continent.
In that role, he managed a 16-member team operating across five African countries and more than 40 regulatory environments.
Among the initiatives attributed to his tenure was the development of a one-click Know Your Customer (KYC) system, which recorded a 13 per cent month-on-month increase in submissions and a nine per cent improvement in verification pass rates.
He also identified an affiliate overpayment programme that was consuming about half of the monthly marketing budget. The programme was subsequently corrected, according to the account of his work.
During the period, user acquisition increased by 60 per cent year-on-year, while monthly active users grew by 70 per cent.
Jackson also worked on the company’s expansion into more than 10 new markets, coordinating compliance requirements, payment rails, local partnerships and commercial operations.
His responsibilities included engagements with regulators and central banks across African markets, as well as institutional partnerships, including a corporate social responsibility engagement with the Kenyan Red Cross.
The company recorded a 10 per cent increase in market share across Africa in 2024, while Kenya and Ghana recorded growth of 12 per cent and five per cent respectively.
Move into stablecoin infrastructure
Since mid-2026, Jackson has been working in operations for a stablecoin infrastructure company, where his responsibilities include banking relationships, institutional partnerships and commercial growth across priority African markets.
During his first three months in the role, he secured banking partnerships with top-tier Nigerian Payment Service Banks, reactivated commercial operations in a previously dormant market and renegotiated transaction fees with banking partners.
The fee negotiations resulted in a reported reduction of more than 30 per cent in transaction costs.
The changes affect areas including payment reliability, market operations and transaction economics, which are important components of digital payment infrastructure.
Alongside his professional career, Jackson completed an MBA in International Business Management at the University of Gloucestershire in 2026.
His MBA thesis examined psychological safety in Nigeria’s banking sector, drawing on interviews conducted at three major Nigerian banks.
He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics and Statistics from the University of Benin and business analytics nanodegree credentials from Udacity.
Jackson’s career has largely focused on operational functions including payment rails, banking relationships, market expansion, compliance coordination, cost management and commercial systems.
His current work in stablecoin infrastructure places him within an emerging segment of Africa’s financial technology industry, where companies are developing payment and settlement infrastructure around digital assets and stablecoins.
Chudy Uwadiegwu is a Nigerian public affairs and policy commentator based in Abuja and Lagos. He writes on economic policy, fiscal regulation, fintech infrastructure and governance in Nigeria.
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