StaffordMasie

Stafford Masie provides insights and views on technology-related matters and industry developments. A regular guest on TV and Radio, he is also much-in-demand as a keynote presenter. This sees him presenting at conferences and in-house strategy sessions as a technology futurist. An inventor in the payment device space, he launched – through his company ThumbzUp – the Payment Pebble™ and the Payment Blade handset. Apart from having enjoyed a huge nationwide take-up, these devices have also been rolled-out in Australia and Asia. And the spread continues with the horizons for these hand-held payment-changers expanding as you read this.

Having been in the IT industry for more than 20 years, Stafford assumed numerous game-changing roles internationally throughout his career. Through the early 90’s he worked for Telkom after his return from Israel where he lived for several years. He went on to join Dimension Data after which he launched his first start-up – a team of integrators focusing on software development services. Thereafter Stafford joined Novell South Africa and 9 months later moved to their corporate headquarters in Provo, Utah, USA.

He spent over 7 years in the USA where he played a significant role in the global open source software arena. There he became responsible for international partnerships and corporate technology strategy for numerous international territories. These included: Latin America (Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela), the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Europe. He returned to South Africa in 2004.

Stafford was country manager for Novell South Africa and a few years later developed and launched Google’s South Africa’s initial local presence.

Nationally recognised as a serial entrepreneur, he continues to be hands-on in several leading-edge technology start-ups. He also assists a number of blue chip companies with their strategy alignment and regeneration initiatives. Stafford is an internationally recognised business strategy consultant.

Stafford is also a non-exec board member of Advtech.