As CTO, the Kenyan Jack Ngare joins the office of the chief technology officer (CTO) of Google cloud. Google recently announced the upcoming opening in Nairobi of its first product development center in Africa.
Since August 2019, Jack Ngare was the general manager of Microsoft Africa Development Centre (ADC), Microsoft’s first technology innovation center in Africa, launched in May 2019 in Nairobi.
The Office of the Chief Technology Officer of Google Cloud (OCTO) is a global team of technology experts and former enterprise CTOs whose mission is to drive collaborative innovation between Google Cloud and its most important strategic customers.
The team works hand-in-hand with customers to address complex business challenges and advise companies that are transforming their business through technology.
“The Google Cloud CTO’s office not only helps our customers create their future through technology, but also guides Google on the challenges that businesses around the world are trying to solve. We are excited to have Jack join our growing team and bring his expertise to businesses based in Kenya and around the world,” said Will Grannis, CTO of Google Cloud.
For his part, Jack Ngare said, “As Google Cloud strengthens its presence in Africa, I am honored to join this growing team to better support local businesses. With the rise of digitization, it is more important than ever to help businesses use technology to modernize, evolve and meet the needs of their customers”.
Over 15 years in the IT industry
Jack Ngare holds a Master’s degree in Management from Harvard University, a Master’s degree in Advanced Computing and a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science from the University of Leicester. He has been in the technology industry for over 15 years. He is a specialist in financial services, telecommunications and emerging technologies.
Prior to his appointment as CEO of ADC, he oversaw the launch of Finserve Africa, where he was CEO. Finserve Africa is a mobile virtual network operator in Kenya, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Equity Group. Jack Ngare has launched innovative new products including Equitel, Mkey and Jenga Payment Gateway. These innovative products, based on application programming interfaces (APIs), have opened up banking platforms to more than 2,000 small and medium-sized enterprises. In 2018, Equitel in particular recorded a 73% growth in the number of business transactions involving mobile money.
Prior to joining Equity Group, Jack Ngare held senior positions as Head of Information Security and IT Operations at NIC Bank. Prior to that, he held various positions at Stanbic Bank and British Telecom, with assignments in the UK, Saudi Arabia, Peru and Japan.
