In this episode, Adrian speaks to Operations Manager of Binance Africa, Yande Namvete. She provides valuable insights into the company's efforts to educate and empower women in the crypto space.
With a focus on Africa's growing role in cryptocurrency adoption, Yande shares her experiencs and discusses Binance's initiatives to promote financial inclusion and education across the continent.
From her time in Italy to her work in Cape Town, Yande's journey showcases the global reach and impact of the crypto industry. Join us as we explore the transformative potential of crypto and the evolving landscape of digital finance in Africa and beyond.
Visit Binance Africa: https://www.instagram.com/binanceafrica_/
Connect with Yande on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yande-nomvete/
Visit Binance website: https://www.binance.com/
Timestamps
00:00 Building crypto in Africa.
03:15 Tech companies favour remote work post-pandemic.
09:23 Ghana sees increasing crypto adoption for payments.
10:17 Crypto gaining popularity in Ghana, solving payment issues.
14:03 Studied in Italy, joined crypto exchange team.
17:14 Africa becoming a hub for crypto industry.
22:07 Technology adoption depends on actual use cases.
26:38 Binance Academy offers free cryptocurrency courses, engagement.
28:26 Binance offers fun, user-friendly platform with rewards.
32:42 Encouraging crypto participation.
35:04 Outro
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00:00:00
Hello there everyone, welcome to the A Conversation series on the Sound of a Choir podcast.
00:00:04
This is a standalone season series where we explore the lives,
00:00:09
journey and celebrate the success of individuals from a Ghanaian or African
00:00:14
heritage or interest in short and sweet episodes.
00:00:17
Today I'm joined by Yandi Nomveti, is that how you pronounce your surname?
00:00:23
That's perfect, you got it just right.
00:00:26
It awesome great so she's currently
00:00:29
operations manager for binance africa she's at the forefront of
00:00:32
driving operational excellence in crypto fintech and
00:00:35
web3 in the influential role she oversees strategy
00:00:38
and operations for binance africa yamdi how
00:00:41
are you doing um thanks for coming in the show thank you
00:00:44
so much for having me adrian i'm doing really well dialing
00:00:47
in from a bit of a chilly cape town but super super excited
00:00:50
to to be here and ready to
00:00:53
have the concept of your podcast around telling african stories so
00:00:56
yeah i'm happy to be here and i'm good thank you
00:00:59
so much shandy thanks for you thanks for your time and hearing the
00:01:02
word chili and africa in the same sentence isn't something i'm not too not too
00:01:07
familiar with how cold is it right now so it's not super cold it's about 22
00:01:12
degrees but you know cape town is a bit of a country of its own the weather
00:01:15
is quite different to what you get in the rest of africa the sun is out but But yeah,
00:01:20
it's a bit shitty, but I mean, I'll firm it.
00:01:25
Brilliant. Okay, cool. I mean, I do need to get myself down to Cape Town.
00:01:28
I've had a few invites, so I need to get myself there.
00:01:30
Yeah. Yeah. And speaking of which, what have you been up to out there recently? Okay.
00:01:37
So we're just basically building in crypto, essentially, mainly.
00:01:40
So as you mentioned, I am the operations manager for Africa at Binance.
00:01:44
And that's basically what I do on a day to day.
00:01:47
I think Cape Town is a really cool place to be because there's quite a lot of
00:01:51
emergence of tech startups this side.
00:01:53
So it's also kind of building itself a bit of kind of like a Silicon Valley-esque of Africa.
00:01:58
I think Nairobi and Cape Town are really at the forefront of tech innovation.
00:02:02
So it's really cool to be building Binance while based here.
00:02:06
So yeah, that's basically what I'm up to, really fully immersing myself in the
00:02:10
fintech and tech ecosystem and with Binance at the forefront of that right now.
00:02:15
Brilliant. That's awesome, Yandi. And we will talk a little bit more about kind
00:02:19
of how you kind of got into Binance and what you're doing over there.
00:02:23
In terms of Binance, is Africa, is their main base in South Africa?
00:02:29
So Binance is a global company. So we don't have any bases in Africa currently.
00:02:37
But yeah, we're all fully remote. The model has been a fully remote model,
00:02:41
which is great because you can leverage talents across the globe.
00:02:45
And what's cool for me is that I get to work with people from all over the world
00:02:48
on a day to day, with many of those people being women, which is also super cool.
00:02:53
So yeah, we're a fully remote company. and yeah
00:02:56
just a remote first approach is is how
00:02:59
we operate fantastic and i
00:03:02
think it's quite modern with tech companies to be remote first especially
00:03:05
in the back of the pandemic and even though you know the pandemic
00:03:08
has died down and you see a lot of people kind of transitioning to
00:03:11
a hybrid approach um it's still great to hear that you
00:03:14
know companies such as binance and even airbnb you know
00:03:16
like the huge you know well-known tech companies are still keeping that
00:03:19
remote first policy i think is really really key but
00:03:23
we can we can dive into that a little bit later on i also
00:03:25
want to talk a little bit about yourself but but before we get into
00:03:28
that yandi you mentioned something interesting about how there's
00:03:31
a lot of women working in binance let's let's
00:03:34
let's talk about in terms of being involved
00:03:37
in the male-dominated industry as crypto web3
00:03:40
blockchain as we know is you know you got the likes of
00:03:43
you know of course your your founder you know chang peng zhao and then jack
00:03:48
dorsey who's a big crypto advocate i mean you got a lot of males in there what
00:03:52
is it like being in a male dominated industry and how do you plan to change
00:03:56
this and let women you know be more empowered in in this scene.
00:04:01
Yeah. So just to add, I think you mentioned Changpeng Zhao, also known as CZ,
00:04:06
who's one of our founders at Binance.
00:04:08
But I don't know if you know it, Binance was actually co-founded by a woman.
00:04:12
So Binance was founded by both CZ and a real pioneer in the crypto space named Yi.
00:04:17
And you know when you have this type of gender diversity
00:04:20
at the speed level i mean currently less than
00:04:23
five percent of crypto founders are
00:04:26
women and that really sort of trickles down to
00:04:29
the rest of the business so um you know for me i get
00:04:32
to sort of leverage uh the the talents and intellect
00:04:35
of many you know powerful and really intelligent women on a day-to-day we have
00:04:40
a really really high sort of density of you know females working at binance
00:04:45
currently and we're We're already trying to reshape that perception of crypto
00:04:50
and Web3 being male-dominated.
00:04:53
So we're already keen on sort of just expanding that diversity,
00:04:58
and it's super important to us.
00:04:59
And I think just beyond internal sort of gender diversity, we're also really
00:05:04
trying to educate women about the power of crypto and Web3.
00:05:08
So, you know, as of 2023, only 37% of women own crypto, which I mean,
00:05:12
if you think about how accessible crypto is, that is a really, really low number.
00:05:16
And so Binance is really keen about just educating everyone,
00:05:20
particularly women, you know, who form part of vulnerable sort of communities,
00:05:23
and it's really sort of onboarding them into the world of crypto and Web3.
00:05:27
So that's our mission at Binance is just, yeah, basically upgrading everyone
00:05:31
to this new financial system, and most importantly, vulnerable communities such as women.
00:05:38
Fantastic. I mean, there's a lot in there that you just shared.
00:05:40
And, you know, one thing is, of course, you know, increasing the adoption of
00:05:44
crypto on the continent, which is important, but also getting women more involved in the industry.
00:05:48
And, you know, the kind of less, you know, spotlighted, you know,
00:05:52
people or personas in the industry. I think these are all really important things.
00:05:57
I mean, we just came on the back of International Women's Day, Yandy.
00:06:01
Did yourself or Binance do anything around that period? Yeah.
00:06:05
Yeah, so we did a lot. We had a variety of International Women's Day events
00:06:10
across Africa, some that were hosted internally.
00:06:13
So we had an event in Johannesburg. We had also sponsored Women of Valour,
00:06:19
which is an event that happened in Ghana, actually, which is also really cool.
00:06:23
And we have, yeah, a bunch of just like sort of satellite events all over the world.
00:06:28
Over and above that, I mean, we have donated, you know, close to $2 million
00:06:33
to fund Web3 scholarships for women. And this is ongoing.
00:06:37
So, you know, International Women's Day at Binance is, you know,
00:06:40
often a really huge, you know, really calendar event that we plan ahead for.
00:06:45
And we really want to spotlight women, we want to educate women.
00:06:47
Over and above that, we had, you know, a campaign where, you know,
00:06:51
when women made their first strength it could win up to i think
00:06:54
it was like 5 000 usdt which is the equivalent of dollars
00:06:57
so we really sort of double down and hone
00:07:00
in on on women during the month of march so it's not only you know siloed to
00:07:04
just the day and then over and above that it's just ongoing you know just constant
00:07:09
education just to ensure that women are brought along so there's there's tons
00:07:13
that we did yeah i would have loved to be out in ghana for that event but maybe next year perhaps apps.
00:07:19
Brilliant. Okay, cool. Maybe I'll see you out there too. Maybe you can talk
00:07:23
about something off air.
00:07:24
That's brilliant. That's fantastic. It seems like Binance, one thing Binance
00:07:28
does do fantastic, Yandy, is
00:07:30
your brand is really out there and you do a lot to educate the public on
00:07:37
the web-free space and cryptocurrency. You do a fantastic job of that.
00:07:41
Speaking of Ghana, You mentioned of course, the Women of Valour event that you
00:07:46
guys did in Ghana, or collaborated with in Ghana.
00:07:49
Could you tell us a little bit about your operations in Ghana?
00:07:53
Because of course, I'm sure we have Ghanaians who use Binance.
00:07:57
We absolutely do. So, I mean, I think just in Africa in general,
00:08:01
we're really seeing increased adoption in terms of using crypto,
00:08:04
you know, over and above just a store of value, but as a payment method.
00:08:09
And that's quite similar, you know, to what we see in Ghana as well.
00:08:12
So I'm sure you're aware, Ghana might actually be one of the caveats in Africa
00:08:16
where there's a lot of export happening, but Africa is generally a net importing region.
00:08:22
And so just to facilitate cross-border transactions and payments.
00:08:26
Crypto already becomes super powerful in order to make that fast,
00:08:30
easy, but also significantly cheaper than traditional methods that exist today.
00:08:36
Day so we're seeing some in ghana you
00:08:39
know year on year we do have you know
00:08:42
a significant user base there i don't have the exact
00:08:45
numbers off the top of my head right now we're seeing
00:08:48
you know very similar sort of adoption curve and adoption trends in ghana where
00:08:53
users are moving over to crypto as a payment method as well as a store of value
00:08:57
you know we know that our currencies in africa are quite mercurial and volatile
00:09:02
in their nature access to dollars is quite limited as well or not even dollars,
00:09:07
any sort of more stable currency is quite limited.
00:09:10
And crypto does a really great job of making that super accessible to everyone.
00:09:14
So those are the two key trends we see emerging out of the region.
00:09:17
Number one is just using crypto to facilitate payments, cross-border remittances,
00:09:22
sending money or receiving money from abroad, and then also just storing value
00:09:26
to obviously hedge against inflation as well.
00:09:30
So you're seeing African Jedi investing in their futures through crypto. Okay.
00:09:35
Yeah, I mean, crypto is quite popular in Ghana. I mean, I was out,
00:09:39
I was just in Accra just, you know, a few weeks ago and the Stellar Development
00:09:44
Foundation, they did an event there that I'm going to invite you to.
00:09:47
And, you know, they were also talking about solving the cross-border,
00:09:51
you know, remittance payment, you know, problem as well.
00:09:54
And just talking around different issues and different challenges that they
00:09:58
want to use the blockchain, Web3 and crypto to solve. So it's good to hear that
00:10:03
Binance is also, you know, trying to provide a solution in that space as well,
00:10:08
which is really, really good.
00:10:09
Because, of course, you know, the city is not very strong, it's not very stable,
00:10:12
you know, that it's gone up and down in value.
00:10:15
And, you know, and the dollar is not always, you know, what it is. So this is great.
00:10:20
Okay. Well, this is very insightful. Thanks for sharing, Yandy.
00:10:23
I'm really enjoying this conversation so far.
00:10:25
So let's put the spotlight back on yourself. so could you
00:10:28
could you just tell us i know we've probably gone deep into a conversation
00:10:31
now but i want to put the spotlight back onto you
00:10:34
could you tell the audience a little bit about yourself maybe in
00:10:37
less than less than 60 seconds in less
00:10:40
than 60 seconds seconds so yeah yonder
00:10:44
is a home buddy you know
00:10:47
by nature i'm a sister a daughter friend
00:10:50
who's super super passionate about tech and
00:10:53
fintech and super passionate about africa i've been
00:10:56
sort of lucky to to live in sort of
00:10:59
different countries and have always gravitated back
00:11:02
to the continent and i'm really passionate about advancing
00:11:06
tech and fintech development in africa and
00:11:09
yeah i i love music i love having fun i'm based in south africa so i love my
00:11:13
piano which i know is super popular in the rest of africa right now so yeah
00:11:18
i think that's me in 60 seconds you know i'm just a girl who's passionate about
00:11:23
tech and fintech and really trying to do everything i can to advance adoption of it essentially.
00:11:28
Yeah that's that's brilliant and i've seen from your from your background you
00:11:33
know that you've you've been you've been quite involved in web free and fintech
00:11:36
for for for quite a few years and i can see you're very passionate but i can
00:11:40
hear you're very passionate about it as well,
00:11:43
tell us how did you get into the space and what attracted you to the space out of interest,
00:11:49
Yeah, so it's a bit of an unconventional journey.
00:11:52
But I initially joined, well, I had a friend who was involved in crypto very
00:11:59
early on. This is around like 2016, I want to say.
00:12:03
And, you know, I was just super interested in what he was up to and what he was doing.
00:12:07
And at the time, I mean, crypto was still elusive right now.
00:12:10
But you can imagine back in 2016, it was even more elusive. I mean,
00:12:14
so I read up a bit more on what he was doing.
00:12:16
And, you know, his friends basically told me, hey, there's this app that you
00:12:19
can download. There was a really popular crypto app at the time.
00:12:22
And they're like, yeah, you just put like this amount of money in this week
00:12:25
and then next week it will double. It's like free money.
00:12:28
And I was like, oh, my gosh, free money.
00:12:31
You know, I was a student at the time. So I was like, I mean, I'm game for that.
00:12:34
And that's already sort of drew me into it. And then I started researching a
00:12:38
bit more and started, yeah, I guess sort of dabbling into, you know,
00:12:42
buying a bit of crypto, sold at all of the wrong times.
00:12:45
I wish I had held on for a lot longer.
00:12:48
And yeah, I guess. Everyone said that. Yeah, yeah.
00:12:52
I mean, we probably would not be having this conversation right now.
00:12:56
If I did, I'd probably be on an island somewhere.
00:13:01
Yeah, Maldives would be good. Maldives sounds good. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
00:13:06
So, yeah, I then I finished or rather I did university in Italy and I spoke
00:13:11
Italian and I was then joined another crypto exchange that we're planning to expand into Europe.
00:13:17
And because I spoke Italian, I then joined their team.
00:13:21
So that that's I had sort of two inroads into crypto.
00:13:24
One was a really sort of daring and brave friend of mine who got into super
00:13:29
early and that's how I learned about it.
00:13:30
And professionally, yeah, I already started grassroots of operations,
00:13:34
trying to expand or helping this other crypto exchange expand into Europe,
00:13:40
just because I happen to speak Italian.
00:13:42
And I guess the rest is history. That's why I'm here.
00:13:46
That's brilliant. I mean, you've got a very unique, diverse background and the
00:13:50
Italian side of it really stands out to me because, you know,
00:13:53
I've been involved, you know, working for Italian companies in the past and,
00:13:57
you know, I'm really into Italy.
00:13:59
How did you pick up Italian out of interest?
00:14:02
Interest so i i went there for
00:14:05
high school i attended an international school there for
00:14:08
two years and because we lived there
00:14:10
it was compulsory for us to take italian as a subject so i
00:14:13
that's how i first learned it and then i decided to
00:14:16
stay on further to continue my tertiary education
00:14:19
and yeah i think i spent about like eight years
00:14:22
there so i was kind of fully immersed and that's how i learned the language
00:14:26
it's a bit rusty now i must say i haven't been back to it but i can still you
00:14:32
know have a conversation here and there but i mean i'm always grateful for that
00:14:36
that opportunity because if it wasn't for that then i would probably not have found myself,
00:14:41
operating and working in crypto and the fintech space and ultimately finding
00:14:44
myself at finance so yeah a very unconventional journey but but yeah it's been
00:14:50
a good one so far really really cool.
00:14:54
That's that's incredible that's incredible and i know italy has a vibrant tech
00:14:58
space as well and And maybe that's something you may have a full circle experience
00:15:01
with in the future. Who knows? What part of Italy were you in?
00:15:05
So I initially was in Duino, which is a very, very small village outside of
00:15:11
Trieste. So Trieste is the city with the largest pièce de trieste in the ocean.
00:15:17
So I was in Trieste for two years. And then after Trieste, I moved to Milan.
00:15:21
And I was in Milan for four to five years. So yeah, Trieste and then Milan. Absolutely loved it.
00:15:29
Yeah yeah it's awesome
00:15:32
trust is wonderful and Milan is very very
00:15:35
vibrant I like I like visiting Milan it's awesome okay
00:15:39
let's get let's keep this conversation going I'm really
00:15:42
enjoying this okay so let's um talk about
00:15:45
you know the space as a whole so I mean you've been in the space for a little
00:15:49
while now to talk us through what you see happening in Africa in terms of of
00:15:55
where the Web3 crypto and blockchain is going right now and what's currently
00:15:59
happening in the market. What's your perspective, Yandi?
00:16:03
So, I mean, my perspective is that we're definitely, you know,
00:16:07
definitely sort of in a very much growth phase.
00:16:10
You know, Africa has become a hub for the crypto industry in recent years.
00:16:14
And, you know, a lot of African nations have really started to take a pro crypto stance.
00:16:19
And, you know, we've really been able to establish like really important use
00:16:23
cases and opportunities for greater financial inclusion.
00:16:26
So I touched on those use cases earlier, and I really see these sort of growing
00:16:31
and expanding as the market matures and more systems are established.
00:16:35
I mean, I think what will be super important in terms of just increasing adoption
00:16:39
is, you know, we'll likely, you know, in the future, see a lot more regulation.
00:16:45
And hopefully see governments and central banks really opening up to regulating
00:16:52
crypto in order to increase its adoption and also to ensure that users are safe
00:16:57
and secure in interacting with crypto.
00:17:00
So yeah, I just see the current use cases really growing and I also see a lot
00:17:06
more regulation coming into play in future years, which is a good thing.
00:17:10
And yeah, obviously more than just experimentation documentation around Web3 and DeFi.
00:17:16
So, I mean, I think, and DeFi is decentralized finance.
00:17:19
I don't want to use sort of jargon.
00:17:22
Decentralized finance is just essentially around people really controlling their
00:17:26
funds and being in control of, you know, their money.
00:17:30
And, you know, some people call it sort of becoming your own bank.
00:17:33
So basically having your own wallets and being able to do many,
00:17:37
many things with that wallet.
00:17:39
And I think in future, you know, as the web progresses, You know,
00:17:44
Web3 wallets or decentralized finance wallets will probably be similar to creating
00:17:47
a Facebook account or Instagram account.
00:17:50
But I mean, that's much, much further on. You know, I think people refer to
00:17:55
crypto as money for the Internet and the Internet is here to stay.
00:17:59
And we're seeing those use cases build and grow over the years.
00:18:02
So really hard to tell what this is going to look like. Yes.
00:18:07
I definitely think, and I mean, at finance, we're seeing just a lot more adoption.
00:18:12
I mean, we onboarded 40 million users last year alone, you know,
00:18:17
and that's a 30% increase. Just Africa? No, so this is globally.
00:18:22
Wow. And that's a 30% increase year on year.
00:18:26
And I'm not sure how closely you follow the crypto markets, but,
00:18:29
you know, last year in terms of price wasn't the greatest year.
00:18:33
And for us to see that type of increase in the year like that,
00:18:35
I think really indicates that with more adoption, we'll see more people being
00:18:40
onboarded onto this world.
00:18:42
And who knows, our grandkids might only ever transact in crypto or tokens and
00:18:49
really just transact on Web3.
00:18:51
So difficult to say, but I think one thing for sure is we're seeing a lot more
00:18:56
people joining in and they'll continue year on year.
00:19:01
Absolutely i think um this is only going to go up
00:19:04
and up did the crypto block free web chain i
00:19:07
mean sorry web free adoption i mean i
00:19:10
spoke to cody to cash you know there's another another guest who came on
00:19:13
the show and you know she's really trying to be an evangelist in
00:19:15
africa in terms of you know improving the education in
00:19:19
africa in terms of cryptocurrency and blockchain which is
00:19:22
important and of course one thing she mentioned is that i think it's the
00:19:24
university of ghana have a program on the blockchain so
00:19:27
i think as more education you know gets out there
00:19:30
i think more people will adopt you know cryptocurrency and blockchain
00:19:34
and will continue to explore all of these these um technologies i believe of
00:19:39
course in the post-covid world you know where the world is going in terms of
00:19:42
cbdc's i think it's going to happen where we're going to transition more into
00:19:46
a digital world so i think it's only going to go this in this direction as you've
00:19:51
highlighted noted correctly.
00:19:54
Yeah definitely i mean it's super exciting it's
00:19:57
yeah it's difficult to say what it'll look
00:20:00
like but i'm excited about the future and the
00:20:03
role that crypto and like we're through will play in that future definitely
00:20:06
absolutely yeah do you think people will flock to cryptocurrency especially
00:20:12
with cbdc's because i mean i know i know for example in talks of the ghanian
00:20:17
government there's talks of the digital cd you know of course in america you
00:20:21
know that they're looking into you you know, the digital dollar and things like that,
00:20:25
the UK digital pound, I think maybe is on the map for maybe 2025 onwards.
00:20:31
What's your thoughts on how the market would change in terms of centralized
00:20:35
currency and decentralized currency?
00:20:38
Yeah, so I mean, I think, again, it's really about going back to use cases, right?
00:20:43
So like, people will use a technology if there is an actual use case for it.
00:20:48
And I think that's like, the more important conversation we need to be having,
00:20:52
Like people might adopt or will adopt CBDCs if there's an actual use case for
00:20:57
them and if they see the benefit in doing so.
00:21:01
And if they don't, the adoption might be slower and might take a bit longer.
00:21:05
So I think that's maybe where we need to be like shifting the conversation.
00:21:09
And obviously, I mean, I'm not involved in a conversation with,
00:21:12
you know, governments and central banks, etc.
00:21:14
But I think what's key to unlocking that adoption is just ensuring that the
00:21:18
use cases are there and allowing people to use that technology or rather those
00:21:25
tokens kind of freely in a way and to sort of optimize the use cases.
00:21:30
So, I'm not sure what the future holds for CBDCs.
00:21:34
But again, there are use cases that we're seeing at Binance.
00:21:38
We're seeing our users organically use crypto this way.
00:21:41
And if they can do the same with CBDCs, then I see no reason why there wouldn't
00:21:46
be adoption around that.
00:21:49
True, true, true. I guess my fear here with CBDC's Yandi is that,
00:21:53
you know, it's the government being able to control what people can do with their money, right?
00:21:58
So, you know, gone will be the days where you can, you know,
00:22:00
just give someone cash, you know, on the side for doing your garden lawn or.
00:22:05
For cleaning your house.
00:22:07
It's it's more about if you've been if you if you're
00:22:09
if you're behaving or you're not behaving the government can
00:22:12
choose to switch off your money so the reason why
00:22:15
i bring this up is that i feel that people may you know flock
00:22:18
to send decentralized currency for as
00:22:21
long as it's around because of reasons such as you
00:22:24
know control yeah yeah yeah
00:22:27
exactly so i mean it's it's a constant sort of
00:22:30
of conversation or rather like debate that comes up is
00:22:33
like you know is it beneficial for cbdcs
00:22:37
to be centralized and they kind of
00:22:40
sort of go against the original thesis of what crypto
00:22:43
was supposed to be but at
00:22:46
the same time you know regulation is it's a
00:22:49
bit of a necessary evil you know it's it's
00:22:52
it's necessary you know at times to keep users
00:22:55
safe but then to your point um you
00:22:58
know if you you are in the sort of hyper surveilled environment then
00:23:02
there may be some hesitation from individuals around that
00:23:05
but i think it also just depends on the individual's risk
00:23:08
appetite but again you know we'll
00:23:11
just have to see how it plays out i think there haven't really
00:23:14
been any real life you know execution of it so it's also difficult to say right
00:23:19
now so we'll just we'll just see you know what happens but but yeah i mean centralization
00:23:26
is not always a bad thing and and we just have to you know how governments and
00:23:31
individuals handle it based on their appetite.
00:23:34
Absolutely let's just wait and see what happens in all of these different areas
00:23:37
thank you for these very fantastic insights okay um so that's quite interesting
00:23:43
all right and um and could you could you walk us through or just give us a little
00:23:48
bit of a run through what your what a typical day what it looked like for you in terms of, you know,
00:23:53
working as operations manager, Binance?
00:23:56
Yeah, so no one day is the same. For example, today I'm speaking to you on a
00:24:02
podcast and I've always wanted to be on a podcast. So that's super exciting.
00:24:07
But day to day, so my role is kind of two or threefold.
00:24:14
So super, super data driven.
00:24:16
So I always start my day, you know, just sort of looking how the previous day
00:24:21
was and the data points that we track, looking out for any sort of anomalies
00:24:25
or any sort of incidents that may have occurred on the operations side.
00:24:30
Also, then just keeping up to date with, you know, current events on the global crypto sort of scale.
00:24:36
And then, yeah, working really closely with our marketing community teams to
00:24:40
ensure that we always have something that is kind of ongoing on the continent
00:24:45
to really push crypto education and adoption.
00:24:49
So we also have our Binance Academy product, which is essentially a free sort
00:24:54
of tool or feature on our app, which has, you know, a bunch of different cryptocurrency courses,
00:25:00
you know, from beginner all the way to, you know, intermediate level and really
00:25:05
sort of helps people sort of learn more about crypto.
00:25:08
And so, yeah, we just ensure there's a healthy level of engagement of those
00:25:12
products across the board.
00:25:14
And if we know where there are certain dips, we then sort of brainstorm in terms of,
00:25:19
you know, know how we can get people to engage
00:25:22
and then also uh you know take a look
00:25:24
at potential new markets where we might not have a really strong presence and
00:25:29
strategize in terms of you know what the best way is to you know sort of get
00:25:34
them on on board on on binance and into crypto in general and again you know
00:25:39
binance academy is usually you know the first sort of you know.
00:25:43
Feature or other approach that we lead with
00:25:46
because education is at the key you know of
00:25:49
ensuring that there is adoption in africa so yeah
00:25:52
i'd say my day is very data driven
00:25:55
so i love looking at data first thing in the morning and then
00:25:58
it's just a bunch of calls and meetings and again it's you
00:26:01
know you know all of the great people i get to work with on a day-to-day so
00:26:05
i have a lot of fun doing it and then yeah occasionally
00:26:08
i get to do fun stuff like this as well brilliant yeah
00:26:12
i mean it is quite a handful binance in terms
00:26:15
of what your day consists of and i can imagine the role
00:26:18
is a bit fun i was over at web i was over
00:26:20
in lisbon in 2022 for the for the web summit conference and
00:26:23
binance was there you know that the ceo cp was
00:26:27
there cz sorry was there and then they had like a really fun stand where you
00:26:31
could like play football to win you know like clothes and hoodies and caps and
00:26:34
things like that so you know i think binance in itself They try to communicate
00:26:39
themselves as a very friendly brand for anyone to get involved in.
00:26:44
I know Cristiano Ronaldo is a big ambassador for Binance as well.
00:26:47
So I think you guys do a great job in terms of making it easy for people to use the platform.
00:26:52
And of course, I've been a user of Binance myself. And one thing I have noticed
00:26:55
is the more you use the platform or interact with the platform or maybe buy
00:26:59
some altcoins or whatever coins, Bitcoin.
00:27:04
Whatever it is, and then you more you go through the academy the more things
00:27:07
unlock as well which is quite really cool so yeah
00:27:10
there is there is a lot for people to use on binance and it's
00:27:14
it's a very good platform yeah yeah no we
00:27:16
like to have some fun as a brand as well
00:27:19
so it's great to hear that you yeah saw some of
00:27:22
the the games that we have at our community events we also
00:27:25
have like different activities where you can sort
00:27:28
of push the bitcoin button and that's to sort of
00:27:30
land on what the last price of bitcoin was and you can win some cool prizes
00:27:34
we have like hold bar basically the
00:27:37
concept is about huddling so holding your crypto and at
00:27:40
our different events we see how long like people that are there can hold on
00:27:43
to a bar so it's also quite a test of upper body strength which i don't have
00:27:47
so i'm terrible at that game but we really like to be super interactive with
00:27:54
our community because again you know like crypto is such a new technology and
00:27:59
there's a lot of education that needs to happen.
00:28:01
But we also really appreciate our existing customers, new users,
00:28:06
or people that have never even interacted with the platform.
00:28:10
I think we really just want to make the brand super relatable and super fun.
00:28:14
And from what you've just said, I think the team has done a good job at doing that so far.
00:28:19
And we'll continue to push both on the education and with a little bit of fun on the side as well.
00:28:26
Brilliant. Yeah. And I think that sums up Binance really well, really.
00:28:29
I mean, you're really good in, you know, making the brand friendly and fun to interact with.
00:28:36
Yeah, yeah. We're super user focused. It's one of our key sort of values.
00:28:41
And we've always aimed to put our users first. So yeah, we'll continue to do that.
00:28:46
Yeah, awesome. I mean, this is really exciting. And just to kind of like wrap
00:28:51
up, you mentioned like events and the whole community drive that you're doing across the continent.
00:28:59
I am aware, I think it's the end of, I think it's December, I think it's every
00:29:03
December, I think it's Africa Bitcoin Conference or Bitcoin Summit in Accra.
00:29:09
I know Jack Dorsey goes to that. are there any events
00:29:11
like that you guys are involved in or a community event
00:29:14
you guys are looking to do across the continent so we
00:29:18
aim to have a community event at least once
00:29:22
or twice a month on the continent and you know given our sort of wide presence
00:29:26
on the continent we might only you know be able to cover one country you know
00:29:31
and in a certain span of time as i mentioned we just had our women's day event
00:29:36
in johannesburg that was about two weeks ago and that was really really fun.
00:29:40
We should have another event coming up in Southern Africa and then West Africa.
00:29:46
So Ghana, Cote d'Ivoire, Cameroon, Congo, et cetera.
00:29:51
And there are a few events coming up there as well, although I don't have exact
00:29:55
dates, but, you know, as soon as we find them out, we'll definitely let you
00:29:58
know, and maybe you can plug them for us on your podcast, if you will.
00:30:03
But yeah, we'll be at an event in Africa, you know, at least once a month.
00:30:07
And I think we're we're tracking well on that so far.
00:30:10
Fantastic. Brilliant. Well, we'll keep an eye out for those events.
00:30:15
And yeah, this has been a really great, insightful conversation,
00:30:18
Yandy. Really do appreciate your time.
00:30:20
Where can everyone find you, connect with you? And are there any final thoughts
00:30:24
or announcements you'd like to leave to the audience?
00:30:25
So my only public social media
00:30:28
profile is linkedin so you can find me on linkedin at
00:30:32
yande nombete i don't have other
00:30:35
social media so i'm yeah pretty low-key
00:30:38
and yeah i mean i think just sort of final
00:30:41
thoughts is definitely encouraging you know women.
00:30:45
That aren't a part of the crypto sphere or too
00:30:48
scared or intimidated to definitely visit
00:30:51
our binance academy and start out learning just a little bit more
00:30:53
about crypto and how Binance can facilitate
00:30:56
you know that you taking that first step into it you
00:30:59
know and even if you're not someone who identifies as a
00:31:02
woman I think Binance is really here to hold your hand
00:31:05
and onboard you into this exciting world where you
00:31:08
know your transactions with a cross-border or local could
00:31:11
be a lot you know faster efficient and cheaper and
00:31:15
then yeah we're always here as a brand so you know for Binance at
00:31:18
least you can find us across all social medias
00:31:21
at finance africa so that's on x instagram
00:31:25
and tiktok we're super super present there
00:31:28
and we post content every day and yeah
00:31:32
we're just ready there to to sort of be a helping
00:31:35
hand and a beacon for those that are super crypto native
00:31:38
and are excited about the industry and those that don't
00:31:41
you know might not be in the industry and are looking to to learn more so
00:31:44
finance at finance africa and all socials and
00:31:48
yeah finance academy if you want to learn a bit more about crypto
00:31:51
fantastic yandi that was a fantastic way to end the show really appreciate you
00:31:55
having you know all of this knowledge and wisdom for our audience to to soak
00:32:00
in and you know encouraging them to get into crypto i think this is the kind
00:32:04
of the word in season you know just being around these type of events and you
00:32:08
know speaking to people such as yourself.
00:32:10
Carly to Cash and some others, you know, this is the kind of,
00:32:13
this is the year where people need to get involved because we don't know what's going to happen.
00:32:17
You know, the economy is shifting quite drastically and yeah,
00:32:20
this is the year to get involved in the Web3.
00:32:23
Yandy, thank you so much. So there you have it guys, Yandy, Operations Manager
00:32:27
for Binance Africa, crypto, fintech and Web3 enthusiast and expert.
00:32:32
And yeah, that's all for today with the A Conversation with with series on the
00:32:38
sound of a crowd podcast and we'll catch you guys on the next episode thank you for tuning in.