Karima El Hakim, a powerhouse who contributes to the shaping of Africa’s fintech landscape, stands at the intersection of venture capital, innovation, and financial inclusion. In her current role as Country Director of Egypt and Co-Director for Africa at Plug and Play Tech Center, El Hakim drives investment and innovation across a continent brimming with untapped potential.
“I support our innovation and investment efforts across the continent,” she said in a recent interview with Morocco World News (MWN), where she talked about her work with startups, corporations, government institutions, and regulators to build next-generation technology solutions.
In just a few weeks, El Hakim will bring her experience to Marrakech at GITEX Africa 2025, where she is slated to share her expertise at the Future of Finance Summit.
From leading strategy to fintech
El Hakim’s journey began in France, where she worked in strategy at Danone. She quickly established herself in Egypt’s investment landscape after returning to her motherland.
She managed to work with Orascom Development’s investment arm before joining Egypt Ventures and Falak Startups.
A defining career moment came when she joined Fawry, one of the region’s leading fintech companies. There, El Hakim deployed over $10 million in investments into tech ventures. One standout success: Fawry’s investment in Cashi, which transformed Sudan’s digital payments landscape.
Today, at Plug and Play Tech Center, El Hakim advises the National Bank of Egypt — the country’s largest public-sector bank — while directly investing in local founders. Nearly half of their portfolio consists of fintech or fintech-embedded startups.
“We work closely with the Financial Regulatory Authority to support progressive licensing frameworks and drive adoption of enabling infrastructure such as eKYC and cybersecurity,” she explains.
Tackling Africa’s fintech challenges
El Hakim identifies fragmented regulatory frameworks, limited digital identity systems, and inconsistent data-sharing protocols as major hurdles facing African fintech. At the same time, she sees huge opportunities as payments become commoditized and embedded fintech solutions emerge.
“At Plug and Play, we focus on identifying and backing infrastructure-enabling startups — especially SaaS models — that not only serve end users but also help corporate and government entities digitize their internal systems,” she says.
El Hakim and her team act as connectors, investors, and advisors, bringing together innovation ecosystems and supporting meaningful digital transformation. They help large institutions — especially banks — develop capabilities to embrace open innovation, co-design pilots, and work with startup partners.
She also bids on AI integration into fintech as both an opportunity and a challenge. “Africa has no shortage of talent, but we face infrastructural constraints such as limited cloud access, fragmented data availability, and inconsistent capital deployment.”
Helping women business owners achieve their dreams
El Hakim’s leadership expands beyond her confines within her roles, but tackles a humanist approach to building up marginalized communities through economic empowerment.
Alongside her role at Plug and Play, El Hakim serves on Egypt’s National Council for Women’s Economic Committee. There, she champions digital financial inclusion for women in rural areas and promotes women’s leadership in investment decision-making.
“I’m a firm believer in inclusion and the integration of ESG principles into technology strategy, particularly as it relates to data governance,” says El Hakim. “I have a soft spot for women founders who break barriers and expand the frontier of innovation across the African and Arab ecosystems.”
Building Pan-African connections
El Hakim sees events like GITEX Africa 2025 as crucial platforms for connecting government actors, investors, and innovators. Her priorities include championing North-South collaboration, elevating African fintech champions ready for regional and global scaling, and building strategic partnerships.
“Through better reporting, coordination, and storytelling, we can present Africa with a unified voice globally,” she explains.
El Hakim envisions Africa’s fintech future defined by embedded infrastructure — financial technologies that enable other industries like agriculture, logistics, healthcare, and climate resilience.
She elevates Plug and Play’s work in Morocco as a success story, pointing to portfolio companies like Chari and WafR that have become regional leaders. “Morocco is clearly at the forefront of North Africa’s leadership, not only in fintech, but across several key technology verticals,” she says.
When not transforming Africa’s fintech landscape, El Hakim enjoys pilates and golf, bringing the same precision and strategic thinking to her personal pursuits as she does to building the continent’s financial future.
Don’t miss the chance to learn from this visionary leader at the Future of Finance Summit, which will run through the tech fair’s duration April 14-16.
