Hardy Pemhiwa

IWA Team

November 3, 2026

Hardy Pemhiwa
President/CEO, Cassava Technologies

Hardy is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Cassava Technologies. Cassava Technologies is a global technology leader of African heritage providing a vertically integrated ecosystem of digital services and infrastructure enabling digital transformation.

Hardy was Group Chief Executive & Managing Director of Econet for six years, one of the pioneers of the mobile telecoms industry in Africa. He has 25+ years of senior management and leadership experience across Africa in Technology, Telecommunications, Development Finance and Investment Management. He is a business leader who believes Africa is poised for a decade or more of rapid inclusive growth and transformation driven by technology.

Hardy spent nine years as a senior executive at TDB Group (previously PTA Bank), of which five years were as an Executive Director and member of the Executive Committee. His responsibilities included overseeing the bank’s project finance portfolio across 18 countries in Eastern and Southern Africa, managing relationships with clients and governments, and raising capital for the bank’s lending programs from local and global sources.

He is a seasoned board-level practitioner with extensive senior management experience across Eastern and Southern Africa in financial services, development banking, telecommunications, media, and infrastructure.

Passionate about AI, an analyst asked him why Cassava Technologies is investing so much capital into AI computer infrastructure, and he says “AI is not only a software revolution. It is an infrastructure revolution. This distinction will decide how much of its value stays in Africa.”

Hardy further adds that “We will adopt AI. Our banks, mines, farms, hospitals, schools and governments will all use it. The harder question is where the productive capacity underneath it will sit?” He questions where African data is stored, where models run, who finances it and where the economic value accumulates.

Hardy holds engineering and business degrees from Queen Mary College (University of London) and the Edinburgh Business School.