By Charndré Emma Kippie
Top Women in Tech 2021
Managing Executive of Digital Sales, Products & Platforms at Vodacom, Priya Thakoor, was recently the recipient of the Top Women in Tech Award (Sponsored By Standard Bank), at this year’s 18th Standard Bank Top Women Awards, which took place on 4 November 2021.
The Top Women in Tech Award is given to a woman who is using technology to enable development and innovation, create employment, uplift other women and equip society at large with the skills necessary to function in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Vodacom’s Victor
Priya Thakoor is an accomplished Senior Digital & Product Executive and Entrepreneur with a track-record of more than 20 years in starting, building, commercially directing and growing Digital products and divisions (full P&L) in multinational Telecommunications (Vodafone), Banking (Barclays PLC) and Retail (Fashion, Cosmetics, Homeware), B2C and B2B businesses across Sub Saharan Africa and the USA.
As a Founder of start-ups, Priya has also built internet (property classifieds), SaaS (print promotional design) and fin-tech (alternative credit scoring) companies in South Africa & the USA.
She exhibits a clear passion for identifying market opportunities and customer problems, big enough to solve and monetize. Priya is always-on, scoping the market, watching trends, deepening her understanding of consumer behavior and engaging in cultural immersions. With a relentless focus on design-led experiences, she strives to achieve product-market fit with a view to monetize and scale, taking teams along on the journey.
Multilingual in business and technology, Priya has much experience across the full breadth of digital products such as App, USSD, SuperApp, Web, Social/Conversational Commerce, Smart Retail, Chatbots and emerging channels of multiple verticals including: Telecommunications, Financial services, and Consumer Internet.
On Receiving The Honour:
“First of all, it is an absolute honour to be a part of the same platform – and share the same type of recognition – that so many great women in this country have been recognised by”, says Priya.
“Thank you Standard Bank, Topco Media, and all the organising teams that put this together… and for creating platforms such as this to celebrate women and their contributions to business and society.”
Other Recent Accolades & Highlights
2020: Member of the MIT Global Advisory Panel
2020: New Generation awards for Best Digital Brand (Gold in 5 categories)
2019/20: Vodacom CEO awards for multiple categories
2018: Winner of AlphaCode, Bank of America top FinTech award and funding of $100k
2018: Winner of SAB-Miller Social Entrepreneurship winner for alternative credit scoring
2018: AfricaCom Enterprise CxO of the Year – Driving “Digital Africa” forward
2018: Judge for prestigious IABSA Bookmark awards for Digital innovation
*For more, check out our bumper 16th edition of the Standard Bank Top Women Leaders publication on Issuu – Digital Publishing Platform – here.
*Stay up to date with all the latest on Top Women in SA, by signing up to the Standard Bank Top Women newsletter – here.
