Nominated
INDUSTRY CHAMPION OF THE YEAR
Pieter de Villiers, CEO and Co-Founder at Clickatell, is a South African born, Silicon Valley; experienced entrepreneur and angel investor with a passion for Chat Commerce and the empowerment of people.
Pieter is also one of the youngest mobile industry veterans with over 22 years’ of experience in global telecoms, mobile messaging, and mobile payments, backed by top-tier Silicon Valley VC firm Sequoia Capital.
Pieter spent nearly 10 years in San Francisco where he successfully grew Clickatell into a multi-million-dollar company operating across multiple continents. Since its launch, Clickatell boasts one of the first and largest messaging-as-a-service footprints globally, as well as one of the fastest-growing mobile payment networks serving thousands of businesses across more than 220 territories. In the past few years, true to the company’s history of innovation, Clickatell was the first to launch chat commerce and chat banking in the world’s largest chat platform at the time. Clickatell enables Fortune 500 brands as well as start-ups and medium businesses to connect, interact, and transact with their customers in chat. In February 2022, Clickatell, under the leadership of Pieter, secured $91 million in their Series C round.
Along with his work with Clickatell and the mobile industry, Pieter is actively working to promote and empower entrepreneurs in Africa as well as digital skills training in South Africa serving as Chairman of SiMODiSA.org a public benefit, not-for-profit organization based in South Africa and Africa.
About the nominee: Pieter de Villiers, CEO and Co-Founder at Clickatell, is a South African born, Silicon Valley experienced entrepreneur and angel investor with a passion for Chat Commerce and the empowerment of people. Pieter is also one of the youngest mobile industry veterans with over 22 years’ of experience in global telecoms, mobile messaging, and mobile payments, backed by top-tier Silicon Valley VC firm Sequoia Capital. Pieter spent nearly 10 years in San Francisco where he successfully grew Clickatell into a multi-million-dollar company operating across multiple continents. Since its launch, Clickatell boasts one of the first and largest messaging-as-a-service footprints globally, as well as one of the fastest-growing mobile payment networks serving thousands of businesses across more than 220 territories. In the past few years, true to the company’s history of innovation, Clickatell was the first to launch chat commerce and chat banking in the world’s largest chat platform at the time. Clickatell enables Fortune 500 brands as well as start-ups and medium businesses to connect, interact, and transact with their customers in chat. In February 2022, Clickatell, under the leadership of Pieter, secured $91 million in their Series C round.
Along with his work with Clickatell and the mobile industry, Pieter is actively working to promote and empower entrepreneurs in Africa as well as digital skills training in South Africa serving as Chairman of SiMODiSA.org a public benefit, not-for-profit organization based in South Africa and Africa.
Motivation: A technology company does not survive and grow amidst two decades of technology disruptions if it does not continue to innovate. Pieter helped generate an environment at Clickatell that successfully supports a hybrid workforce. Embracing a hybrid working environment has certainly helped Clickatell navigate the disruption of the pandemic, but the more important benefit has been to Clickatell’s culture. The solution allows Clickatell’s employees to work according to their preferences, and in turn, it fast-tracked creativity and innovation.
Some of the lessons learned along the way:
- Support individual employees’ needs.
- Design policies that assume offices are no longer the norm.
- Celebrate employees often.
- Hybrid does not mean 100% virtual.
- Listen, engage, and pivot for success.
Pieter led Clickatell to successfully raise a $91 million Series C at the beginning of 2022. Pieter’s true passion for people’s success led to him launching SiMODiSA in August 2013. SiMODiSA (meaning: “to shepherd/ or lead”) seeks to identify policies that create an environment to accelerate entrepreneurial activity particularly for high-growth and innovative SMEs that are considered to be key drivers of economic growth and job creation, and oriented for tomorrow’s technology-driven economy. Pieter is currently the Chairman of SiMODiSA. Working with government, civil society, and academia it aims to support entrepreneurship on the continent through the Startup Act, as well as creating future-proof jobs via the TechXit digital skills initiative. The TechXit initiative’s purpose is to unlock the full potential for South Africa’s youth by closing the widening gap between the supply and demand for IT and digital skills. Its digital skills capacity building programmes have been designed to fill 1 million digital skills related jobs in South Africa over the next 10 years or less. If successful, it is estimated that this will contribute to South Africa’s economic growth by more than ZAR 300 billion per annum.
Pieter has been recognized for his leadership and achievement in the mobile industry by many industry organizations including Endeavor and Global Technology Business that named him as one of the “top 40 under 40” executives who will likely “run the telecoms industry in 2020.” Along with his work with Clickatell and the mobile industry, Pieter is also an active participant in socially responsible organizations and programs. During 2012, Pieter was selected as a SABLE Advisory board member. The SABLE Accelerator is a trusted knowledge network of global South Africans providing mentoring and consulting services to South African companies, entrepreneurs, and institutions seeking to fund or commercialize innovation, as well as enter, grow, and partner in worldwide markets. He was a Business Mentor at The SABLE Accelerator from August 2012 until July 2018. Added to this, Pieter is also a Business Mentor at Endeavor, a non-profit organization, dedicated to high-impact. Pieter says that what Endeavor stands for resonates with him and this idea of paying it forward, so other entrepreneurs can benefit from his learnings and mistakes.
Pieter has also been honored with the Mobile Village Mobile Star Award for Visionary of the Year in Wireless and the Visiongain Research Mobile Content Awards Industry Personality of the year. Pieter is a familiar face in the mobile industry and an active participant in many leading mobile organizations. He is also an accomplished speaker and has presented his thoughts on mobile at various mobile conferences in the United States, Europe, and Africa including GSM Mobile World Congress – MMU, Mobile Money Africa, International CTIA Wireless Conference, and the Rutberg & Co., Wireless Influencers Conference, etc.
Pieter continuously faces and overcomes challenges. Early challenges included fundraising during the dot com bust (2001), expanding internationally into multiple markets, navigating economic downturns, and growing a business in complex markets where everyone does not necessarily play by the rules. All of this while maintaining profitability was quite the task. Pieter’s proudest achievement is building a company with co-founders, a great executive team, and advisors who strive to do the right thing and have a purpose to create a better world through technology. Building an organization or culture that embraces change is no easy task since both are a reflection of its people and most people do not like change. However, Pieter found if the change or innovation is focused on efforts that improve, enhance, or simplify things you are already doing, it is generally accepted by smart organizations.
11 of the top accomplishes of Pieter include:
- Year 2000: Clickatell was founded and created a world’s first: four lines of code that created a way to send SMS from the internet to cell phones.
- Year 2006: Clickatell merged with MultiMode, Inc, and expanded to the US.
- Year 2009: Pieter was honored as “Industry Personality of the Year”.
- Year 2011: Pieter was named one of the Global Technology Business (GTB) “top 40 under 40” executives.
- Year 2012: Pieter was awarded the Social Economic Impact Award from the San Jose Business Journal.
- Year 2012: Pieter was selected as a SABLE Advisory board member.
- Year 2013: Pieter launched SiMODiSA.
- Year 2018: Absa became of the first financial institutions in South Africa to launch chat banking on WhatsApp through a partnership with Clickatell.
- Year 2019: Clickatell helped MTN South Africa to become the first telco to launch Chat Commerce on WhatsApp.
- Year 2021: In its report “Add Digital Payments as Part of Communications Platform as a Service Offering,” Gartner® recognized Clickatell as a “Who’s Who in CPaaS Payments.”
- Year 2022: Clickatell secured $91 million in their Series C round.