In Part 1 of this episode of Scaling with Purpose, we sit down with Zaeem Hasan Khan, Founder and CEO of Simba Money, a fintech based in Dar Es Salaam building financial access for Tanzanians and across Africa.

Zaeem shares the hardest lesson from 18+ years in regulated digital finance across Africa: taking a decision in the boardroom is easy, implementing it is the real test. He breaks down why founders need to bring the customer's voice into the boardroom itself, how a "market activation plan" beats a rigid go-to-market strategy, and why treating regulators as collaborators (not gatekeepers) opens doors instead of closing them.

We also dig into Simba Money's vision to unify financial services into a single super app, the Grow Now Pay Later product built for farmers, and a live example of five different regulators collaborating with Simba Money on digital data inclusion for travelers landing in Tanzania.

Zaeem Hasan Khan (Simba Money): Building Fintech Trust with African Regulators | Part 1

Outro

Scaling with Purpose is the podcast for founders, CEOs, and executives who are navigating the real operational challenges of scaling up a business, not just starting one.

Most entrepreneurship content is built for early-stage founders. But what happens after product-market fit? What happens when scaling up means hiring executives, building teams from scratch, executing a go-to-market strategy beyond your direct network, and raising capital from investors who actually fit your vision?

That's where Scaling with Purpose lives.

Each episode, we sit down with founders and CEOs of high-growth companies and take the full journey with them. We start at the beginning: why they started, what drove them, and the early challenges and learnings that shaped how they lead today. Then we go deep on where they are now, the operational challenges of running a scaleup, building and hiring the right leadership team, creating go-to-market strategies that actually work at scale, navigating startup funding, and finding the right investor fit for sustainable business growth.

But here's what makes this podcast different: we refuse to accept that impact has to be sacrificed for commercial success. We talk openly about the tension between purpose and profit, and how the world's most compelling growth companies are proving you can have both.

If you're leading a scaleup or high-growth company and want honest, tactical conversations with founders and CEOs who have been in the trenches from day one, this is your podcast.