Drisha Kirkman
Born in the township of Isipingo Hills, Drisha completed her Bachelor of Commerce in 2004 from the University of Kwa Zulu Natal. She was awarded a bursary to study for a month at the university of Stuttgart in Germany in 2003. After her degree Drisha spent a year working in London. In 2006 she returned to South Africa and joined a start-up up company called Tutuka that consisted of about 7 people in Johannesburg.
Tutuka today has grown from a SA born start up to an international company (Paymentology) with clients across 50 countries and over 600 staff. It has offices and entities in Johannesburg, Dubai and London.
Drisha has been at the forefront of growing Paymentology to an international success. In South Africa she is well known within the payments industry as a leader. Paymentology is now the largest prepaid card processer in Africa.The company has over 400 different card programmes processing billions of Dollars in transactions yearly. Today in SA if you have a card that’s not a debit/credit card issued by a bank, then 9 out of 10 times that card is actually a Paymentology processed card. If you have received a reward from one of the major banking reward programs, then again it’s Paymentology. Paymentology software supports gifts and rewards cards, payroll cards, micro lending cards, virtual cards and digital bank cards. Even though it is unlikely to see the name/brand Paymentology, the technology and software is used by many banks and corporates all over SA.
Fintechs are not known for diversity globally, however Drisha has promoted women and person of colour throughout her years. Her elevation to leadership was quick in her career. She has been at the core of growing a South African born start up to a truly global company www.paymentology.com
Work history and highlights:
- Began working for a start-up Tutuka in April 2006
- In 2010 worked on Visa’s World Cup SA card
- Became A Director and shareholder of Tutuka in 2011
- Became Global head of Sales in 2011
- Sat on the board of Tutuka from 2014 after the Actis first series investment
- Named Mail and Guardians Top 200 young South African in 2016 in the category of Business
- In 2016 Awarded certificate from Gauteng Provincial government for excellence in business
- In 2018 , Apis Fund took a stake in Tutuka
- In April 2021 Tutuka was acquired in its entirety by UK based payments company Teya ( Formerly Saltpay) In December 2021 Tutuka became Paymentology
- Drisha is part of core management to date and a Director of the SA business Paymentology SA. In addition Drisha is the Director of another Paymentology owned SA company called Flexpay https://www.flexpay.co.za
- In 2023 she was featured in UK based magazine as a women making a difference in Fintech globally
Drisha currently resides in Johannesburg and is married with two young children and a dog.
Amongst her accolades, she has created a Sustainability team within her organisation that focuses on community development and staff empowerment. Through her work they have created bursary schemes, partnered up with NPO’s and ensured mentorship schemes. Programmes have assisted 100s of individuals and currently span across South Africa, Kenya, Ivory Coast, El Salvador and India. Headed by Drisha the campaign of “Changing Lives” has become a value of Payme hi ntology and stories of initiatives can be found under https://www.paymentology.com/about-us/changing-lives
Drisha in her personal capacity has also funded her old primary schools computer lab, sponsored the education of 3 underprivileged children and is currently mentoring two students from Alexandra township. She has mentored the students through their high school career and both are now studying their first year at University. One of her mentees has also received a full Bursary to study Actuarial science at Wits.
Drisha’s goal is to continue to grow Paymentology as a business and hopefully one day potentially list. At the same time she is equally passionate about the uplifting of people and will continue to focus on the campaign of “Changing lives”