Jeremy Hodara and Sacha Poignonnec step down as Jumia co-CEOs

African e-commerce giant Jumia has made a change in management as co-founders Jeremy Hodara and Sacha Poignonnec step down effective today as co-CEOs, according to a statement seen by TechCrunch.

The two founders, who until today shared the chief executive role, have been at the helm of Africa’s only publicly traded company for over a decade, overseeing Jumia’s pan-African expansion across 11 countries as well as its product journey that now includes a marketplace, JumiaPay, its payment arm and a logistics platform.

Francis Dufay, who previously held the CEO role at one of Jumia’s fledging markets, Ivory Coast, will now replace both co-founders as acting CEO, the company’s Supervisory Board said in the statement. Dufay has been with Jumia since 2014, holding multiple senior leadership roles, more recently Executive, VP, Africa, responsible for the group’s e-commerce business across the continent.

According to the Supervisory Board, Dufay and Antoine Maillet-Mezeray — previously Jumia’s Group Chief Financial Officer — have been appointed members of the company’s Management Board. Maillet-Mezeray, having stayed with Jumia for over six years and driving the company’s finance function and “further developing it in a public market context,” has earned a promotion too: Executive Vice President, Finance & Operations.

“We thank Jeremy and Sacha for their leadership over the last decade to envision and build a company that became the leading pan-African e-commerce player,” Jonathan Klein, Chairman of the Supervisory Board, said of the announcement. “As we look ahead to the next chapter of Jumia’s journey, we want to bring more focus to the core e-commerce business as part of a more simplified and efficient organization with stronger fundamentals and a clearer path to profitability. We look forward to working closely with Francis, Antoine and the leadership team to execute on these objectives and continue on our mission of offering a compelling e-commerce platform to consumers, sellers and the broader Jumia ecosystem in Africa.”

This is a developing story…