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In brief: Zalora names Louise Pender as Chief People Officer; Nium expands in LatAm

Zalora’s General Counsel promoted as Chief People Officer

The story: Online fashion retailer Zalora has appointed Louise Pender as its Chief People Officer.

Reporting to the CEO, Pender will be responsible for overseeing the People and Culture teams across all Zalora’s markets and will lead all HR functions, including talent acquisition, talent development, ensuring diversity and inclusion, compensation and employment best practices, workforce planning and strategic business partnering.

She will concurrently head the Legal and Sustainability team, in her existing role as Zalora’s General Counsel.

Also Read: Lazada, Shopee and Zalora are most visited e-commerce sites in Philippines

Who is Pender?: With over 20 years of experience providing legal and business advice across three continents, Pender brings with a wealth of experience in change management and organisational development. Her previous work includes senior roles at United Group Services and Siemens in Australia, Gate Group Holdings in Switzerland, and Gate Gourmet in the US.

Pender is initially qualified as a Barrister and Solicitor at the High Court of New Zealand in 1997, and was subsequently admitted as a Barrister and Solicitor of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Australia in 2003. She was later admitted to the Virginia State Bar in 2013.

Nium expands presence in Latin America

The story: Global fintech platform Nium (earlier known as Instarem) has announced a partnership with Costa Rica’s fintech company Teledolar.

Through this partnership, customers of Teledolar will be able to conduct outbound payments in real-time to an expanded list of markets, including Europe, the UK and the US, among others.

Benefits: The LatAm market’s fintech industry is thriving and it is primed for innovative fintech solutions. Not only is the region one of the fastest-growing in terms of internet and mobile adoption, regulators across LatAm have been borrowing from Europe’s open-banking playbook to break up incumbent bank monopolies and are implementing measures to increase the adoption of digital payments.

Also Read: BRI, Visa join remittance firm Nium’s Series C round to facilitate tuck-in acquisitions

COVID-19 has further exacerbated fintech growth, with many turning to fintechs to maintain service level amid the pandemic or to come out of this crisis with better digital offerings than before. The expansion of Nium’s presence in LatAm will help fintechs, banks and financial institutions digitise their solutions much faster, and, in turn, provide better digital financial service offerings to their customers.

The expansion of Nium’s presence in LatAm aims to help fintechs, banks and financial institutions digitise their solutions faster, and, in turn, provide better digital financial service offerings to their customers.

Nium currently operates its Send, Spend and Receive business in over 100 countries, 65 in real-time.

India’s Virohan raises US$2.8M funding

The story: Virohan, an online health education platform based in Gurgaon, announced today it has raised US$2.8 million across seed and Series A funding.

Investors: Keiretsu Forum, elea Foundation for Ethics in Globalization, Singh Family Trusts.

Plans: The fresh investment round will enable Virohan to continue to introduce and expand new virtual technologies in the vocational training segment allowing for greater accessibility, scalability and immersion at affordable costs.

Also Read: The changing face of healthcare in a post pandemic world

It will also use funding to expand their content library by introducing standardised content to students in 15 additional languages and grow its partnerships from dozens to hundreds of institutions.

What is Virohan?: A training partner of NSDC and a Yunus Social business Investee company, Virohan works with GE Healthcare and the Indian Medical Association (IMA) among others across India to provide youth with a career in the healthcare sector and make available trained workforce to the industry.

The courses offered emphasize on development of core technical skills, language abilities, and life skills in the student through gamified blended learning delivered by its facilitators in classrooms or purely online on its myCareer app.

All programmes include long internships at hospitals for hands-on practice of the skills acquired. Virohan is a fee-based model and in order to encourage young people to join, financial linkages are provided with easy installment-based payback options after a job is secured by the users.

Virohan’s vision is to educate more than a million students by 2025 through its blended learning platform.

Image Credit: Nium

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