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Elaine Buys

@elainebuys

Product and technology leader shipping regulated fintech platforms, blending strategy, APIs, and AI-powered product delivery.

South Africa

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What I'm looking for

I’m looking for a product leadership role where I can own roadmap and delivery in regulated, complex environments—partnering with engineers and compliance, shipping API-driven platforms, and using AI thoughtfully to improve how products are designed and delivered.

I’m a product and technology leader with 15+ years of experience shipping digital platforms across regulated markets in Africa and Europe—from closed-loop payment ecosystems to EU-regulated card acquiring infrastructure. I’ve held roles across the full spectrum (developer, operations lead, CTO, and Product Owner), so I can move fluidly between technical discovery and strategic execution, especially when complexity is the real work.

I thrive in async-first, multi-timezone environments and I’m at my best when there’s real complexity to untangle and something meaningful to ship. Most notably, I led the delivery of a card acquiring platform from concept to live transaction processing in 12 months in a regulated EU environment, rebuilt a critical end-to-end onboarding process over 13 months with a team of 4, and designed and launched a cloud-native, API-first platform on Google Cloud—then brought it to live operations across multiple African markets. I also build practical AI product capability (prompt engineering, conversational AI design, LLM evaluation, and AI use case scoping) to help teams turn ideas into reliable delivery.

Experience

Work history, roles, and key accomplishments

Current

Founder & Product Advisor

Current

Mentraxa

May 2025 - Present (1 year 1 month)

Fractionally led product and technology for early-stage founders, owning roadmap direction, architecture trade-offs, and delivery planning from first principles. Delivered MVP scope documents, product roadmaps, and development plans for 2 funded startups, including an AI-powered B2B SaaS and a Southern African logistics product.

Product Strategy Roadmapping MVP Scopes Conversational AI Design Prompt Engineering LLM Evaluation Agile Delivery

Product Owner (Acquiring)

Rapaydo

Nov 2023 - Apr 2025 (1 year 5 months)

Owned the acquiring product domain in a regulated European payments environment, delivering a card acquiring platform from concept to live transaction processing in 12 months with a cross-functional team of up to 15. Authored and prioritized epics, features, and user stories, and ran backlog grooming and sprint planning while aligning client, compliance, and engineering stakeholders.

Product Ownership Payments Product Management Card Acquiring Sprint Planning Stakeholder Management

Business Architect

Truevo Technologies

Mar 2022 - Oct 2023 (1 year 7 months)

Led a 13-month rebuild of an end-to-end onboarding process, coordinating across departments and delivering a coherent, reliable solution with a team of 4. Strengthened KYC/AML and risk controls in onboarding workflows and supported adoption of OpenWay’s Way4 platform while collaborating with acquirer integrations and card-network stakeholders.

Business Architecture Process Transformation Risk & Controls Onboarding OpenWay Way4 Delivery leadership

Chief Technology Officer

Finclude Technologies

May 2019 - Feb 2022 (2 years 9 months)

Set product and technical direction for Findesk, a cloud-native API-based payments and virtual products platform launched across 3 African markets. Grew the company from 2 people to a cross-functional team of 10+, designed and launched an API-first platform on Google Cloud, and led delivery of a closed-loop fuel card system and a university student payment platform (each running 6–18 months to liv

Cloud Native Architecture Google Cloud API First Payments Architecture Team Leadership Platform Delivery

Operations Manager

Finclude Technologies

Jun 2016 - Apr 2019 (2 years 10 months)

Led operational scaling during a legacy-to-fintech transition by building onboarding, support, and reporting processes from scratch. Established finance and support teams with clear accountability to lay an operational foundation for later growth.

Process Design Onboarding Operations Support Operations Finance Team Setup Legacy To Fintech Transition Team Accountability

Senior Analyst Dev & PM

Qmuzik Technologies

May 2008 - May 2016 (8 years)

Built and customized ERP and payment systems for 5–10 active clients, delivering financial, purchasing, asset, and reporting modules. Led client-side implementations lasting 6–24 months, translating complex real-world business processes into structured, maintainable system logic while managing multiple concurrent projects (1–2 at a time).

ERP Customization Payments Systems Financial Systems Requirements Gathering Project Management Implementation Delivery Process Mapping Stakeholder Management

Junior Developer

Net1

Jul 2007 - May 2008 (10 months)

Developed and maintained applications for Verifone payment terminals in a regulated financial environment. Contributed to early real-time/embedded payment processing systems through ongoing development and support.

Verifone Regulated Environments Application Development Software Integration