Bank One in Mauritius has hired James Kasuyi in a newly-created head of financial institutions (FI) role.

Kasuyi joins from the Mara Group in Rwanda, where he was head of business and corporate development and responsible for capital raising activities for Mara Phones, a new venture to fully manufacture the first smartphones in Africa. He previously spent six years at the Eastern and Southern African Trade and Development Bank (TDB) in Kenya, most recently as trade finance and communications officer.

Kasuyi has held prior posts at the likes of Africa Investor, EagleQuest Trading and Wachovia Securities, amongst others. He remains chairman of the advisory board of Profectus Capital, a boutique investment firm that provides financial services and advisory solutions to micro, small, and medium enterprises in Africa, and retains his seat on the select advisory committee of the Africa-America Institute, an education organisation.

At Bank One, Kasuyi will be tasked with expanding the bank’s corresponding FI network to support its various products. “We’re also looking to finance banks across Africa for their lending and trading activities,” he tells GTR.

“The position was created due to Bank One’s steady growth of 30% year-on-year in the last several years, now having a balance sheet of just under US$1bn. As we are now looking more into tapping the global debt markets, the position was created to maximise and leverage on relationships with corresponding banks – both on the asset and liabilities side.”

Kasuyi will report to Carl Chirwa, Bank One’s head of international banking, who joined the bank last year from Citi, where he had been head of trade finance for Sub-Saharan Africa.