About Us
About AJN
With years of experience in offering bespoke talent solutions for the African market, AJN is now looking to leverage its wealth of recruitment experience to transform how talent is acquired on the continent.
The Recruitment Journey: Years ago, people would read the classified section of the newspaper to find the latest jobs. In the last 20 years, job boards became the rage, transforming the recruitment scene by amalgamating all available jobs and providing search options to active job seekers.
Fast forward to today; social recruitment sites target both active and passive job seekers. We go a step further by providing an informed experience for our candidates which gives a holistic view of the company they are looking to join while cutting through the noise to find the right people.
AJN seeks to establish itself as the leading recruitment branding platform in Africa.
About Zoscales
Zoscales Partners is a private equity company that focuses on growth capital in small and medium-sized businesses in East Africa that show superior return potential. They provide a sound private equity strategy managed by a team of international investment professionals and local East African entrepreneurs. Zoscales Partners takes control of the management and exits investments through either majority shareholding or as a minority shareholder by the use of preferred shares or equivalent instruments.
They offer direct investments and strategic management, enabling African businesses to expand and grow, whilst striving for superior and sustainable returns for their investors. They believe in a win-win concept for their investors and African businesses. In other words, they invest where it matters!
Zoscales has invested in Africa Jobs Network to create state-of-the-art technology in the talent search industry. The investment is expected to create new jobs across East Africa during the coming years.
Board of Directors
Yusuf Reja, Founder and CEO
Africa Jobs Network
Yusuf Reja is a serial entrepreneur who has developed solutions for the human resources industry with a major focus on career development. He is the founder of Ethiojobs.net, Dereja.com, and Kipawa. He studied Electrical Engineering in the United States at the University of California Santa Barbara. His journey in the career development field began when he established Ethiojobs over 15 years ago; Ethiopia’s first local human resources consulting firm focused on recruitment services and HR consulting. Over the years, he has gained an unparalleled knowledge of the African job market and the challenges facing employers and job seekers in Africa.
He is an entrepreneur at heart and is always looking for solutions to address challenges in the talent industry!
Malcolm Myers, Founder and CEO, European Internet Ventures GmbH
Malcolm has spent more than a decade buying, selling and raising capital for online classifieds and marketplaces throughout the world. He has touched hundreds of real estate, automotive, and recruitment classifieds and marketplace businesses in Brazil, China, USA, Switzerland, Cameroon, and Singapore. His earlier work was about building up telecoms network operators in Europe, through product management, marketing, and business development roles - including 5 years as an Executive Director of Sunrise in Switzerland, which later IPOed for $3billion.
He is the Founder and CEO of European Internet Ventures which helps companies in classifieds and marketplace raise funding from venture capital, private equity, and other suitable internet investors.
Ashenafi Alemu, Managing Partner and Co-Founder
Zoscales Partners
Ashenafi is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Zoscales Partners and a Member of the Investment Committee. He has over a decade of experience in management consulting, infrastructure investments, and economic policy both in East Africa and Europe.
Previously, he took part in establishing a corporate finance and management-consulting boutique in Addis Ababa: North-South Consulting Group. He holds an MSc in Economics from Aarhus University (Denmark), a BSc in International Business from Addis Ababa University (Ethiopia), and a BSc from Aarhus School of Business (Denmark).
Senior Management Team
Dina Makonnen, Chief Operating Officer
Africa Jobs Network
Dina is a seasoned human resources professional who is passionate about people development and business growth. She has held different positions where she has excelled in areas such as strategy development, operations management, organization design & development, people development, and HR advisory. She was instrumental in developing the business concept of Ethiojobs platform which has grown significantly over the years.
She has over twenty years of experience helping companies succeed through strategic & annual planning, change management, restructuring, winning culture, talent management, rewards, and turnaround leadership. With the ability to work with multi-disciplinary and cross-cultural teams, Dina brings a wealth of experience in the HR industry.
Hilina Legesse, Country Manager - Ethiopia
Ethiojobs
Hilina has over 7 years of experience in the recruitment field in East Africa. She has a background in Economics from Addis Ababa University and has thrived in the HR field over the years. She has worked at Ethiojobs and grown the company by overseeing HR Services and ensuring quality client support and service delivery. An eloquent public speaker on HR topics, she is also is skilled in Negotiation, Management, Talent Acquisition and Business Development.
She is the Country Manager for operations in Ethiopia and her role involves team development and management, operations and service delivery management.
Melody Roth, Country Manager, Kenya
Kipawa
Melody is a seasoned finance and operations professional who studied Political Science and later, Business Administration. She has over 13 years of managerial experience having worked in Canada and Kenya. She brings great experience and insights to her role as Country Manager for Kipawa. Her main responsibility is to grow Kipawa, which she joined when it first started operations in Kenya. She also manages all operations and leads a team of 8. She has great financial analysis and management skills as well as sales and operations management skills.
Siham Ayele, Project Manager
Dereja.com
Siham has a great passion for youth development specifically in tackling the youth unemployment problem in Ethiopia. Together with her team, she has grown Dereja.com and achieved great milestones towards bridging the skills gap between graduates and the workplace. She began her career as a researcher and worked her way up to becoming an HR consultant. Siham graduated from Addis Ababa with a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and International Relations.
In her role as the Project Manager, she designs career development programs, manages relationships with donors, partners, government representatives, universities and ensures that the various programs are running smoothly. She is working to bring about transformation and impact in the youth unemployment space.