This week, Brett Jones, co-founder of South Africa’s talent marketplace Offerzen, joined the growing club of founders stepping away from the companies they built. His LinkedIn farewell was a classic of the genre: nearly 10 years, a “wild ride,” a nod to Ben Horowitz, and the quintessential founder realisation that “this stage of the journey just isn’t as fun for me.”

Jones is taking six months off for rest, reflection, and “long trail runs in the mountains,” cheekily acknowledging it looks a lot like a midlife crisis, minus the Harley and a dad-rock band called “The Convertible Notes.”

While Jones’s departure post might read like a personal epiphany, it signals a much broader, systemic shift across Africa’s tech landscape. From Cape Town to Cairo, the first generation of venture-backed founders are hitting the 10-year mark and deciding it’s time for someone else to manage the spreadsheets.

Unlike the chaotic implosions of the past, this new wave of successions appears more strategic, pointing to a vital question for the ecosystem’s maturity: who is best equipped to take a startup from a scrappy mission to a scaled-up corporation? The answers, it seems, fall into three distinct playbooks.

Playbook 1: The External Operator

For some, the answer is to bring in an external, seasoned professional — the proverbial “adult in the room.”

OfferZen itself is a prime example. Though Jones just left, his exit was cushioned by a long-planned transition. The company hired Matt Beck as CEO back in 2021. Beck wasn’t a product of the local startup scene; he was imported from a 10-year stint at 2U, a large American edtech company. This move signals a clear preference for bringing in leadership with experience in navigating larger, more structured corporate environments.

A more urgent example is Twiga Foods. After the abrupt and contentious exit of founder and CEO Peter Njonjo in late 2023, the Kenyan B2B e-commerce company needed to stabilise the ship. Its solution was to poach Charles Ballard, who was CEO of e-commerce giant Jumia Kenya. In its statement, Twiga’s board praised Ballard’s “proven operational grip” — exactly the kind of language a nervous board uses when it wants to move past a year of layoffs, supplier disputes, and founder drama.

Playbook 2: Keeping it in the (Founder) Family

At Yoco, the South African fintech, the succession plan is being kept in-house. After more than a decade as CEO, co-founder Katlego Maphai is stepping aside, admitting that “the skills and energy needed to start… are not always the same as those required to scale.”

But instead of looking externally, Yoco is doubling down on its founding DNA. Co-founders Lungisa Matshoba and Bradley Wattrus are stepping up as co-CEOs, a notoriously tricky leadership structure to get right. Maphai will remain involved in long-term strategy, transitioning to the comfortable perch of a board member. This move keeps the institutional knowledge intact but bets on the remaining founders having the necessary operational chops to navigate a market recently shaken by Nedbank’s acquisition of rival iKhokha.

This model was also seen in Nigeria in 2018, when Sim Shagaya, founder of e-commerce platform Konga, stepped down as CEO to become Chairman of the Board. He handed the daily operations to the COO, Shola Adekoya, ensuring continuity while shifting his own focus to long-term strategy — a founder’s graduation ceremony of sorts.

Playbook 3: Promotion & The Competitor Poach

A third, hybrid path is emerging: promoting a trusted operational lieutenant or, in a bolder move, hiring from the enemy.

At Ghanaian healthtech mPharma, founder Gregory Rockson moved to Chairman after 11 years, appointing his COO since 2021, Kwesi Arhin, as the new CEO. Coming after a difficult period that included laying off 150 employees, installing a COO with a finance and consulting background into the top job is a clear signal to investors: the era of venture-fueled blitz-scaling is over, and the era of operational discipline has begun.

Meanwhile, in Cairo, the succession at food delivery platform Elmenus was a declaration of war. After 14 years, founder Amir Allam stepped down and hired Walid El-Saadany as his replacement. El-Saadany’s most relevant experience? He previously led Elmenus’s main competitor, Otlob (now Talabat), for five years. This isn’t just hiring a new CEO; it’s acquiring a rival’s playbook to prepare for an intense market battle with Talabat’s parent company, the global behemoth Delivery Hero.

Why Now? The 10-Year Itch Meets Investor Nerves

This flurry of handovers isn’t a coincidence. It’s driven by two powerful forces.

First, the Founder’s Dilemma. The grit, vision, and high-risk tolerance that get a company from zero to one are often different from the skills in process, governance, and P&L management needed to get from one to 100. Many founders are simply self-aware enough (or gently persuaded by their boards) to know they’re not the right person for the next phase.

Second, Investor Influence. As startups mature and raise hefty Series B and C rounds, investors want to de-risk their capital. A seasoned operator who has managed large teams and prepared a company for an exit is often seen as a safer pair of hands than a visionary-but-unpredictable founder.

The current wave suggests the ecosystem is learning. Founders are orchestrating their exits rather than being pushed out, and boards are deliberately choosing successors tailored to the company’s next challenge — be it operational efficiency, market consolidation, or corporate governance. This is what maturity looks like: less about the myth of the indispensable founder and more about building an enduring business.