Happy Sollo

Happy Sollo has over a decade of myriad professional experience, cutting across management consulting, program management and technology in banking, supply chain and digital financial services. 

For the past four years, Happy has led and delivered a wide range of projects for clients in private, public and development. Advancing to a Senior Manager position in Consulting at Deloitte Tanzania enabled Happy to design and deliver corporate business strategies for one of the largest banks in Tanzania as well as the power utility and the energy sector. She also managed and delivered Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system for a supply chain company and led the sourcing process for a corporate management system for the largest power utility company among many other advisory and technology projects she executed. As a Senior Manager, Happy has led large and cross border teams in East Africa, South Africa, Middle East, and India. She was also a key member in writing one of the largest health related proposals to USAID that allowed Deloitte to win a five-year contract and a cooperative agreement for executing flagship HIV related interventions for the country known as USAID Afya Yangu Southern and Kizazi Hodari Southern. 

For three years at Mercy Corps AGRIFIN Tanzania, Happy worked closely with a wide range of partners to design, test and take to market digital financial and information services, targeting small holder farmers and the rural communities in Tanzania. As a Program Manager, Happy delivered a digital savings and loans wallet in partnership with a bank and a telco as one of the key success milestones. She also executed a digital financial learning solution buddled with mobile bank accounts and digital health insurance for tea farmers in collaboration with a bank, tech innovator and a development partner.  Over and above leading programs, Happy established and maintained partnerships with various ecosystem players within the country and across the financial sector, telco, government, development, and tech innovators/start-ups. 

Happy spent six years in banking as a technology expert and a project manager, looking after the core banking system with its peripheral payment systems including the automated clearing system, mobile and internet banking platforms as well as trade finance and treasury management systems. Additionally, she delivered two key strategic projects that enabled KCB Bank to successfully adopt a new core banking system (T24 release 14 at the time) and an automated clearing system when the Bank of Tanzania introduced the Tanzania Automated Clearing House (TACH). While at ACB Bank, Happy supported the bank with branch remodelling projects, successfully supported registration for payments license alongside leading and managing integrations with players such as AzamPay, Selcom, MobiSol, Western Union and Upesi Money Transfer company. 

Currently, Happy is finalising an MBA in Corporate Management at Mzumbe University. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Dar Es Salaam, and is also certified in Project Management – Project Management Professional (PMP) by the Project Management Institute and PRINCE2 Practitioner from Axelos; Digital Financial Services – Certificate in Digital Money from the Digital Frontiers Institute; and IT Service Management – IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) Foundation.