Juicyway COO Justin Ziegler Exits After Four Years

In Short

• Justin Ziegler has left his role as COO of Juicyway after four years.
• Juicyway has not announced a replacement.
• The exit lands amid a wider wave of leadership changes across African fintech.

What Happened

Juicyway, a cross-border fintech focused on moving money between countries, has confirmed that co-founder and chief operating officer Justin Ziegler is leaving the company. The update was posted on the company’s LinkedIn page earlier this month. Ziegler had been in the COO role since Juicyway launched in 2021.

Juicyway says it spent about three years in stealth, meaning it was building and testing product quietly without public marketing. During that period, the company processed over $1.3 billion across 25,000 cross-border transactions for more than 4,000 businesses. Cross-border transactions are payments where the sender and receiver are in different countries, which usually makes settlement slower and compliance harder.

The startup positions itself as a payment network for businesses and individuals that need foreign exchange and settlement. CEO Ife Johnson has previously said Juicyway plans to use stablecoins, which are crypto tokens designed to track the value of currencies like the US dollar, as a key part of its settlement flow.

Juicyway has also been expanding its compliance footprint. In 2026, it registered as a payment service provider in Canada and received regulatory approval to operate across 48 US states. In March, the company highlighted an integration with Aptos, a blockchain network, to support faster settlement rails.

Why It Matters

COO exits can create execution risk, especially for fintechs handling regulated payment flows, FX operations, and partner integrations. For Juicyway, the next signal to watch is whether it fills the role quickly, and whether leadership changes affect its stablecoin-focused cross-border payments strategy.

The move also fits a pattern. African fintech has seen several high-profile CEO and executive transitions in the last 18 months, including changes at Paga and Yoco, and leadership shifts at Helium Health.