Takealot appoints Willem van Biljon new CTO and co-CEO

Things are getting very interesting at Takealot. Since announcing its US$100-million investment from Tiger Global and its mission to improve it technology Takealot seems to be putting its new dollars hard at work with the appointment of Willem van Biljon new CTO and co-CEO of the company.

One of Africa’s kickass entrepreneur, Van Biljon co-founded Mosaic Software, the creators of the Postilion payment system, and was one of the leaders that built Amazon’s EC2 cloud service and Nimbula. Van Biljon has since exited both companies to major players such as Amazon and Oracle, respectively.

“We are thrilled to have someone of Willem’s stature, a takealot.com board member since August 2011, join us in an executive capacity in our Cape Town head office,” said CEO Kim Reid on the appointment. “He has a world-class technical background paired with serious business acumen making him ideal to join our team and contribute to taking takealot.com from a challenger brand to SA market leader in online retail”.

Founded in the 2002 as Take2, the site was later relaunched as Takealot in 2010 by Tiger Global Management and CEO Kim Reid. Takealot offers an extensive range of locally supplied and imported books, DVDs, music, games, electronics and toys with delivery to your doorstep.

“Having been on the Board and watching how the business has accelerated over the last two and half years, has given me the inside track on the future potential of takealot.com. When Kim approached me to join in an executive capacity, it was a no brainer. takealot.com has the energy of a start-up, but with all the fundamentals in place to take the lead in e-commerce on the African continent,” says van Biljon.

“I am looking forward to mentoring and growing our talent, as well as applying myself to the technical systems and business processes, as we build a world-class e-commerce company,” he adds.

We are looking forward to see what this appointment yields for takealot, we are watching.