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The South African fintech leader Flash Group has announced a pioneering partnership with redAcademy. Industry watchers tout it as a strategic move to solve the critical shortage of senior tech talent.
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This collaboration will leverage redAcademy’s unique Skills-Integration-as-a-Service (SIaaS) model. It is designed to rapidly upskill junior candidates into productive, senior-ready tech professionals. The initiative will bypass the costly and competitive traditional hiring market.
The Senior Talent Shortage: A Industry-Wide Challenge
Flash Group, despite having a large tech team, found itself in a fierce battle for a limited pool of experienced talent. An internal analysis revealed a market flooded with junior candidates. But conversely with a stark shortage of professionals who could “hit the ground running.”
“We knew we needed people with experience, but we just couldn’t find them,” explained Melissa Stemmers, Learning & Development Manager at Flash Group.
“Competing for a small pool of skilled professionals makes the hiring process incredibly costly and time-consuming.” This market reality forced the company to innovate its talent strategy.
A New Approach: Upskilling Junior Talent at Speed
Instead of continuing the futile search for senior talent, Flash Group decided to invest in the abundant pool of junior candidates. This partnership with redAcademy is central to this new strategy. The SIaaS model provides Flash Group with a pipeline of junior talent. All of these talents are already immersed in the company’s specific workflows and culture.
Melissa Stemmers
“This doesn’t mean that we don’t have any input on the training. We get a say in the curriculum and the projects. But redAcademy handles everything else, removing the training burden from our existing teams,” Stemmers clarified.
How Skills-Integration-as-a-Service Delivers Value
redAcademy’s program is designed for immediate impact. Candidates are custom-trained on Flash Group’s live projects, allowing them to deliver work and add capacity ahead of schedule.
Jessica Hawkey, MD of redAcademy
“At redAcademy, it’s crucial that our candidates aren’t just tech-ready, but also culturally aligned with the organisations they will be placed in,” said Jessica Hawkey, MD of redAcademy. She confirmed the project is currently in the Discovery Phase, with recruitment and curriculum customization underway for a January 2026 launch.
A Partnership Aligned for Community Impact
This initiative is deeply connected to Flash Group’s mission to make people’s lives easier and support the informal economy. “We are spreading our outreach efforts even further by really building talent from the ground up,” Stemmers noted.
Hawkey concluded, “Flash Group wants to invest locally—in the local market and in local talent—which is exactly what we want to do as well. We’re closely aligned in our missions to recruit from the community and offer young people the opportunity to build a real career path.”
