Carrol Chang, who was the senior global lead of drivers at Uber, has become the new CEO of Andela.

F ounded a decade ago by Jeremy Johnson and a team of entrepreneurs based in Africa, the company is currently training junior developers for a position in U.S. businesses. What initially felt full and growthful was that sudden interest in remote workers, and indeed it led to significant growth, peaking in a $200 million Series E funding round from SoftBank in 2021 that valued the company at $1.5 billion. But rising interest rates and weariness toward working from home threw Andela into stagnation.

Despite the challenges, the company has experienced modest growth in revenue so far, as sales have nearly doubled over the last five years and recently reported a 15% increase for this fiscal year, largely because of interest in generative AI and an ongoing need for flexible talent. Much of the capital raised in previous rounds still remains unused.

Chang is expected to be that leadership and guide Andela in a new growth trajectory. She was instrumental at Uber, driving the network of its drivers and couriers, especially during the pandemic, and now looks to replicate that formula at Andela by placing even greater customer needs at the forefront and enhancing the talent marketplace.

She is going to continue under her mentorship connecting the whole talent pool with corporate clients in the form of large corporations such as Cloudflare and Goldman Sachs. Andela allows the operating mode of a direct marketplace that links contractors with businesses as well as it provides software for performance management.

Where Chang and Johnson, who will continue sitting on the board, still believe that Andela's adaptive hiring model will gain traction in this age of AI as companies want to acquire some specific skills, workers on the African continent have scorned the company model, likening it to the contractor framework Uber uses. Yet, both leaders remain true believers in opportunities and fair compensation.

Considering all these difficulties, the future of Andela's success will depend on whether Chang can work in this environment and use technology to revolutionize the talent marketplace. We know that Johnson will stay involved as a board member but only for removing purposes as the company continues to stake out its future.