When conversations begin around the most influential CEOs to watch in 2025, it’s easy to default to names in finance, mining, or telecom. But true influence isn’t just about scale or capital—it’s about impact. And probably no one in South Africa is improving more lives and futures right now than Jessie Bester, the visionary Founder and CEO of diginu. diginu is the rewarding food, drinks and grocery ordering App, with a massive twist. “We want South Africans to feel that diginu is their company too. So, we put our money where our mouths are, and we launched the Profit Share Program, where anyone in South Africa can not only place orders on diginu, but also earn commission every single Friday from diginu,” Jessie reveals.
In a world craving new answers to old problems, Jessie isn’t just running a company—he’s architecting a new economy.
A Leader Building What Others Didn’t Dare
Jessie’s rise isn’t rooted in privilege or convention. It’s rooted in conviction. He saw firsthand the cracks in the food delivery space, the failure of traditional rewards systems, and the lack of opportunity for everyday South Africans to build wealth. Where others saw complexity, he saw clarity. Where others settled for profit, he pushed for purpose.
And that’s the heartbeat of diginu. It’s not a one-dimensional app that only delivers food, it’s a revolutionary ecosystem backed by three interconnected companies – diginu, their food delivery company, diginuPay, their Fintech company, and diginuEgo, the latest addition to their ecosystem – an electric vehicle company. Each one is engineered to solve a different problem with one unified vision: to become the number one food delivery app globally, by creating a more just, efficient, and profitable ecosystem for customers, drivers, and entrepreneurs alike.
The diginu story is already rewriting the script in South Africa. But what makes Jessie influential isn’t just the size of what he’s building – it’s also the timing. He is taking the lead exactly when the South Africa needs something different.
The diginu Trio That’s Changing the Game
Under Jessie’s leadership, diginu has become the first of its kind—a three-tiered economic engine that includes:
1. The diginu delivery platform, now making waves across the nation, with lower service fees than most other food delivery companies, no order batching, faster drop-offs and an opportunity for anyone in South Africa to earn commission weekly.
2. diginupay, the fintech platform on which they conduct all their payouts to drivers, independent marketers, customers and stores listed on their platform.
3. diginuEgo, whereby “Ego” stands for “electric go”, the cutting-edge electric vehicle division, built around the world’s most advanced AI-powered e-bike, designed for deliveries and ready to fuel a cleaner, more profitable mobility economy across Africa.
This three-headed ecosystem is the diginu team’s genius at work: seamlessly aligning logistics, lifestyle, and long-term wealth-building, while creating opportunity across every layer of society. No handouts. Just a better, fresher and more relevant model.
Alongside the group of companies they built, they also now offer an optional monthly-paid membership model, called diginuCashBack. It offers customers up to R3,500 in discounts, vouchers and physical cash back payments for only R99/month. This model compliments what diginu already offers customers – an ecosystem of relevant rewards that customers actually can and want to use. Well known national brands like Spur, Mugg and Bean, Panarottis, Woolworths and Wimpy, to name but a few, are part of this program.
The Face of Disruption—On the Cover, On the Ground
It’s no coincidence that Jessie is attracting attention all over. He’s not the kind of CEO who sits behind emails or prefer being in boardrooms. He’s on the streets, in the various provinces, and in the trenches – testing the e-bikes, training the teams and even engaging directly with customers and marketers who are the lifeblood of his vision. “I am not ashamed to say I am obsessed with our vision and the wellbeing of every person involved in diginu. As a result, having built diginu from the ground up, I genuinely care about our team, our customers, our merchants and our drivers, because I remember what it felt like when there was no one else in the company but myself. Putting in 16-18 hours per day, 6 days a week, is no problem, because I found my passion – helping others and making the vision a reality,” Jessie says.
The e-bike itself is a statement-one of the most stunning examples of African ingenuity: internet-connected, AI-enabled, remote power-off technology over the internet, GPS-tracked, swappable batteries, and blazing with looks. It’s fast. It’s smart. It’s made to lead a delivery revolution and shift South Africa’s relationship with energy and mobility. “We assembled a team of experts from across the world, and I’ve never seen any e-bike come even remotely close to what we have built. And the best part – it’s not just fit for deliveries – it’s also fit for everyday use,” Jessie states.
And it’s only available through the diginu owned company, called diginuEgo, a subsidiary of the main company, which owns the intellectual property on those e-bikes. “With over 20 million South Africans projected to order food online this year, the environmental impact is massive having so many traditional motorbikes on the road with all that fuel emmissions. Can you imaging what damage that does to the environment in the long run? So we realised back 2022 that we need to get e-bikes. At diginu we feel we have an obligation to look after the environment as much as we can, especially with the scale we are soon going to be operating on. So we started looking at e-bikes a few years ago, couldn’t find any e-bikes fit for our needs, and as a result, we decided to have it built. I am very excited to share with you that the first two prototypes have successfully been built and are already being tested in Pretoria right now,” Jessie states. When the team at diginu could not find e-bikes close to their standards, having decided to have it built is another indication of a company with a culture making the impossible, possible, despite the odds.
Jessie has committed that all deliveries will eventually be done only by their e-bikes, creating an eco-system with zero fuel dependency, improved turnaround times for deliveries, and even better quality control. No competitor in Africa has successfully done what diginu is busy doing at scale, which again, makes diginu a disruptor in this field. They are even available for public purchase soon as well. “Having shown our e-bikes to a couple of people, we already have a waiting list for people wanting to order diginuEgos for themselves, and some even want to buy fleets of the e-bikes as an investment into their businesses. Through a joint venture with another company, there will also soon be battery swapping stations available across the country, to make it even better for someone owning a diginuEgo. See it as a fuel station, but for diginuEgo bikes,” he shares with excitement. “It’s a massive undertaking we are busy with, but I know the team handling the execution is the best team imaginable to handle it,” he adds.
Filling the Gap, On Purpose
What makes Jessie’s leadership so influential in this moment is that he didn’t wait for corporate validation or favourable economic climates. He moved because he saw a gap in the market in 2019 and had the courage to say: “I’ll build what’s missing.” The first company Jessie founded was diginu, in 2019. Then, experiencing challenges with expensive payments, he set his sights on a more affordable platform where instant payments are done at only R1 per wallet to wallet transfer, so they launched diginuPay in 2022. With the most recent addition to their group of companies, diginuEgo, it is evident every time the diginu team comes across a stumbling block, they build a solution to solve it.
He saw that some big food delivery companies were charging more while offering less benefits. That drivers were sometimes being exploited, communities were being ignored, and customers were being treated like numbers. So he flipped the entire model on its head.
Today, diginu customers can earn weekly commissions by referring others to diginu through their own unique referral links. “Myself and Marius Adams, our National Head of Field Marketing, realised in 2022 we need to change the expansion model diginu has, to one where every single South African looking for an income opportunity, can join our team as an independent marketer, build the company with us, and in return earn weekly commissions on orders placed on diginu. We decided to name this model diginuPSP (profit share program),” Jessie shares with passion. Marketers are building passive revenue streams by getting more customers and/or stores onboard the diginu platform nationwide, and when orders take place either by the customer they onboarded, or at the store they onboarded, they earn commission on every single order, paid out weekly on Fridays.
“With the South African food delivery industry being projected by Statista to have a turnover of over R50 billion in 2025, the commission-earning opportunity is massive for anyone wanting to join in and build diginu with us. Our vision is to assist 1 million South Africans to earn an income from diginu, every single week, by 1 December 2025. Furthermore, we are working around the clock to onboard another 22’000 stores nationwide onto diginu this year,” Jessie shares.
Many franchise groups are coming onboard diginu now nationwide, after they saw the value diginu offers not only to them as businesses, but also to the greater public. “We are currently in the process of onboarding almost 20 very well-known franchise groups nationwide, with many more to follow soon after, and it is an honour working closely with these franchise groups’ head offices. The look on the one lady’s face who works at one of the franchises joining us now, was one of the best experiences of my life, after I shared with her the benefits, they as merchants get from diginu. She told me she couldn’t believe what she heard, as no other food delivery company in South Africa offers their company the benefits diginu does.”
Another company tried to copy diginu’s business model by implementing diginu’s commission-based model but failed to succeed in what diginu has achieved. “Some independent marketers were involved in diginu about 2 years ago and decided to steal our model and ran to another company with the plan. Unethically, that company copied our model to the T, yet they failed miserably. When we heard they copied us, we looked at their business model and confirmed it to be true, and we just laughed at it and decided to remain focused on the vision. They can look at the Rolls-Royce, touch it and even take it for a spin. But we are only a handful of people who know what’s going on under the bonnet of diginu, so to speak. And that is where the true genius of our model is located – how it works behind the scenes.”
When asked about why diginu is spelt with a lowercase letter “d,” Jessie states, “diginu is not meant to be a name, it’s meant to be a verb. Something so integral in every household in South Africa, and later on in the rest of the world as well, that we decided to always write it with in all-lowercase.”
What Jessie has created isn’t just a company. It’s a people-powered economy, running on digital rails and driven by some of the boldest and fearless leadership the African continent has seen in a generation. Empowering ordinary people to earn an income from diginu by helping them build even faster, is truly a remarkable business model – one that no other food delivery company offers.
Why the World is Watching diginu Right Now
In a time when much of the world is stuck in outdated systems or slow to adapt, the entire diginu team is moving fast – and very meticulous. Jessie’s vision is uniquely African, based on the principles of Ubuntu. Ubuntu is a term from Southern Africa that expresses a deep sense of interconnectedness and humanity. It’s often summarized by the phrase, “I am because we are.”
At its core, ubuntu is a philosophy that emphasizes community, compassion, mutual respect, and the understanding that an individual’s well-being is tied to the well-being of others.
He understands scale, strategy, and soul – and that rare blend is why investors, analysts, and thought leaders across the continent are watching this company grow closely.
“With diginu growing so fast due to our unique and value-creating business model, we recently heard of international investors wanting to get onboard with us. So as we are going into capital raising phase now for diginuEgo, our electric vehicle company, I’m getting that warm, excited feeling again I had back in 2019 when we started with cap raising for diginu. The joy of massive investment firms seeing the vision I saw years ago in my mind, really warms my heart,” Jessie notes nostalgically.
diginu isn’t just poised to take over the local market. It’s designed to scale across borders, across industries, and into the hearts of millions who want a fairer, faster, and more inclusive economy.
Jessie has already proven he can execute on vision, building diginu up out of nothing into this impressive company it is today. Soon he’s setting his sights on scaling globally – and doing it with the same boldness and commitment that got diginu this far. “As soon as we are the biggest food delivery company in South Africa, we are expanding abroad. The next countries are already identified, but we remain steadfast in our focus – first become the biggest food delivery company in South Africa, then double-check whether the expansion priorities are still relevant and then expand accordingly.”
Jessie’s mentality and visionary personality is much akin to giant tech disruptors like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, who were also not the first to market in some of their respective fields. And they also went up against giant competitors when they started out. On face value diginu is a food delivery app, but upon thorough investigation it is evident that diginu is as unique and relevant in their field as Apple was against IBM, or Tesla was against General Motors back in the day when they were founded.
A New Kind of CEO for a New Kind of Africa
Jessie is not the kind of CEO who climbs a ladder. He seems to be building new ones. He isn’t interested in copying Silicon Valley playbooks. Together with his team, they are writing their own, straight from the heart of South Africa, which is probably one of the least expected countries in the world for an impactful tech company to be founded.
One of the main reasons Jessie decided to build diginu from his home country of South Africa, instead of moving to popular tech destinations like Silicon Valley and launch diginu there, was because he wants to show the world that South Africa can also offer the world a disruptive tech company. “I think many people look down on us as South African and think we are a third world country where they can come watch lions roam our streets or kids riding on their hippopotamuses to school. I cannot wait for the day where we as South Africans show the world what we are made of. Just imagine how wonderful it would feel when international news agencies rank a South African founded disruptive tech company among the top-ranked companies in the world.”
“When I look at the key fundamental reasons why diginu is growing so fast, it is because we have a team of A-Team captains in diginu who all bought into the vision. Yes, in the beginning it was a one-man show, but those days are over. Today, we have thousands of people across the country in diginu, all working in unity towards the same bold vision. God blessed me with the best team on the planet. Not only are they highly experienced in their respective fields, but they also have the same relentless tenacity I have to make the vision a reality and I love our team to bits.”
Jessie is inviting the whole South African country to rise with them. “We are so focused and committed to the vision of having 1 million people in South Africa earning commission from diginu every single week, that we offer free, online training in marketing on our website after you log in on diginu.com. We even host weekly Live Zoom calls every Tuesday which new people can attend to see how they can benefit from diginu and we also host monthly trainings online. And the best part – all of our online training is 100% free. We realised in order for our bold vision to become reality, we need to make all the training and support platforms 100% free of charge, easily accessible and easily navigable. We even launched our state-of-the-art AI Assistant named Gini, to give our team answers on demand, 24/7/365.”
Jessie did not always thrive. In fact, his life story is one of the biggest reasons why so many other people are thriving today. “When I was a student, I had quite a lot of financial challenges. I even got an eviction notice to vacate the apartment I was renting back then, due to being behind on my rent. That was really scary. So I started looking for part-time work while attending classes full time, but I could not find anything. The things I found online either cost me an arm and a leg to buy packages or pay signup fees, which I did not have, or it was in industries I had no knowledge on. So one evening, after being a bit emotional, I made myself a promise – if I’m ever in a position to offer others an opportunity to earn income part time or on an independent marketer basis, joining that opportunity would be free and the training platform will also be free – no matter what it takes of myself to have that vision built. Today, that promise I made myself, is reality, and lots of people already benefit from it. I will do backflips the moment our data indicates we’ve reached the goal of 1 million people earning commission from diginu every week, because I know what it feels like to have absolutely no hope due to lack of finances.”
Not only does diginu offer free skills development for marketers, they are also planning on launching driver training academies across the country soon. “We genuinely care about immaculate service delivery, and having our team of drivers nationwide trained to the highest standards, is pivotal in achieving the vision.”
diginu will focus predominantly on bringing young South Africans, especially young women, onboard as drivers. “We feel the driver market is mostly dominated by men, and we want to offer ladies the opportunity to also join in and earn a good income for their households.”
The current unemployment rate in South Africa is 31.9%, meaning millions of people are impoverished. With diginu’s vision being so big, they are about to make a measurable impact in the South African economy. “Our service fees are much lower than most other food delivery apps in South Africa, which means more people can afford our food deliveries. That results in a larger number of orders, a higher number of drivers needed, which in turn results in more job creation. So, what our team has built here at diginu is pretty amazing,” Jessie says, smiling.
“Even though we have bold goals, we are still ordinary people, working really, really hard to build something meaningful that many people can benefit from.”
When asked about whether Jessie has any plans for adding more companies to their ecosystem, he humbly smiled and said, “Who knows? There might be something coming in the very near future. Stay tuned and feel free to join us on this wonderful journey.”
