redAcademy and Flash Group Collaborate to Empower the Next Generation of Tech Talent
redAcademy has partnered with Flash Group, a South African fintech company, to close the business’ critical senior tech talent gaps. redAcademy will work closely with Flash Group to help them develop the skills they need without putting any additional pressure on their existing teams.
Flash Group has a massive tech team but is always on the hunt for senior tech talent. “When our recruitment team did an analysis of the skills we needed and the amount of talent out there, it was clear that there was a large pool of junior candidates, but there was a very real shortage of people with more experience,” says Melissa Stemmers, Learning & Development Manager at Flash Group.
“We knew we needed people who could hit the ground running, but we just couldn’t find them,” she explains. Given the lack of experienced tech talent, brands like Flash Group are also competing with other businesses for skilled professionals, which can make the hiring process costly and time-consuming. So, Flash Group decided to take a different approach.
“We revisited this pool of junior talent and looked for a way to upskill them quickly so they can add value to the business from day one,” she says.
redAcademy’s Skills-Integration-as-a-Service (SIaaS) model was the right fit for Flash Group because it enables them to access a pool of junior talent with real-world experience without having to provide on-the-job training themselves. redAcademy offers custom training that fully immerses junior tech talent in company culture. As part of the programme, candidates work on their clients’ live projects, delivering work and capacity ahead of schedule, thereby gaining real-world experience and adding value to the business from day one.
“This doesn’t mean that we don’t have any input on the training,” says Stemmers. “We get a say in the curriculum, what our candidates are working on, and we even do some mentoring from afar, but redAcademy handles everything else.”
The approach is closely aligned with Flash Group’s purpose to make people’s lives easier and expands on the fintech brand’s continued efforts to address the needs of the informal economy. “Through this partnership, we are spreading our outreach efforts even further by really building talent from the ground up,” says Stemmers.
At redAcademy, it’s so important for us that our candidates aren’t just tech-ready, but also culturally aligned with the organisations they will be placed in, says Jessica Hawkey, MD of redAcademy. According to her, redAcademy is currently in the Discovery Phase with Flash Group and is working on everything from recruiting candidates to customising the course curriculum ahead of the project’s official launch in January 2026.
“Flash Group wants to invest locally – in the local market and in local talent – which is exactly what we want to do as well,” concludes Hawkey. “This project is such a good fit for both of us because we’re closely aligned in our missions, which is not only to support the community with the solutions we offer, but also to recruit from that community and then offer young people the opportunity to build a real career path.”
