Andela, the talent outsourcing company that grew into a unicorn, has appointed Carrol Chang as its new CEO. Chang replaces Andela’s co-founder Jeremy Johnson who is stepping down as CEO and will remain on the company’s board.

Chang will join the company’s board on September 17. She served as the global head of driver and courier operations at ride-hailing giant Uber and had stints at McKinsey & Company and the Department of Homeland Security.

“I am deeply grateful for the privilege to lead Andela. It’s rare to find a mission-driven company that also has the potential to create a category-defining business. I’m inspired by the way Jeremy has led Andela to this point, and I appreciate the trust he and the Board now put in me to carry forward its mission,” said Chang. 

Her appointment comes as the ten-year-old company seeks to snag a bigger piece of the global talent market. Andela, which started by training African software developers for jobs at US companies and elsewhere, has grown into a talent marketplace. It became a unicorn in 2021 after raising a $200 million Series E funding round led by SoftBank. The same year, the company expanded to Latin and South America.

In 2023, Andela acquired Qualified, an assessment platform that certifies top engineering talents, for an undisclosed amount.

“After ten years, I’m deeply proud of the change we’ve helped to catalyze. That said, it’s clear that global hiring is at the beginning of a complete digital transformation, and Carrol is the perfect leader both for Andela’s next stage of growth and to help usher in the era of talent marketplaces,” said Johnson.

Founded in 2014, Andela grew to become a premier source for talented developers in Africa thanks to its curriculum and training methodology. The company claims to have trained more than 110,000 tech talents in Africa and helped talented individuals from over 135 countries build world class careers.

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