Overview

Gender

male

Ronan developed and sold his first business idea for $3000 at the age of 13, and he hasn’t stopped moving since then.

Born and bred in Johannesburg, South Africa, Ronan has always been leading the pack, personally and professionally. His competitive personality and need for speed saw him leaving SA at the age of 16 to compete in World Superbikes where he continuously excelled and became the first SA rider in 20+ years to finish on the podium in a World Championship race and the first ever to finish on the podium in a World Supersport race.

The fast-paced environment and its associated pressures and challenges shaped Ronan’s never-give-up attitude as a teenager and when he returned to South Africa he was ready to combine his skills and passion for the fast paced world of online business.

He made $100 000 by the age of 18 selling and marketing t-shirts online with the slogans, trends, images and trending phrases and within 4 years had a turnover of $3 million. Juggling warehouses in China and America, logistics, customer service and customs was his new normal but it gave him a focussed understanding of what being an SME operating out of a garage goes through and how hard it is to break through the clutter and be noticed.

As any business owner knows, there are many frustrations with online payment options and the associated costs and Ronan felt the available systems were too complex and that high fee structures automatically excluded smaller business owners.

It was these frustrations that contributed to Ronan’s development of the ideas, the skills and the acumen to conceptualise and start Xion Global, a fintech start up that developed a decentralized payments gateway that allows online businesses to accept multiple payment options, including cryptocurrency.

Having spent the last four years in research and development, Xion Global has been registered in the United States and will soon be ready to offer a global payment option in the e-commerce space. The company secured funding from 2 Cape Town based angel investors as well as a coveted investment from Swiss crypto investor, Crypto Valley Venture Capital (CV VC).

Ronan continues to be a natural when it comes to fast-paced thinking and creative concept development and, whilst Xion Global has him working during multiple time zones and across 3 continents, his feet are firmly planted in South Africa, for now, and he enjoys nothing more than being with family on the water or listening in to someone inspirational on Clubhouse.