Founder Story: Meet Nick Hughes, founder of African mobile money giant, M-PESA, and clean energy provider, M-KOPA Solar

Meet the M-trepreneur, Nick Hughes, co-founder of M-PESA mobile money platform and M-KOPA off the grid solar. Nick led the team to take M-PESA from concept to scale, a mobile money project that has revolutionized the life of millions of Africans since it launched in 2007. Until 2009, he was Head of Global Payments at Vodafone Group, where he co-founded M-PESA in 2004.

M-PESA was used to transact $28b worth of transactions in 2015, equivalent to 44% of Kenya’s GDP. Tech titans like Mark Zuckerburg have looked to M-PESA as a ‘mobile money success story’ and Bill Gates has credited M-PESA for the impact it has had on poverty alleviation.

In 2012, Nick launched a new project, M-KOPA Solar. He is determined to continue leveraging the power of mobile connectivity for a better world, this time, in the clean energy sector. Nick currently leads new product and new market activities at M-KOPA as the Chief Product Officer & Director. As of January 2018, M-KOPA has connected over 600,000 homes to affordable solar power with 500 new homes being added everyday. M-KOPA customers will make projected savings of US$ 450M over the next four years, experiencing 75 million hours of kerosene-free lighting per month.

Nick has PhD in Applied Science, an MBA from London Business School, and received an Economist Innovation Award in 2010.

The Net Impact, Energy, Entrepreneurship and Africa Clubs are excited to welcome Nick back to LBS to discuss his founder journey, some of the challenges he faced along the way and how he worked to scale up from concept to impact.

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Co-hosted with: Entrepreneurship Club, Africa Business Club, Energy & Environment Club

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