President William Ruto, on Saturday, April 29, engaged with Sudanese-born British entrepreneur, Mo Ibrahim, while presiding over the Mo Ibrahim Foundation African Leadership ceremony at KICC.
Among the issues the duo discussed were Africa's potential as an investment spot where Ruto called for a win-win financial architecture between African leaders and global financial institutions.
The two friends also shared a hearty moment when Ibrahim questioned Ruto on the creation of the Office of the First Daughter, to which the Head of State pointed out that it was a perceived Kenyan joke.
The Sudanese-born entrepreneur has amassed immense wealth for over three decades in his career. He began his career working as a senior researcher at the University of Birmingham before he was recruited to assist design the first cellular networks in the United Kingdom.
The experience was, however, bittersweet because despite the technological advancement, Ibrahim stated he was frustrated over the bureaucracy of the company to enforce changes and policy restructures.
This drove Ibrahim to quit the position and threw his hat into the entrepreneurship ring.
He founded a small company called Mobile System International (MSI) in 1988 to tap into the telecom business. The business soon expanded and operated in foreign countries including France, Norway, Denmark, Moscow, Shanghai and Singapore.
In 1998, the entrepreneur ventured into the African market and launched Celtel to explore the viability of mobile communications networks within the Continent.
At the time, critics questioned his decision for making such a bold move. The project later grew into a pan-African company that operated in 13 African countries.
Describing his time at Celtel as unique, he pointed out that six years after launching the company, 99 per cent of the employees were native Africans.
In 2004, he sold the company for Ksh450 billion and pocketed Ksh185 billion. He, however, revealed later that he thought he sold the company too early.
In 2006, Ibrahim founded Mo Ibrahim Foundation to support entrepreneurship and other social causes. Since then, the entrepreneur has focused on fighting graft through the Foundation.
Over the years, he has received distinguished honours including TIME's 100 Most influential people in 2008, The GSM Association’s Chairman’s Award for Lifetime Achievement (2007), the BNP Paribas Prize for Philanthropy (2008) and the Clinton Global Citizen Award (2010) among others.
According to Forbes, Ibrahim's current net worth stands at Ksh158 billion.
