Page 29 - 2018 Powerlist

3 The Top 10

Ismail Ahmed

Founder/CEO,
WorldRemit

smail founded London’s hottest fin-tech start-up, at London Business School to receive a formal business
WorldRemit, to take the pain and cost out of sending education. He had already been burnt when a previous
Imoney ‘back home’ to family and friends. attempt at entrepreneurship failed.
Just seven years after its launch, his London-based Ismail says: “Failing in that business convinced me that
company is a leading player in the increasingly competitive I needed to go to LBS to improve my skills. I could read
world of currency exchange – a market which according to financial statements but I needed to understand branding,
Forbes, is worth $550 billion (£413 billion) . marketing and leadership.”
The WorldRemit App saw revenue rise from £15 million Ismail holds an MSc and PhD from the University of
in 2014 to £27 million in 2015. In December 2016, 588,000 London and an Executive MBA from London Business School.
transactions were completed on the platform and WorldRemit He says the idea of an online money transfer service
now employs 328 people worldwide, 260 of whom work in its was partly influenced by his own frustrating experience
London office. of sending money to relatives in Somaliland using offline,
Investors include Accel Partners, an early backer of global agent-based services.
tech startups including Facebook, Spotify and Dropbox. WorldRemit’s well-established footprint in key markets
Somaliland-born Ismail set up the company in 2010 with such as Africa and Asia also got VCs interested. The start-up,
the £200,000 compensation he was awarded from his time founded in 2010, has signed deals with major mobile wallet
working at the UN Development Programme, who were providers such as M-Pesa in Kenya, MTN in Uganda, Ecocash
judged to have unfairly treated him after he blew the whistle in Zimbabwe and Tigo in Tanzania.
on alleged corruption. Ismail worked with the UN and businesses across Africa on
Inspired by mobile communications entrepreneur, Dr money laundering compliance creating WorldRemit, thus has
Mo Ibrahim, Ismail enrolled on the executive MBA course plenty of experience working on the continent.

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