Mo Ibrahim launched the first cellular network in the UK, then built Celtel across Africa.
A Sudanese-born engineer, Mo Ibrahim founded Celtel when banks would not back African telecoms, and later set up a foundation focused on leadership and governance.
Mo Ibrahim was born in Sudan in 1946 to a family of Nubian descent, and grew up partly in Alexandria, Egypt. He earned an electrical engineering degree at Alexandria University, started work at Sudan Telecom in 1974, then moved to England for a master’s at Bradford and a PhD in mobile communications at Birmingham.
From British Telecom to Africa
He worked at British Telecom and was technical director of Cellnet, where he launched the first cellular network in the United Kingdom. In 1989 he founded MSI, a consultancy and software company that was bought by Marconi in 2000. In 1998 MSI spun off MSI-Cellular Investments, later renamed Celtel, as a mobile operator for Africa.
Celtel was financed largely by equity rather than bank loans, because international banks were reluctant to invest in Africa. When it was sold in 2005 to the Kuwait-based Mobile Telecommunications Company (now Zain), it had more than 24 million subscribers in 14 African countries and 4,000 employees, 98 percent of them African.
A foundation for leadership
He set up the Mo Ibrahim Foundation in 2006, created the Ibrahim Index of African Governance, and in 2007 the Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership. He joined the Giving Pledge, committing to give at least half his wealth to charity.
