Melvyn Lubega

Founder and Chairman, Baobab Group

Melvyn Lubega is an experienced technology entrepreneur and investor who has built businesses that serve customers around the world. He founded the Baobab Group in 2015, which now employs over 1,000 people. As an entrepreneur, most notably Lubega built and scaled Go1, a leading technology platform used by 17,000 organizations and governments in over 60 countries. Go1 became the first South African unicorn (valued at +$2 billion) attracting over $450 million in investment from Salesforce Ventures and M12 (Microsoft Ventures) among other tier-one international investors. Built through his passion for developing people, every 1.2 seconds someone somewhere in the world starts a course on Go1. Prior to Go1, Lubega built, exited and invested in leading fintech companies across Africa. He is a Partner at Breega, one of the fastest-growing early stage venture capital investors in EMEA, with over $600 million in assets under management, investing in disruptive technologies that solve significant economic and social challenges. Lubega is also a referenced thought leader and invited speaker, both abroad and locally, on digital transformation, the future of work, venture capital, disruptive innovation, corporate governance and business strategy. He has been recognized by Forbes and was the first African recipient of The Lindas in 2021, Endeavor Global’s most prestigious accolade. The award is given by a community of 2,300 leaders from many of the fastest-growing companies in the world to the person who embodies the spirit of “dreaming big, scaling up and paying it forward”. In 2023, given his success in building businesses from Africa that scale globally, Lubega was recognized as a leading business person at the 11th All Africa Business Leadership Awards. He is an actuary by training and a Rhodes Scholar. He completed his postgraduate studies at the University of Oxford, receiving a distinction for his research into disruptive technologies in emerging markets.

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