Mohamed ‘Mo’ Ibrahim

Posted on Friday, September 11, 2009 at 4:09am.

Mo Ibrahim is a fixture in the early international mobile telecommunications industry and is the founder of one of Africa’s most successful mobile telecom companies, Celtel International (Zain).

Founded in 1998, Celtel International was one of the first pan African providers to bring the benefits of mobile communications to millions of people across the African continent.  The company operates in 15 African countries, covering more than a third of the continent’s population, and has invested more than US$1 Billion in Africa.  Mr. Ibrahim, affectionately known to most that know him as Mo, joined the billionaire ranks when he sold Celtel in 2005 to MTC Kuwait for $3.4 billion.

In October 2006, Dr. Ibrahim took on the all too familiar issue of African Governance and launched the Mo Ibrahim Foundation to support good governance and great leadership in Africa.  In 2007, Dr. Ibrahim stepped down as Chairman of Celtel International(Zain) to concentrate on this initiative.

Sudanese by birth, Dr. Ibrahim has received a number of awards which recognize his work as an academic, businessman and philanthropist. Among them are the GSM Association Chairman’s Award (2007), the telecommunication industry’s highest accolade, and the BNP Paribas Prize for Philanthropy (2008). In 2008, Dr. Ibrahim was listed by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.