Nick Hughes 2021 Speaker

Managing Director

4RDigital

Biography

Nick Hughes initiated M-PESA, the mobile money platform that has revolutionised financial access in Africa, leading the team that took M-PESA from concept to scale. In 2012, Nick co-founded M-KOPA, pioneering access to clean energy and financed assets. M-KOPA has connected over 1,000,000 customers to distributed solar energy, low power TVs and smartphones. Nick is a founding Board member of bKash, a mobile payments business in Bangladesh with +50 million subscribers. Most recently, he co-founded 4R Digital Ltd, a B2B services company to work with clients and partners to incubate new digital business models, products and services.

Nick is an Executive Fellow at London Business School, working with the Wheeler Institute for Business & Development on digital innovation. Nick was awarded an OBE in 2017 for services to ‘Innovation in Africa’ (Queens Birthday Honours List). Also, a winner of the Economist Innovation Award in 2010 for his work on M-PESA. Nick holds an MBA and a PhD in Applied Science.