When, in March this year, Mitchell Elegbe was awarded the 2023 West African Entrepreneur of the Year (Masters Category) by professional services firm, Ernst and Young (EY), he did not take the glory all to himself.
“A founder is only as effective as the team around him or her, and so this award reflects the hard work and dedication of the team at Interswitch who have dedicated themselves to creating solutions that enable individuals and communities to prosper across Africa,” Elegbe said.
“This recognition will serve to further entrench our commitment to never stop pushing the boundaries of innovation in a bid to create an Africa where payments are a seamless part of everyday life,” he said.
In July, when he was listed among the top Fintech CEOs for 2023 by The Financial Technology Report, a global media authority in the fintech industry, alongside other industry titans like PayPal CEO Dan Schulman, Visa CEO Ryan McInerney, and Mastercard CEO Michael Miebach, he toed the same path, saying the recognition was “a testament to the dedication and unwavering commitment of the entire Interswitch team in driving transformative solutions that empower individuals, communities and businesses across Africa and beyond”.
That is the mark of a leader who appreciates team work. Indeed, one entry on him describes him as “a consummate people-centric leader who believes in motivating his colleagues at Interswitch to have confidence in their value as individuals; in the value of the work they do; and in their value as team members, whilst being relentless in his pursuit of sustainable value for stakeholders”. That is a leader who understands that it takes every single nut and bolt in the machine working effectively, in harmony, for the wheels to turn.
And the wheels of Interswitch Group have been turning effectively and efficiently over the past two decades under his visionary and inspirational leadership as Group Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer.
When he set out to found Interswitch after an impactful time as Field Engineer at Schlumberger Wireline and Testing and Group Head for Business Development at Telnet, an ICT engineering and consulting company, Elegbe envisioned a prosperous Africa driven by a seamless exchange of value and commerce.
Today, the integrated payment and transaction company he founded in December 2002 – with support from two young, like-minded visionaries, Akeem Lawal, who now serves as Interswitch’s MD for Payment Processing and Switching, and Charles Ifedi, who has gone on to become co-founder of eBanqo – has continued to innovate, delivering cutting-edge solutions, enabling seamless digital payments, and driving financial inclusion across Africa. In the process, the Group has continued to play a critical role in accelerating Africa’s economic growth and pushing the frontiers in digital payments.
Over time Interswitch, which was recognized by Deloitte in 2014 as “Africa’s fastest growing technology business”, has lived up to its bidding and has progressively evolved to incorporate consumer financial services with the successive launches of Quickteller, a retail payments ecosystem linking merchants and billers with consumers, and Verve, a homegrown, EMV-certified payments card scheme, the first-ever chip card accepted across all payment channels in Nigeria. The business has also expanded into the health sector with the acquisition of eClat, a health tech company; transportation with Quickteller Transport; oil and gas with Quickteller Energy; and real estate with Quickteller Homes.
In terms of spatial spread, Interswitch has extended its tentacles to other parts of Africa, including Uganda, Kenya, The Gambia, and Sierra Leone, while its Verve Global card grants customers transaction access in over 185 countries across the globe.
Accolades have rolled in along the way, including Harvard Business School Association (Nigeria) Leadership Award in the General Management Category; International Finance Corporation’s Inclusive Business Leader Award; CNBC/Forbes All African Business Leader (AABLA) Awards for West Africa 2012; African Leadership Network (ALN) 2013 Africa Awards for Entrepreneurship (AAE); Financial Technology (Fintech) Africa Awards, Payments and Transfer Category 2016; The African Banker Awards African Banker Icon 2019, among others.
Elegbe emerged the Ernst and Young (EY) Entrepreneur of the Year (Emerging Entrepreneur Category) in 2012, 11 years before he was awarded the West African Entrepreneur of the Year (Masters Category). In June this year, at a colourful event in Monte Carlo, Monaco, he was inducted into the EY World Entrepreneur of the Year (WEOY) Hall of Fame, an elite corps of men and women who have been recognised for their exceptional entrepreneurial achievements. He was the only black and African inductee in the midst of 48 other entrepreneurs from 45 countries.
But the journey was not always rosy for the Electrical/Electronic Engineering graduate of the University of Benin who had to sell audiotapes and shirts as a student to make ends meet. When “the inconveniences of the payments industry at the time” hit home following an experience he had at an ATM in Scotland in 1998 while working as a Wireline Engineer at Schlumberger, it left a mark in his mind.
But while “the inconveniences of the payments industry” existed in Scotland, the situation was far worse back in Nigeria. With bank branches few and far between and the banking public having to go physically into a bank to withdraw funds, queues were long and getting cash could take several hours. He noted the challenges. He had learnt early in life that identifying problems and devising their solutions was a sure route to success.
“From a rather young age, I had resolved to make the best of every situation I face, knowing that crises will always throw up latent opportunities for the most discerning,” he once said.
But the time did not seem ripe. Later at Telnet, Elegbe sold the idea of a transaction switch to his boss and got his approval to execute it. In the process, the idea of creating electronic payment infrastructure in Nigeria crytallised. He resolved to solve the existing challenges with the payment system utilizing the switching software to ensure “people could access cash in the required quantity and when they required it”. He sounded out the idea, but most players he sold it to were not interested in the software for switching. Eventually, backed by the consulting firm Accenture, with the buy-in of a few banks that raised a portion of the start-up capital, he and his team established Interswitch which, through a series of strategic partnerships with organisations such as Visa, Mastercard, AMEX and Discover Global Network, has today expanded its influence and penetrated sectors hitherto thought inaccessible.
Just recently, Interswitch joined the Africa Tech for Trade Alliance (AT4T), a public-private partnership platform designed to promote the expansion of e-commerce and digital trade in Africa, at the 2023 Africa Tech Summit.
Thus, like the parabolic mustard seed, Elegbe’s vision of 21 years ago, in a small corner of Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial capital, has blossomed into a globally recognised business, and the visioner into a globally recognised entrepreneur.
But Elegbe is not resting on his oars. In the years ahead, he hopes to continue to spearhead initiatives that address pressing global challenges, with his eyes trained on sustainable, long-term value for all stakeholders, leading to widespread economic, social, and environmental growth.
An alumnus of the IESE/Wharton/CEIBS Global CEO Program and an Archbishop Desmond Tutu Fellow of the African Leadership Institute, Elegbe is reputed as a High Impact Entrepreneurship Enabler and is a Board Member at Endeavor, a globally renowned entrepreneurial development initiative, where he demonstrates his passion for actively mentoring young entrepreneurs. The $10 million investment fund for African start-ups in the payments sector launched by Interswitch in 2015, the SPAK National Science Competition the Group unveiled in February 2018 to promote and reward excellence in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) in Nigeria, as well as Qtrybe, a community of 50 exceptional students from Nigerian tertiary institutions launched by Quickteller in 2020 to serve as Quickteller and Interswitch ambassadors on their campuses all fall within the scope of mentoring young entrepreneurs.
Elegbe hopes to continue to inspire a new generation of business leaders to create a better world through innovation and responsible practices. It is no wonder then that his interests include pushing the frontiers of electronic payments in Africa, reading, dancing, and mentoring young entrepreneurs.
