James Mwangi

Banking. Mwangi turned Equity, a near-insolvent Kenyan building society, into a bank for small savers and traders, then took the same low-cost model into Uganda, South Sudan, Rwanda, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it bought a majority of a local bank. Expanding meant separate licences, agent networks and mobile banking adapted to each country, rather than running branches from Nairobi.