Akshay Grover, Founder & CEO, AMADI
Akshay Grover is a former investment banker and private equity investor turned business leader focused on Africa.
Akshay recently turned entrepreneur and has set up AMADI (the word has its origin in the Igbo tribe in Nigeria and means to “unleash or set free” for growth and expansion.) AMADI will focus on venture investing and special situations in Africa.
Prior to AMADI, Akshay was Group CEO at Cellulant, a pan African Fintech payments business backed by TPG. Under his leadership, Cellulant has built the continent’s most extensive payment platform with integrations into 250+ banks and 60 MNOs - and growing each day. The business operates in 19 countries in Africa and processes cUSD12 billion payments and cross border remittances annually. Cellulant serves large multiple global and regional customers including Emirates Airlines, Ethiopian Airlines, Glovo, Bolt and Multichoice (Naspers group SA).
Over the last three years, he transformed the business into a merchant-focused payments business championing the productization of its services and a complete revamp of its technology stack, all of which have led to a quantum leap in service levels for customers. During this time, Cellulant has significantly expanded its footprint from 10 countries to 19+ in Africa, resulting in a 100% YoY growth in revenue and critical business KPIs.
Before Cellulant, Akshay held multiple C-level positions at iSON, a diversified group with a presence in 30+ countries and 25,000+ employees in the MEA and Asia Pacific region. iSON was headquartered in Dubai, UAE. During his stint at iSON in UAE, he led the restructuring of its technology business, enabled multiple rounds of private equity capital raise for the BPO business and drove the group's expansion into the Middle East and North and South Africa regions via acquisitions. ISON was backed by Gulf Capital and Africinvest.
Before iSON, Akshay spent 10+ years in investment banking at Ernst & Young and leading investments at the USD4bn+ TMT investment arm of Dubai Holding. During this tenure, he closed transactions of over USD 5bn.
He is the President of TiE Africa, an organisation that promotes and supports entrepreneurship globally, is an active member of the Nairobi Chapter of YPO and an active angel investor.
Akshay currently lives in Nairobi. He grew up in different cities across India, has traveled and worked across 80 countries and is deeply passionate about being able to contribute to the growth of entrepreneurship in Africa. In his free time, Akshay loves reading, playing tennis, traveling and meeting people.