A woman leans on a railing while using her mobile phone.

Hubtel

Hubtel is making it simpler for businesses in Ghana to process payments and connect with their customers.

An explosion of mobile financial services in Africa has left businesses struggling to manage inventory and payments across a crowded landscape of payment providers. E-commerce platform Hubtel, launched in 2005, offers businesses tools that make it easier for banks, telecommunications companies, utility companies, and retailers to process sales and connect with their customers. “We’re digitizing storefronts across Africa by providing a single service to help businesses sell in-store, online, and on mobile,” says CEO Alex Bram.

Hubtel recently opened new offices in Nairobi in preparation to begin operating in Kenya. “In the short term, we want to keep growing and deepening our product depth,” Bram says. “In the long term, we want to run similar profitable operations in key African cities.” The company recently donated laptops, projectors, internet routers, and other equipment to several area schools as part of its Pledge 1% commitment to give 1 percent of profit, employee time, and product to support communities in need. “The Seed Transformation Program got us to see significant flaws in our business models,” Bram says. “Through the program we remodeled operations and our strategy. It also became obvious that the business needed a pivot to assure full growth.”

--Alex Bram, Cofounder and CEO

Leadership

Alex Bram is the cofounder and CEO of Hubtel, an e-commerce platform making it simpler for businesses in Ghana to process payments and connect with their customers. Prior to cofounding the company in 2005, he earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana. He also holds a certificate from the Stanford LEAD Program in corporate innovation at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Bram was named Fintech CEO of the Year at the 2019 Ghana Information Technology and Telecom Awards.

Bram participated in the Seed Transformation Program in West Africa in 2015.