Lebo Mokgabudi

Lebo Mokgabudi

Consulting Associate - Country Manager, South Africa, Catalyst Fund

Lebo Mokgabudi is the South Africa Country Manager for BFA Global’s Catalyst Fund, a global accelerator program supporting early-stage startups inclusive fintech startups with grant capital, hands-on venture building support and connections to investors. Lebo is passionate about building an inclusive digital economy in Africa through digital financial services and has expertise in product management, commercialization and Startup and Corporate partnerships. Prior to joining BFA Global, Lebo was the Business Development Director at Mastercard and previously part of the Market activation team at Fundamo. Lebo has commercialized mobile money products in 10 African markets assisting Financial Institutions, Mobile Network Operators, Processors and NGOs to accelerate financial inclusion through consumer research to understand the needs of the unbanked and underbanked, product design and development, agent network optimization and advised Regulators on financial inclusion policies.

Lebo also lived in Nairobi, Kenya, training fintech startups to scale their solutions and facilitated the Village Capital investor-readiness workshops in Kenya, Nigeria and Ghana as part of the Village Capital Advisory Board. She noticed the need for startups and corporate partnerships to aid product innovation and access to new markets, and consulted to a Pan-African Bank to co-create solutions with Start-ups and Retail partners to reduce the use of cash in the retail and agriculture value chain. Lebo holds an MBA from Gordon’s Institute of Business Sciences, a Bcomm. from the University of Witwatersrand, where she majored in Information Systems and Investment Management and completed the Oxford Fintech Programme. She has been awarded the Inspiring 50 Women in STEM by the Kingdom of the Netherlands.