Mafoday Sonko – Making FinTech accessible and transparent
My purpose, if anything, is just trying to create a lasting legacy and to build something that outlives myself. Whether it is to help people in the form of entrepreneurship or if it is to build an organization that can last through time. I just want to have an impact in this world, in particular, an impact in the Gambia because, like I said, I don’t plan to be in the U.S forever. The plan is to move back home […]. So, it’s just to be impactful in this world and try to do my part to make it a better place.
- Mafoday Sonko | ConstantTalks
Mafoday is an Engineer by training and an Entrepreneur at heart. He has founded multiple companies in diverse sectors including fintech, journalism, and a premium sock company.
How do setbacks impact you, and your life? Do you avoid failure at all costs, or do you see it as an opportunity to learn something new? Life is full of setbacks, challenges, or obstacles, but the key is how you react to them and move forward from it. This is no different in business or anything that involves risks. Often, the fear of failure alone serves as a monumental obstacle when taking risks and betting on ourselves because it is human nature to avoid risk. Many would often rather stay in their comfort zone rather than dip their toes into the unknown. Why is this the case? What has conditioned us to be so fearful of failure that it altogether prevents us from focusing on and leveraging what matters - our skill set, our passion, our curiosity, and our desire to make a difference, whether it is in our own lives or that of others?
Does being an entrepreneur get you better acquainted with setbacks? Ried Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn and Paypal, said it best, “An entrepreneur is someone who will jump off a cliff and assemble an airplane on the way down.” It takes guts and determination to chart a new course starting a business because there is a good chance you might fail, and you have to be okay with that. Nonetheless, with risks comes an equally high chance of succeeding and failing, two sides of the same coin. Mafoday Sonko is one of those - a determined master of taking calculated risks in financial technology (Fintech) fora – from whom aspiring entrepreneurs and non-entrepreneurs alike can learn a great deal. Where others are cautious to a fault and see taking a risk as synonymous with a high likelihood of failure, he sees taking risks as an opportunity for growth. Growth leads to discovering something that does not work and pivoting to find a way to make it better or create something even better.
At just 35 years, Mafoday, an Industrial Engineer by training, has Founded and served as CEO for four distinctively different companies and counting. What is even more worth noting is how his ability to seamlessly transition into a diverse career trajectory as a leader in fintech, for instance, started from not getting a passing grade in statics, a core course in civil engineering, which was his initial major in University. Many students are no stranger to not getting a desired passing grade in a class; however, many of us would instead stick to the comfort of what we know rather than course-correct and try something else. More often, sticking to only what we know can be detrimental to doing and achieving better elsewhere. For Mafoday, not attaining a passing grade was not defeat but a sign of “now what?” and “what else?”. That by chance self-introspection pushed him to switch to an Industrial & Systems engineering major at North Carolina State University. Perhaps, for Mafoday, braving that change was the lighter spark that continues to propel him to his position as an innovator and gamechanger to watch out for in the fintech space.
LumoXchange was the first of its kind, a one-stop-shop to compare the best rates for money transfers and cross-border remittances.
Upon graduating, Mafoday spent the first ten years of his career in supply chain operations focused on the automation of work. He led PepsiCo’s supply chain automation strategy to build automated distribution centers in the United States. Throughout his time in the supply chain industry, a nagging feeling and passion kept him awake. Living as part of the diaspora anywhere, whether in the United States, the Philippines, Senegal, etc. sending money back home is often a reoccurrence as old as time. Unfortunately, the exorbitant transfer fees and fluctuating exchange rate when sending money from one person to the next can leave a bitter taste in one’s mouth. This all too familiar experience raised questions for Mafoday and left him wondering, “what if?”. What if there could be a one-stop digital platform where one can compare all rates and fees to send money back home at the best available price? Seeing that such a platform did not exist at the time, he began to do his research, network, and learn how to bring such a platform to life. His MBA, from the Alliance Manchester Business School, also came in quite handy.
Armed with his theoretical knowledge, insight, and technical know-how, Mafoday founded LumoXchange, left his job at PepsiCo, and never looked back.
LumoXchange, coined from the Mandinka language for the weekly market “lumo,” was an online money transfer company and cross-border remittance marketplace that operated out of West Africa and the Philippines, processing remittance payments to over 15 countries. With this company, Mafoday wanted to build something new. He raised capital and scaled the platform across the United States. The online platform was the first of its kind and possibly too early for its time. While it was well-received and used across West Africa and in the Philippines, the fintech company could not raise enough capital to continue to scale. After almost four years of operation, LumoXchange closed for good but opened up a wealth of possibilities for him as he worked even harder to build the next bigger and better thing.
Mafoday presented with the Little Rock Regional Minority Entrepreneur of the Year for LumoXchange in 2017 at the 35th annual Minority Enterprise Development Week, an undertaking of the Little Rock Regional Chamber of Commerce.
Taking the lessons learned from setting up LumoXchange and leveraging his existing networks, Mafoday took the time to take stock and ask the hard question, “what’s next?”. How could he build on the momentum he had already gained and worked so hard to establish? Well, Mafoday went back to the drawing board and came back even more determined. This time, he wanted to address some of the financial gaps and challenges experienced by global non-profit organizations and donor institutions that serve communities. These institutions often deal with a myriad of red tape when managing money abroad and keeping track of funded expenditures in many countries where the banking systems are still not matured enough to go fully digital.
We all know how challenging it can be to access our bank accounts remotely, make bank transactions online; even using our ATM cards from many existing African banking institutions can be a hassle. The long wait times, having to deal with multiple staff and hierarchy, and the mounds of paperwork to complete and sign can make banking a lengthy and overall painful experience. As a business owner or a global non-profit, time is always of the essence. The slow and bureaucratic banking procedures can often be overkill, leading to delays in disbursement of funds, procurement, and project implementation activities. Undoubtedly, the list goes on and on. Fund mismanagement, waste, and fraud become heightened in this context due to a lack of streamlining and laser-focused oversight in the financial footprint of many global non-profits. To address this Mafoday, and his co-founder, Sesie Bonsi, aim to facilitate the process for global non-profits. Using a digital banking and spend management platform, they provide a visual breakdown of how donor money is being spent, by who, and for what.
“AidBanc empowers NGOs with digital banking and spend management tools to seamlessly disburse aid in an increasingly cashless world. AidBanc provides a digital bank account for global non-profits from which they can seamlessly manage their share of $150+ billion in international aid across multiple countries. With AidBanc, NGOs can make payments locally in each country in real-time to bank accounts, mobile wallets and cash from a single account. Specially designed for NGOs managing multiple projects in different countries, AidBanc has an integrated expense management, budgeting, payroll, payables solution as well as an innovative local sub-account access for contracted local NGOs to manage allocated funds. AidBanc provides NGOs with ultimate control of funds centrally with rich reporting tools and real-time visibility of all global expenditures.”
Every venture Mafoday sets out to create is people and community-centered at its core.
“What separates AidBanc from other neobanks in the market is one major component: it contributes a social good. By providing a streamlined banking process, non-profits can better focus their energy on the service they provide to global communities. Meanwhile, donors can easily track how aid dollars are spent down to the penny. By knowing exactly where the money is going, this provides donors with an incentive to continue, or even increase, their support of the respective organization.”
Mafoday is also a founding partner for The Chronicle Gambia, a digital media house reporting on the stories and lives of everyday Gambians, particularly those living in rural communities, whose voices are often overshadowed by news reporting mainstream politics.
In addition to The Chronicle Gambia, Mafoday, alongside his wife, Sainabou, and Serign Jobe, are the founders of the unisex brand Socks of Africa, which allows people to wear and carry a piece of African history, architecture, and cultural artifacts on the *souls* of their feet. As the famous African proverb goes, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” There is undoubtedly no better way to stay grounded and go far than with a pair of bold and distinctive Socks of Africa guiding you through every step of your journey.
Through his journey and entrepreneurial career, Mafoday’s hard work and persistence show us time and time again that success is not only about winning, though that is always sweet. Still, it is more about how we use each setback as an opportunity to learn, reevaluate, come back stronger, and more determined to achieve even more than we dared to dream. That is truly the best way to grow and a reminder that our paths only limit are the invisible boundaries and boxes that we create for ourselves. He inspires us to push ourselves even more. To take measured risks and use that fear of failure as the wind in our sails, in surpassing the goals we set for ourselves, and build a legacy, larger than life, that continues to make a difference in the lives of others, even when we are no longer here to fan its flames.
Mafoday’s answers to the Djellibah Questions:
1. What is your dream for Africa?
My dream is to see Africa fully self-sufficient and independent from foreign aid and influence from world superpowers. An Africa where we can generate our own economic prosperity via intra-African trade and where we are able to maximize our natural resources equitability on the world stage as a regional trading superpower. An Africa where the young can dream and achieve those dreams on the continent. That is my dream for Africa.
2. If you did not have to work a day in your life, what would you do, where would you go, and what would you create?
I would have a large farm in the countryside in Gambia where I can grow what I eat and raise livestock. It would also be cool to have a guest house with a farm-to-table restaurant because anyone who knows me knows that I love to cook, so I would probably experiment with that.
3. What do you want to say to Young African creators who do not know where to start?
My favorite resource is Google. You can learn anything you want from the internet, so be inquisitive and do your research. There are a lot of resources you can get for free, so start there and, above all, challenge yourself so that you don’t look back at your life saying, “what if.”
