The Forbes under 30 Entrepreneur, Ham Serunjogi is the Co-founder & CEO of Chipper Cash. As CEO, Ham heads the Executive Leadership Team and is responsible for leading the company's overall direction and strategy.
Serunjogi was born and raised in Uganda. He is a natural-born athlete who was already swimming competitively by the age of 6. Keen to keep his education as broad as possible, his parents encouraged him to balance his athletics with his academic studies, something he clearly had no problem doing. In 2010, he won a place at the prestigious Aga Khan Academy in Mombasa, Kenya.
That same year, he was awarded the title of Athlete of the Year after competing in the Youth Olympics in Singapore. It was at Aga Khan Academy that he began to develop his leadership skills - he even served as the president of the AKA Student Representative Council.
After graduating from Grinnell College in 2016 with a Bachelors Degree in Economics, Ham began his career at Meta (formerly Facebook) where he worked in their Dublin, Ireland office responsible for building partner relationships with some of Facebook’s biggest UK advertisers.
After 2 years at Facebook, Serunjogi decided the time was ripe to follow his own path. He quit the business, joined forces with fellow Grinnell graduate Maijid Moujaled and founded Chipper Cash, a venture-capital-backed Fin-Tech company that develops software that provides solutions for merchants to process online and in-store payments, in addition to developing software that enables instant, zero-fee, cross-border money transfers.
Since Chipper Cash establishment almost six years ago, the startup has secured $300 million in venture capital funding at a $2.2-billion valuation. Additionally, it has established an operational presence in the UK, enabling it to facilitate money transfers from the country to African markets.
Notably, Silicon Valley Capital, the venture capital arm of the now-collapsed Silicon Valley Bank, played a significant role in the company’s fundraising efforts, leading multiple funding rounds. As a result, it presently holds a stake of approximately two percent in the San Francisco-based company.
Today Ham also serves on the Board of Trustees of his alma mater Grinnell College, where he is one of four Trustees that sit on the Investment Committee which is charged with the responsibility of overseeing, managing, and allocating of the college’s approximately $3.5B endowment.
At a personal level, Ham swam competitively for many years and competed in the 2010 Youth Olympic Games in Singapore, representing Uganda. Prior to attaining his degree in Economics from Grinnell college, Ham attended the Aga Khan Academy in Mombasa serving as President of its Student Council.
Ham is based out of Chipper's global headquarters in San Francisco, California.
Appointment as Member of U.S. President's Advisory Council
In September 2023, President, Joe Biden, appointed the co-founder and CEO of African fintech giant, Chipper Cash, Ham Serunjogi, as a member of the President’s Advisory Council on African Diaspora Engagement in the United States.
According to a statement released by the White House on Tuesday, Serunjogi is among the 12 inaugural members of the Council.
The establishment of the Council was a significant commitment announced by Vice President Harris on behalf of the Biden-Harris Administration during the 2022 U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, aimed at enhancing dialogue between United States officials and the African Diaspora.
According to the statement, the African Diaspora in the United States, a rich and diverse community of African Americans and African immigrants, is foundational to the country’s 21st-century partnership with Africa.
