Melvyn Lubega is an experienced technology entrepreneur and investor who has built businesses that serve customers on every continent, except Antarctica. Most notably he built and scaled Go1, a leading technology platform used by organisations and governments in over 30 countries, which became the first South African unicorn (valued at +$2 billion) attracting over $400 million in investment from SoftBank, Salesforce Ventures and M12 (Microsoft Ventures) among other tier-1 international investors. He is a Partner at Breega, one of the fastest growing early stage venture capital investors in Europe and Africa, with over EUR500 million in assets under management. He is also a referenced thought leader and invited speaker both abroad and locally on venture capital, digital transformation, disruptive innovation, the future of the workforce as well as business strategy. He has been recognized by Forbes and was the first-ever African recipient of The Lindas in 2021, Endeavor Global’s most prestigious accolade. The award is given by a community of 2,300 leaders from many of the fastest-growing companies in the world to the person to embodies the spirit of “dreaming big, scaling up, and paying it forward”.

An actuary by training, he holds an undergraduate degree from the University of Cape Town and postgraduate degrees from the University of Oxford where he was a Rhodes Scholar. At Oxford, Melvyn completed a double masters (MPP and MSc), receiving a distinction for his research into disruptive technologies in emerging markets.

Melvyn has advised leading enterprises and governments in over 10 countries across the Middle East and Africa when he worked with the international firm Boston Consulting Group, joining as one of their first consultants in the region in 2011. Melvyn then served as the Principal Investment Advisor on technology investments for a large-listed investment firm in a global asset base.

Ever close to the latest global trends and given his rich global network, he has continued to adviseheads of state and cabinet ministers across Africa and Europe on positioning their countries to attract investment and to take advantage of the global transition to both digital and green economies. In the private sector, he serves as an Independent Non-Executive Director of two JSE-listed companies. Melvyn is also on the Council (Board of Governors) at St John’s College, where he is Deputy Chairperson of the St John’s College Foundation Board and its Investment Committee as well as Chairperson of the IT Committee leading the school’s digital transformation.