A chip off the old block

The ugandan-born CEO of fintech unicorn, Chipper Cash, Ham Serunjogi, grew up watching his parents solve problems. Today, overcoming challenges is a daily routine and forms a culture of thought inherited from his upbringing.

Ham Serunjogi and Maijid Moujaled CEO and President (respectively), Chipper Cash

The ugandan-born CEO of fintech unicorn, Chipper Cash, Ham Serunjogi, grew up watching his parents solve problems. Today, overcoming challenges is a daily routine and forms a culture of thought inherited from his upbringing.

“As an African, you’re in problem-solving mode all the time. For me, it was [multiplied] by ten, my parents were both self-employed, solo entrepreneurs, and [they had] a continuous problem-solving mindset,” recalls Serunjogi, speaking with FORBES AFRICA from San Francisco, California.

Serunjogi fondly recalls the early memories that shaped his own entrepreneurial stature.

“We grew up on a farm so initially [my parents] were trying to figure out how to get the farm going. Eventually, they had a dairy business and they had to figure out how to get that going. My dad is a computer scientist by training and he had an IT firm as well and he had to figure out how to get that going and how to manage a small team...it left such a strong mark on me. I always wanted to do something of my own when I grew up.”

After completing high school in Kenya, Serunjogi made his way to the US to study at Grinnell College, a private liberal arts institution in Iowa State. It was here that he would meet his long-time friend and co-founder, Maijid Moujaled, from Ghana. Moujaled who is now President of Chipper Cash was, like Serunjogi’s father, a computer scientist and had started a popular coding club at Grinnell. The two struck it off immediately noticing that they both saw the world from a similar vantage point.