About Mahmood

Mahmood enjoys a reputation as a canny businessman with a humble and gentle demeanour, but underneath all that is a very gifted mind with bags of emotional intelligence.

This multiple winner of the Forbes ‘Best of Africa’ award is driven by a vision to build an African IT company that rivals the very best in the world, and a mission to build an African multi-business conglomerate mainly in the IT industry. This has led to the development of technology enabled end-to-end solutions for several African Governments enabling them to achieve cost effective services for their citizens.

Mahmood is the true definition of a serial entrepreneur, having founded several significant businesses besides OIS. He was one of the early pioneers of GSM in Northern Nigeria before branching out into other substantial areas of interests in Mining, Real Estate, Construction, Agriculture, Bottling Water, E-education, E-healthcare, Carbon and Fintech.

His company OIS is a specialist visa application agency that provides online passport and visa processing, administrative and technical support services for Governments. OIS recently secured a contract to supply Personal Identification and Security services across all the Caribbean Islands.

OIS has also built a world class data centre for the Nigerian Immigration Service and are developing a first of its kind border protection application that will include biometric data capture for all travellers with visas entering Nigeria.

OIS is also the official partner to a number of Embassies and High Commissions globally, offering visa and passport application service. A huge and abiding passion of Mahmood’s is giving back to society, he believes strongly in philanthropy and corporate social responsibility. To this end he encourages others to embed these in both their personal and corporate activities.

Mahmood also has a huge passion for education, which is why he founded a scholarship programme for hundreds of students who are unable to afford good quality education both locally and internationally. His success has enabled him to truly be a blessing to many individuals through regular donations and sponsorships of many events internationally.