Kamal Quadir

Kamal Quadir (born 1971) is a Bangladeshi-American entrepreneur and artist, best known as the Founder & CEO of bKash Limited, Bangladesh's largest mobile financial services platform. He co-founded bKash in 2011, which became Bangladesh's first unicorn startup in 2021 with a valuation exceeding $2 billion.

Earlier, Quadir founded CellBazaar (later rebranded as CellBazar), an electronic marketplace that reached 4 million users before being acquired by Norwegian telecommunications operator Telenor in 2010. CellBazaar introduced e-commerce to Bangladesh by enabling users to buy and sell goods via mobile phones.

Quadir holds a Bachelor of Arts from Oberlin College and an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management (Class of 2005). After graduating from MIT Sloan, he traveled through Africa and South Asia, where he had epiphanies about using mobile technology for financial inclusion — leading to the creation of bKash.

Under Quadir's leadership, bKash has grown to process over 13 million digital transactions per day, serving millions of unbanked and underbanked people across Bangladesh. The company built a network of 330,000 agents who serve as "human ATMs," converting physical cash to digital money and vice versa. bKash has attracted investments from IFC (World Bank Group), Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Ant Financial (Alipay), and SoftBank Vision Fund II.

Quadir is the younger brother of Iqbal Quadir, founder of Grameenphone and director emeritus of the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT. He was recognized as Entrepreneur of the Year at the C-Suite Awards 2023.