Mojola Ola, EMBA ’22, is redefining energy access across Africa—and transforming the lives of the people in the country he calls home. As CEO of Grid Crux, Mojola and his team are deploying sustainable energy to unserved and underserved communities with a keen focus on carbon reduction, clean energy generation, and improved access. And he came up with the concept at MIT Sloan—in our Sustainability Initiative ecosystem.
In 2010, Mojola moved back to his native Nigeria from the United Kingdom, where he worked for an oil and gas company. He wanted to make a career in energy, but something was missing for him. Back home, he had an epiphany.
“I realized that so much was not working in the energy sector in Nigeria,” he recalls. “I asked myself ‘How can I do more? How can I make Africa better?’ I wanted to be part of that story.”
Mojola Ola and the Grid Crux team on site.
In 2015, Mojola joined the sales and marketing team at sustainability focused Schneider Electric in Lagos. He was good at bringing in new business and making money for the company, but after seven years, he had a feeling he could use his expertise to do something bigger—something transformational for the people of his homeland. That’s when he turned to MIT.
“I chose to get an Executive MBA to make more impact; I chose MIT Sloan because they’re all about impact. I’m one-thousand percent glad I made that decision.”
From Roberto Rigobon’s teachings about ethics and how to navigate stakeholders to get outcomes with integrity to En-ROADS and John Sterman’s insights on systems, sustainability, and real costs and effects, MIT changed Mojola’s approach to problem-solving forever—and helped him visualize an exciting new path forward.
“My MIT experience was a discovery journey on how to expand my scope and impact,” he says. “Almost everything about it was transformational. For the rest of my life, I will apply the lessons I learned there, and not just in business—in my personal life as well.”
The Power of an Idea
Africa has the richest solar reserves in the world, yet has installed only 5 gigawatts of solar—less than 1% of total global solar. Mojola’s big idea was to capture the vast potential, democratize energy access, and eradicate energy poverty—multi-solving for future-forward energy equity in Nigeria. During Idea Week 2021, he conceptualized the venture with input from members of his EMBA cohort.
“With 15 years experience in the energy sector, I knew this problem could be solved,” he says. “We just needed quality, innovative solutions to unlock the potential of the region, improve my country, and make it better for its people.”
Mojola graduated in 2022 with a Sustainability Certificate. He launched Grid Crux the same year.
You can’t take people out of poverty without power. We want to give people who once had no power, the economic power to expand a small business or start one, literally empowering them out of poverty.
Powering Innovation
Mojola founded Grid Crux with the core belief that access to energy is a human right. Working with private and public utilities and commercial customers, his firm invests in deployment of clean energy generation and distribution infrastructure, while reducing utility costs and emissions. But in everything they do, his team strives to fuel Africa-first solutions, drawing on local expertise, investing directly in sustainable jobs, communities, and education. For example, this past year, Grid Crux raised funds to install state-of-the-art inverters in orphanages across Nigeria, providing a reliable source of electricity.
On a much larger scale, Mojola is particularly proud of Grid Crux’s recent collaboration with the Kwara State Government and IHS Nigeria to launch the Ilorin Towers Innovation Hub.
On site with the Grid Crux team.
IHS is one of the largest independent owners, operators, and developers of shared communications infrastructure in the world by tower count. The new technology and innovation hub, situated on 13,000 sqm, with seating capacity for over 1,000, is the largest technology space of its kind in West Africa. The facility serves as an ecosystem where creative talent can drive technological innovations, entrepreneurship, and economic growth across Kwara State and Nigeria. With the help of Grid Crux, the new Hub is completely off the grid, powering itself with 100% clean, reliable solar energy.
“My vision is that hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs will be born out of the hub, resulting in businesses created and billions invested in our region,” Mojola says. “This solution not only creates infrastructure, but a long-term solution for Nigeria and West Africa that will outlive us into the future.”
Empowering People
For Grid Crux, Mojola’s vision is to keep growing as rapidly as possible. He hopes to deploy 120 minigrids between now and the end of 2027, but his ultimate goal is to help wipe out energy poverty, unlocking the economic potential of his home country and its people, with access to energy as a major catalyst.
“It’s hard to believe that there are still areas with no grid, even in 2025,” he says. “We want to move into creating mini-grids completely off-grid or interconnected to grossly underserved areas because you can’t take people out of poverty without power. We want to give people who once had no power, the economic power to expand a small business or start one, literally empowering them out of poverty.”
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