Susie Lonie was trying to be inconspicuous, and wasn’t succeeding. Tall, blonde, and sounding very Scottish, there was no way to blend in at the downtown Nairobi market with a backpack full of cellphones. She headed towards the next micro-loan repayment meeting on her rounds. After that, talking to the sales team, pilot M-PESA outlets nearby and MicroSave, an advisory group.

She arrived in Kenya for a `little business trip’ in March 2005. Just to sort out a little project in three months. Nothing like her usual job of running the Vodafone mobile commerce platforms in the UK. Lonie's Kenyan stint started in 2004 when Nick Hughes asked her to bounce a few ideas around. Hughes was head of corporate social responsibility at Vodafone UK. The two of them put together a bid to improve efficiency in micro-finance institutions in East Africa. Next thing, they'd been awarded a million pounds by the UK Department of International Development.