Thomas Louis LL.B, LL.M.

Practice Areas

Thomas Louis is the Founding Partner of Thomas Louis Advocates. He is an Advocate of the High Court of Kenya with over eighteen years of legal leadership across some of East Africa’s most regulated and consequential institutions — spanning private practice at Dentons Hamilton Harrison & Mathews and senior in-house leadership at Safaricom PLC, M-PESA Africa and Visa CEMEA Holdings Limited.

At Dentons Hamilton Harrison & Mathews, Thomas rose to Associate Advocate in the Corporate Commercial and M&A Department, advising on mergers and acquisitions, private equity, project finance, banking, real estate and public-private partnerships. He negotiated complex infrastructure agreements for the National Treasury, jointly with PwC and the World Bank, on the development of 10,000 kilometres of Kenyan roads under a PPP annuity framework — a multi-billion dollar flagship project of the Kenyan government.

As Group Legal Counsel, Financial Services at Safaricom PLC and M-PESA Africa, Thomas led the legal deal structuring of Fuliza M-PESA — the world’s first mobile-based overdraft product — including a software development agreement valued at US$30 million and procurement of Central Bank of Kenya approvals. Fuliza now disburses over US$16 million in micro-credit daily. He also advised Safaricom’s M-PESA Global expansion, resulting in 12% revenue growth in FY 2019/20, and led the regulatory and licensing work that produced Safaricom Ethiopia’s mobile money licence.

As Director and Head of Legal at Visa CEMEA Holdings Limited, Thomas led legal and regulatory coverage across fifteen Sub-Saharan markets and directed the digitisation of payments across over 20,000 Government of Kenya services. He advised on complex new market entry requirements and licensing in Ethiopia, Mauritius and Rwanda.

Thomas founded TLA to combine the agility of a focused practice with the discipline, credibility and quality of a multinational general counsel function — built specifically for the businesses, investors and institutions shaping Africa’s innovation economy.

Education

Recognition

Talk to Our Team →