Gregory Rockson is the co-founder and CEO of mPharma, a technology-driven, vendor-managed inventory and retail pharmacy operator with operations across eight countries in Africa.
As an alumni of the World Economic Forum Global Shapers Community and tech pioneer, he was a PPIA Fellow in Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School and a Rotary Scholar at the University of Copenhagen.
Founded in 2013, mPharma is headquartered in Ghana with operations in 8 other African countries, Nigeria, Zambia, Kenya, Rwanda, Ethiopia, Gabon, Uganda, and Togo.
The company also owns Haltons, Kenya’s 2nd largest pharmacy chain, and Vine Pharmaceuticals in Uganda and manages a network of 500 pharmacies and GoodHealth shops serving millions of patients each year.
His contribution to the healthcare industry earned him a Skoll Award in social entrepreneurship in 2019.
Life of “Gregory Rockson” At a Glance:
Full Name: Gregory Rockson
Date of Birth: August 15, 1990
Award: Skoll Award in social entrepreneurship.
Nationality: Ghanaian
Place of Birth: Ghana
Fields of Expertise: Entrepreneurship
Education: Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Westminster College, PPIA Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, and a Rotary Scholar at the University of Copenhagen.
Contributions: co-founder and CEO of mPharma.
Birth, Education, and Early Life of “ Gregory Rockson” :
Growing up in Ghana, Gregory Rockson always figured he’d become a doctor. At least, that’s what his parents expected.
The youngest of five, he believed that medicine was his calling. But in college, he embarked on a global and academic adventure, supported in part by a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship, that revealed a different path — one where he would make a bigger impact than a single doctor ever could.
His college adventure began in perhaps the most unlikely of places for an 18-year-old from West Africa: Fulton, Missouri, population 12,000.
His sister had encouraged him to attend college abroad and offered to pay for it. At the time, Rockson was going through a Winston Churchill phase, and the British prime minister had given a famous speech about the Iron Curtain in Fulton on the campus of Westminster College, where there’s now a museum in his honor.
Born in Ghana, Gregory moved to the US to attend university before returning home to start mPharma.
Founded in 2013, mPharma specializes in vendor-managed inventory, retail pharmacy operations, and market intelligence, serving hospitals, pharmacies, and patients.
The venture-backed startup aims to shake up the healthcare industry in Africa and has a vision of making quality and safe medicine accessible and affordable.
Gregory is also a World Economic Forum Global Shaper and a Rotary Scholar at the University of Copenhagen.
Gregory received his Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from Westminster College, was a PPIA Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University, and a Rotary Scholar at the University of Copenhagen.
Gregory also founded the Big Brother Big Sister program in Denmark and the Six Days of Peace Project in the Middle East.
As part of the core curriculum, he took an early U.S. history course and loved it. With the encouragement of his professors and his adviser, Carolyn Perry, Rockson realized he did not want to become a doctor, which would mean spending another decade in school.
Instead, he switched his major to political science and pursued every opportunity he could find.
He served as a legislative intern for the New York State Assembly, participated in a Public Policy and International Affairs fellowship at Princeton University, completed an internship at the Center for American Progress in Washington, D.C., and interned at a think tank in San Francisco.
Between those programs, he came across another opportunity, the Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship.
He applied through the Rotary Club of Fulton and was soon bound for Denmark, where he would attend the University of Copenhagen, hosted by the Rotary Club of Copenhagen International.
There, he organized an initiative called Six Days of Peace about the Six-Day War between Israel and its Arab neighbors in 1967.
The initiative, which included a meeting between Israeli and Palestinian diplomats, garnered so much attention that Rockson was selected to join the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers Community and invited to speak at the organization’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland.
He didn’t know it at the time, but he was laying the groundwork for his career.
Career
When Rockson graduated from Westminster in 2012, his mind was on fire. The U.S. — and the San Francisco Bay Area, where he’d spent time working — was in the middle of a tech revolution, and he was eager to use his newfound skills and network to solve problems, starting with health care challenges in Ghana.
Growing up, Rockson suffered from several medical conditions and spent a lot of time in the hospital.
His mother, a teacher and the family’s main breadwinner borrowed money from friends to afford his medicine.
As Rockson grew older, he learned that cost wasn’t the only challenge. The drug supply chain was broken.
Pharmacies often couldn’t keep critical medicines in stock, and there was no pricing transparency or infrastructure connecting patients, hospitals, and pharmacies.
A doctor would prescribe a medication to a patient, and the patient would visit multiple area pharmacies in hopes that the medicine was in stock and not too expensive; at one pharmacy a drug could cost twice as much as at another because there was no pricing regulation.
Founding mPharma
At 22, he co-founded mPharma to improve the drug supply chain by working with a network of pharmacies to negotiate better prices from pharmaceutical companies and make drugs available where and when patients need them.
To help fund the business and gather advice, Rockson reached out to contacts he’d met at the World Economic Forum.
They immediately saw the potential. In time, some major pharmaceutical companies did as well, along with other investors.
Today, through mPharma, more than 1,000 hospitals and pharmacies in nine African countries have helped more than 2 million people save on medications.
It was just the start. Through his work with mPharma, Rockson saw that people were using pharmacists for basic health needs.
His next idea: What if people could see a doctor or nurse within their neighborhood pharmacy, similar to clinics at CVS or Walgreens? His team launched a franchising model in 2018 called QualityRX, which invests in renovations so that pharmacies can provide complimentary health care via a nurse and virtual doctors, and patients simply pay for prescriptions.
Achievements & Awards
Rockson is as modest as they come, even as his work is heralded internationally, with honors and awards from Bloomberg, the Skoll Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and most recently, Rotary with its Alumni Global Service Award.
Gregory Rockson Net Worth
There is no clear information on Gregory Rockson’s net worth in the search results. However, according to an article on billionaires.africa, his company mPharma is expected to pay over $4 million in taxes in 2022, and the article mentions that his net worth nears $10 billion.
Gregory Rockson Age
We can deduce that he was born around 1990 based on the information available. His LinkedIn profile lists him as having over 10 years of experience in the health tech sector, and he is currently the co-founder and CEO of mPharma, a technology-driven pharmacy operator.
Gregory Rockson Wife
There is no clear information about Gregory Rockson’s wife. The available information primarily focuses on his professional background as the co-founder and CEO of mPharma, a technology-driven pharmacy operator. Therefore, details about his personal life, including his marital status, are not readily available.
Social Media
X: Gregory Rockson (@Rockson2) / X
Instagram: Gregory Rockson (@grockson12)
Linkedin: Gregory Rockson
Learn more about mPharma
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