Dr. Mo Hajhashem

Dr. Mo Hajhashem is the co-founder and Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) of UrbanChain, the UK's first peer-to-peer renewable energy exchange platform. Of Iranian heritage, Mo completed his PhD in Innovation and Technology Management at Alliance Manchester Business School, following earlier commercial roles at Cordis and Beckman Coulter Diagnostics in the medical devices industry. His doctoral research gave him deep expertise in commercialising innovative technologies — expertise he has applied across five businesses he has founded over his career.

Mo joined Somayeh Taheri to co-found UrbanChain in Manchester in 2017, bringing the commercial and entrepreneurial muscle needed to turn an academic research insight into a market-ready business. As a postdoctoral researcher at Alliance Manchester Business School from 2014, he was ideally placed to bridge the worlds of research and commerce. In UrbanChain's early years, Mo governed the company's growth through its start-up phases, helping grow the company's equity value from £150,000 in 2019 to £25 million by 2021, and built the sales and marketing teams that delivered contract values of £10.5 million over three years.

Today, as CCO and Founder, Mo leads UrbanChain's commercial partnerships and international expansion strategy, including representing the company at the Innovate UK Global Incubator Programme in New York, where UrbanChain was selected as one of only eight UK climatetech companies. He has been instrumental in building UrbanChain's pipeline to £22 million, driving partnerships with renewable generators, social housing associations, local authorities, and large commercial clients, and spearheading the company's planned entry into the US market with a target of full commercial scale by 2028.