Tshepho Baumake is the Founder and Managing Director of BAUM GROUP (Pty) Ltd, a Botswana-based cleantech startup revolutionizing decentralized fuel infrastructure in Southern Africa. Born and raised in Botswana, I developed a deep understanding of the country's energy and infrastructure challenges early in life, particularly in rural and industrial areas where grid unreliability and fuel access gaps hinder economic activity.
Before founding BAUM GROUP in May 2025, I worked as a Construction Engineering Project Manager in Shanghai, China, where I managed large-scale infrastructure projects and gained international experience in engineering, procurement, construction (EPC), supply chain logistics, and cross-border operations. It was during this time, at a networking event, that I met the Eaglestar manufacturing team and recognized their innovative solar containerized fuel stations as the ideal solution for Botswana's persistent problems: frequent power outages, prohibitively high capital costs and long build times for traditional fuel stations, and widespread fuel theft at remote depots.
Driven by a passion to solve these real-world issues and contribute to Botswana's energy transition and citizen empowerment goals, I returned home to launch BAUM GROUP. He secured exclusive regional distribution rights for Eaglestar's solar-powered containerized fuel technology and developed an integrated IoT Fuel Management System to provide real-time theft prevention, tracking, and analytics. His vision is to deliver resilient, rapid-deploy, off-grid fuel access to mining operations, parastatals, agricultural cooperatives, tourism sites, and rural communities while creating sustainable jobs and enabling future franchise opportunities for Batswana entrepreneurs.
I combine technical expertise, global project execution experience, and local market insight to lead BAUM GROUP toward product-market fit and scalable impact. I am committed to building a citizen-owned enterprise aligned with Vision 2036, focused on innovation, inclusion, and energy security in Botswana and beyond.
