Our Story

Hey, this is Jenner Balagot, Mahalio’s Founder and CEO.

In 2012, as part of a graduate school project, I took a trip to Mabara, Uganda and met a group of great people serving a small children’s hospital in the middle of Africa. After talking with the local staff, I came to realize how much this remote hospital relied on its network of traveling friends and family to deliver important supplies to sustain their operation.

As I traveled after graduation, I started witnessing how much this person-to-person shipping network was very much of a reality for many countries in the emerging economy. Here, human ingenuity and kindness overcame the challenge of logistics in delivering a much-needed service through the family and friends network that delivered goods quickly, safely and reliably. Since then my team and I have been working tirelessly to build a network that connects friends, families, and community together on the Mahalio Network. We want to offer the world another option to ship packages that is more affordable, faster, and reliably around the world, while bridging the geographic gap between people.  We believe that together we can improve the shipping industry, contribute to the reduction of our carbon footprint that results from our logistic redundancy while inspiring human connectivity.

Thus…

Mahal = love

IO= input / output.

 

Our Team

 

Jenner Balagot

Jenner Balagot was born in the heart of Oakland, California. His parents were immigrants from a small fishing village in the Philippines Islands. His parents would save money for two years so that they could take a trip to the Philippines with his two brothers. This sparked Jenner’s love of travel and exploration. While attending UC Santa Cruz and throughout his career, he relished visiting new countries and experiencing new cultures.  Eventually, he would travel to multiple countries around the world. He received his MBA from Saint Mary’s College. And prior to building Mahalio he worked at Airbnb. 
Jenner believes in taking the path less traveled by and walking away from Omelas.

Suren Dias

Suren was raised by first generation Sri Lankan immigrants in the SF Bay Area. Both of his parents hail from families with philanthropic histories, and thanks to this Suren understood the social responsibilities associated with wealth from a young age. He has traveled across the world, worked with numerous nonprofit and for-profit organizations, and believes every individual should have the right to thrive. After completing his BA at UC Berkeley he began work at his father’s company as a software engineer. Thanks to the mentorship of influential investors and business owners around the world, he has developed a strong passion for morally-conscientious business, and seeks to use Mahalio as a platform to alleviate the world’s distribution problem.