ONE OF AFRICA'S MOST INFLUENTIAL FIGURE

Though an alumnus of Harvard Business School's Advanced Management Programme, Tony Elumelu had his education in Nigeria contrary to the norm that it has to be white to be right. A graduate of economics.  Known for his philosophy “Africapitalism”, a development model he propagated. According to him, Africapitalism sees the African private sector as the catalyst in ensuring Africa’s sustainable social and economic development.‎

In 2011, he was listed as one of the 100 most influential people in Africa by New African magazine and in 2012 Forbes Magazine recognized him as one of "Africa's 20 Most Powerful People. A year later, Mr Elumelu was awarded the Leadership Award in Business and Philanthropy by the Africa-America Institute (AAI). African Business Icon at the 2013 African Business Awards. Also, ESI-Africa, frequently described as "Africa's power journal", named Mr Tony Elumelu in its 2015 'ESI Most Influential Figures in African Power' list in January 2015.

Tony Elumelu, who is the current chairman of Heirs Holding and founder of Tony Elumelu Foundation, was responsible for the acquisition of Standard Trust Bank by United Bank for Africa (UBA) when he became chairman of UBA in 2005. In five years he transformed UBA from a single-country bank, to a pan-African institution with over 7 million customers in 19 African countries.

Tony Elumelu with President Buhari

Elumelu (CON, MFR) serves as an Advisor to the USAID’s Private Capital Group for Africa (PCGA) Partners Forum. He sits on the Nigerian President's Agricultural Transformation Implementation Council (ATIC). He is also vice-chairman of the National Competitiveness Council of Nigeria (NCCN) whose formation he was a key driver in, and serves as Co-Chair of the Aspen Institute Dialogue Series on Global Food Security. He also serves as a member of the Global Advisory Board of the United Nations Sustainable Energy for All Initiative (SE4ALL) and USAID’s Private Capital Group for Africa Partners Forum.

Tony Elumelu with President Barrack Obama

Tony Elumelu is happily married to Awele and they have five daughters and two sons together.

"Everything I have today is because of Africa, I was born here, went to school here, I work here and I'm achieving some level of financial comfort here" - Tony Elumelu

Credit: Heirs Holding, Tony Elumelu Foundation, UBA Group Plc, Wikipedia