There are lots of African Enterpreneurs who have made unique marks in history and most of them still resides in Africa or still have their primary business here in Africa.
In the words of Peter Druker,"the best
way to predict the future is to create it." This quote perfectly
describes entrepreneurs because they are individuals who, irrespective
of the age, gender or socioeconomic class, create a new business
(creating a future). These entrepreneurs bear the risk, be it financial
or social, with the hope of making profits(and predicting the outcome of
the future they created). With so many risks attached, the decisions of
being an entrepreneur is not an easy one but Vince Lombardi once said,
"Winners never quit and quitters never win."
Beyond the courage to take risks, entrepreneurs needs skills to scale through and record success;
1. Energy; give it all it takes
2.
Communication; since you will relate with your customers and clients,
you need to develop your communication skills; you don't want to loose
your customers to bad manners!
3. Passion; love what you are doing
4. Vision; see the future you want to create
1. Aliko Dangote
Although born with a silver spoon into a family with a track record of
entrepreneurial success, Aliko Dangote now controls an empire of wealth
of his own, recorded as Nigeria's first billionaire in the year 2007 and
the richest black man in the world in 2008.
His empire,
Dangote group started as a small trading form in the 80's when he
approached his uncle, Dani Dangote for a loan to begin trading in
commodities such as bagged cement, and agricultural produce such as rice
and sugar.
The miniature trading firm is now a multinational
industrial conglomerate with its headquarters in Lagos state, Nigeria
producing diverse products, ranging from bagged cements, sugar, salt,
pasta, steel, flour, packaging, oil and gas. The conglomerate, with 18
subsidiaries, records about 30,000 employees.
"I built a
conglomerate and emerged the richest black man in the world in 2008 but
it didn’t happen overnight. It took me thirty years to get to where I am
today. Youths of today aspire to be like me but they want to achieve it
overnight. It’s not going to work. To build a successful business, you
must start small and dream big. In the journey of entrepreneurship,
tenacity of purpose is supreme.” (Aliko Dangote).
Aliko Dangote who was born in April 1957 and hails from Kano state is the founder and current chairman and CEO of Dangote group with an estimated net worth of US$ 14 billion as of April 2022. The Dangote Group was established as a small trading firm in 1977, the same year Dangote relocated to Lagos to expand the company. Dangote became Nigeria's first billionaire in 2007 and reportedly added $9.2 billion to his personal wealth in 2013, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, making him the thirtieth-richest person in the world at the time, and the richest person in Africa. He owns 85% of publicly-traded Dangote Cement through a holding company, Dangote Cement produces 45.6 million metric tons annually and has operations in 10 countries across Africa.
2. Johann Rupert and Family
Johann Peter Rupert was born on the 1st of June in 1950 is a South African entrepreneur, who is the eldest son of business tycoon Anton Rupert and his wife Hubert. Rupert grew up in Stellenbosch, where he attended Paul Roos Gymnasium and the University of Stellenbosch, studying economics and company law. He is the chairman of the Swiss-based luxury-goods company Richemont and the South Africa-based company Remgro. The company is best known for the brands Cartier and Montblanc. As of 1 April 2010, he assumed the CEO position of Compagnie Financiere Richemont.
Rupert served his business apprenticeship in New York City, where he worked for Chase Manhattan for two years and for Lazard Freres for three years. He then returned to South Africa in 1979 and founded Rand Merchant Bank of which he was CEO.It was formed in 1998 through a spinoff of assets owned by Rembrandt Group Limited (now Remgro Limited), which his father Anton formed in the 1940s.
He owns 7% of diversified investment firm Remgro, which he chairs, as well as 25% of Reinet, an investment holding company based in Luxembourg. His net worth as of 2021 is $ 7.2 billion
3. NICKY OPPENHEIMER & FAMILY
Nicholas F. Oppenheimer who was also born on the 8th June 1945 is a South African billionaire businessman. He was formerly the chairman of De Beers diamond mining company and of its subsidiary, the Diamond Trading Company, and former deputy chairman of Anglo American.For 85 years until 2012, the Oppenheimer family occupied a controlling spot in the world’s diamond trade. He joined Anglo American in 1968, was appointed a director in 1974, then became deputy chairman in 1983. He resigned in 2001, remaining a non-executive director until 2011.
He was appointed deputy chairman of the then Central Selling Organisation (now Diamond Trading Company) in 1984, and deputy chairman of De Beers Consolidated Mines in 1985. He was also appointed chairman of the Diamond Trading Company in 1985. Chairman of the De Beers Group from 1998 to 2012, he retired when the family stake was sold to Anglo American. He was the third generation of his family to run DeBeers, and took the company private in 2001.
In 2014, Oppenheimer started Fireblade Aviation in Johannesburg, which operates chartered flights. He owns at least 720 square miles of conservation land across South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe.
4. Mike Adenuga
Chief Michael Adeniyi Agbolade Ishola Adenuga Jr CSG GCON was born 29 April 1953 is a Nigerian billionaire businessman from Ibadan, Oyo State.Adenuga got an MBA at Pace University in New York, supporting himself as a student by working as a taxi driver. Adenuga made his first million in 1979, at age 26, selling lace and distributing soft drinks. In 1990, he received a drilling license and in 1991, his Consolidated Oil struck oil in the shallow waters of Southwestern Ondo State, the first indigenous oil company to do so in commercial quantity. His company Globacom is Nigeria's second-largest telecom operator and also has a presence in Ghana and Benin. He owns stakes in the Equitorial Trust Bank and the oil exploration firm Conoil (formerly Consolidated Oil Company). With an estimated net worth of $ 6.2 billion. His mobile phone network, Globacom, is the third largest operator in Nigeria, with 55 million subscribers.
Chief Micheal Adeniyi Agbolade Ishola Adenuga Jr us a man brought up
within a confined circle of academics and entrepreneur by his parents;
Oloye Micheal Agbolade Adenuga Snr who was a secondary school teacher
and Omoba Juliana Oyindamola Adenuga who was a businesswoman.
To further his education, after completing his primary and secondary
school education in Oyo state Nigeria, he worked as a taxi driver to
fund his university education at Northwestern Oklahoma State University
and Pace University with degrees in business administration.
As time rolled, his hardwork and resilience made way for him as he made
his first million at the age of 26, in the year 1979 from selling lace
and distributing soft drinks. Presently, with a net worth of $6.2
billion, he owns Globacom, the Nigeria's second largest telecom operator
with presence in other countries such as Benin and Ghana, chairman of
Conoil and stakeholder in Equitorial Trust Bank.
His oil exploration outfit, Conoil Producing, operates six oil blocks in the Niger Delta. He was named African Entrepreneur of The Year at the first African Telecoms Awards (ATA) in August 2007.
5. Nassef Sawiris
Nassef Onsi Sawiris is an Egyptian billionaire businessman who was born January 19, 1961 and the youngest of Onsi Sawiris' three sons (his brothers are Naguib and Samih). After his education, Sawiris joined the Orascom group in 1982 and oversaw the construction activities of Orascom Construction following the transfer of management control from his father Onsi Sawiris in 1995. He became CEO of Orascom Construction Industries following the company's incorporation in 1998. He served on the board of Besix, following OCI SAE acquiring a 50% stake in the company in 2004, and a member of the remuneration and nominations committee until 2017. In January 2013, he became CEO of OCI NV, when they acquired the former parent company OCI SAE. In 2015, he was elected a board member of LafargeHolcim ,having served on Lafarge SA's board since 2008.
In October 2015, it was reported that Sawiris had acquired a stake in Adidas AG via his investment company NNS Holding SÃ rl Luxembourg. In 2016 he was appointed supervisory director of Adidas AG,Herzogenaurach, Germany.
It was announced in July 2018 that Sawiris would replace Tony Xia as chairman of Aston Villa F. C. following the purchase of a 55% controlling stake by NSWE, a company jointly owned and controlled by Sawiris' group NNS and American billionaire Wes Edens In August 2019, after Aston Villa were promoted to the premiere league, Tony Xia's remaining shares were bought out by NSWE, assuming full control over the club in the process. As of October 2021, his net worth was estimated at US$8.7 billion.
6. ABDULSAMAD RABIU
Abdul Samad Isyaku Rabiu CON who was born 4 August 1960 in Kano, Nigeria is a Nigerian billionaire businessman and philanthropist. His late father, Khalifah Isyaku Rabiu, was one of Nigeria's foremost industrialists in the 1970s and 1980s.
He set up his own business in 1988 importing iron, steel and chemicals and he is the founder of BUA Group, a Nigerian conglomerate active in cement production, sugar refining and real estate. In early January 2020, Rabiu merged his privately-owned Obu Cement company with listed firm Cement Co. of Northern Nigeria, which he controlled.
The combined firm, called BUA Cement Plc, trades on the Nigerian stock exchange; Rabiu owns 98.5% of it.
Abdul Samad Rabiu uses the BUA Foundation for his philanthropic activities. These include the construction of a 7,000-square-meter paediatric ward at the Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital and the construction of the Centre for Islamic Studies at Bayero University Kano amongst several others.
7. ISSAD REBRAB & FAMILY
ISSAD REBRAB who was born May 27, 1944, is an Algerian billionaire businessman, CEO of the Cevital industrial group, the largest private company in Algeria, active in steel, food, agribusiness and electronics.His industrial career started in 1971, when one of his clients proposed he take shares in a metallurgical construction company. He took 20% of the shares in Sotecom. After that, he created other companies in the steel industry: Profilor in 1975 and Metal Sider in 1988. In 1995, his main installations were destroyed in a terrorist attack. After he recognized the risks of staying, Rebrab decided to leave Algeria. He came back in 1998 with Cevital, the biggest group in agricultural business, which later became the largest private Algerian company. Cevital owns one of the largest sugar refineries in the world, with the capacity to produce 2 million tons a year.In 2016, Rebrab acquired El Khabar media group, for $45 million. This was his second investment into media, as he already owns the French-Algerian daily paper Liberte.
On April 22, 2019, Rebrab was incarcerated at the prison of El Harrach on the public prosecutor's orders, after his arrest as part of a corruption probe. He was released on January 1, 2020, after having been sentenced to six months for tax, banking and customs offenses, and having been in custody for longer than his eventual sentence. As at 2021, his estimated net worth was $ 4.8 billion.
8. Koos Bekker
Jacobus Petrus "Koos" Bekker (born 14 December 1952) is a South African billionaire businessman, and the chairman of media group Naspers. The company operates in 130 countries and is listed on the London Stock Exchange and Johannesburg Stock Exchange. It has the largest market capitalization of any media company outside the US, China and India. After a few years in advertising, he received an MBA degree from Columbia Business School, graduating in 1984. As a result of a project paper, he, with a few young colleagues, founded one of the first two pay-television services outside of the US. M-Net and its sister companies, such as Multichoice, eventually expanded to 48 countries across Africa. In the 1990s, he was a founding director of mobile communication company MTN. In 1997 Bekker became CEO of Naspers, one of the initial investors in the M-Net/Multichoice group. Naspers bought out the other shareholders. During his tenure, the market capitalization of Naspers grew from about $1.2 billion to $45 billion. His compensation package was unusual in that for fifteen years as CEO he earned no salary, bonus or perks. He was compensated solely via stock option grants that vested over time.
In 2019, Naspers put some assets into two publicly-traded companies, entertainment firm MultiChoice Group and Prosus, which contains the Tencent stake. As at April 2022, his net worth was estimated at US$2.3 billion.
9. Patrice MOTSEPE
Patrice Tlhopane Motsepe (born 28 January 1962) is a South African mining billionaire businessman. Since 12 March 2021, he has been serving as the President of the Confederation of African Football. He is the founder and executive chairman of African Rainbow Minerals, which has interests in gold, ferrous metals, base metals, and platinum. He sits on several company boards, including being the non-executive chairman of Harmony Gold, the world's 12th largest gold mining company, and the deputy chairman of Sanlam.
In 1994, he became the first black partner in the law firm Bowman Gilfillan—the same year that Nelson Mandela was elected as the country's first black president. While the new government began promoting black empowerment and entrepreneurship; Motsepe founded Future Mining, which provided contract mining services that included the cleaning of gold dust from inside mine shafts for the Vaal Reefs Gold mine, and implemented a system of worker remuneration that combined a low base salary with a profit-sharing bonus. In 2016, he launched a private equity firm, African Rainbow Capital, focused on investing in Africa. In March 2021, Motsepe was elected president of the Confederation of African Football, the sport’s governing body on the continent. In 2012, Motsepe was named South Africa's richest man, topping the Sunday Times' annual Rich List with an estimated fortune of R20.07 billion ($1 billion).
10. MOHAMED MANSOUR
Mohamed Mansour was born 1948 is an Egyptian billionaire businessman and former politician. He is the chairman of Mansour Group, a US$6 billion conglomerate that is the second largest company in Egypt by revenue.Mansour established General Motors dealerships in Egypt in 1975, later becoming one of GM’s biggest distributors worldwide.
Mansour Group also has exclusive distribution rights for Caterpillar equipment in Egypt and seven other African countries. With his two brothers, Mansour maintained an active role in the Mansour Group, the family business, building close ties as distributors for US companies including Chevrolet, Marlboro, General Motors and Caterpillar. Some of his other interests include Metro, the largest Egyptian supermarket chain, and McDonald's franchises in Egypt.
Mansour has led the group since his father died in 1976. Since then, he has overseen all the major corporate developments, including setting up the company's private investment subsidiary Man Capital in London.
11. Teresa Mbagaya
Born in Nairobi, Kenya is a woman who grew up with a desire to become a teacher because she admired her teachers and felt it was a profession of nobility. In the course of her career as an educationist, she has served as Microsoft's education lead in East and South Africa, head of Econet education, a platform that drove the development of Zimbabwe's first digital education, advisory member on the Global Education platform under United Nation special envoy for Global Education. To her, a child's laughter is a closest thing to real magic in this world, hence, co-founded Bidii Children Foundation, a nonprofit organization that funds tuition support for students in western Kenyan. "Never start a business just to make money, start a business to make a difference." (Marie Forleo)
12. Tony Elumelu
Born to Suzanne and Dominic Elumelu on the 22nd March, 1963, Tony Elumelu started his entrepreneurial journey as salesman. According to him, he was a young, hungry and hard-working salesman but, in reality, he was one of the thousands of young Nigerian graduates, all eager to succeed.
Presently, Anthony Onyemaechi Elumelu chairs the board of the United Bank for Africa following the merger of Standard Trust Bank and United Bank of Africa in 2005, runs the Heir Holdings, his family owned investment holding company which he founded in 2010 and Tony Elumelu foundation, an Africa based foundation championing entrepreneurship in Africa, which he is known for, was founded by him in 2010. Of a truth, "All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them." (Walt Disney).
13. Ali-shah Jivraj
Jivraj started his career at the age of 19, in 2006 when he took interest in electronics. He was born into a family with Ugandan's most legendary business dynasties which crumbled in the year 1972, when the then, Ugandan president, Idi Amin, expelled all Asians and Ugandan's of Asian descent in which the Jivraj family fall in, in an ethnic cleansing, several years before he was born. In the early 80's, his family slowly began to rebuilt their empire. Presently, the kid whose mind was blown away when he watched his acquittance completely dismantle a television set, fixed the problem and assembled it together with ease and cleverness founded Royal Electronics, an electronics assembly business in Uganda with attempts to replicate the success in Tanzania, real estate project in developing two residential apartment complexes in Kampala, and further expanded his business to launch Ugacell batteries.
14. Adenike Ogunlesi
Against her father's dreams for her to be a lawyer, she found her direction when she had to drop out of law school just two years into the program and tread the path of children's clothing. She started her career in her mother's tailoring shop as convinced by her mother. As time rolled by, she made clothes for different women after she left her mother's shop. Her path got clearer when she discovered that there was a lot to gain in the market of children's clothing, from sowing new pyjamas for children when they run out of one.
Although she was scared having pulled out from the path her father chose for her, she had to pull herself together and head in the direction of her dreams which brought Ruff N Tumble, her own clothing line and company for children which was launched in 1996. Till date, the company has recorded success in exporting children's wear to many different parts of Western Africa.
"The difference between successful people and others is how long they spend time feeling sorry for themselves." (Barbara Corcoran).
15. Strive Masiyiwa
Strive Masiyiwa, a self-made man who is the first black billionaire to enter the Sunday times' list of rich people with a net worth of £1.087billion. He was born as a Zimbabwean on 29th of January in the year 1961. He spent his childhood and early youthful days chasing education and academic excellence. He worked in computer industry in Cambridge before relocating to Zimbabwe with the hope of siding the country's recovering following the war and elections in the 80's. He started his career by working at Zimbabwe's phone company which he left to start an engineering service firm. He eventually sold it and founded an international technology group, Econet global which started as Econet Wireless Zimbabwe, a mobile phone network launched after he overcame a protracted government opposition.
"Consider what is in your hands, Africa needs your talent." (Kene Mkparu)
16. Heshan de Silva
In another man's land where he was sent to school, Heshan being a young fellow who got naively involved with older students attempted suicide in his second year in the university and eventually dropped out. He returned to Kenya, his native land and went through the process of time to get over his previous addictions to heroin and alcohol. Going through the process of becoming a new man, he worked with for his father's tea exporting company. He began his career in his early years with a little savings to his name but a strong belief in God. He is the CEO and founder of DSGVenCap, a business enterprise that invests in various Kenyan entrepreneurs and gets a share of their businesses.
"See a man diligent in his business, he shall stand before kings and not mean men." Proverbs 22:29
17. Fred Swaniker
A Ghanian born to a lawyer and an educator is a man who found his purpose when he discovered the importance of leadership and education while serving as a headmaster of a secondary school founded by his mother at the age of 17. As an educator, he proved his belief in academic excellence by receiving the title, Arjay Miller scholar, distinction that is awarded to the top ten percent of each graduating class at Stanford Graduate School of Business in California. He began his entrepreneurship career by co-founding African Leadership Academy, a pre-university in South Africa, and African Leadership University with campuses in Rwanda and Mauritius. He also founded African Leadership Network and The Room. These platforms are driven towards creating a new era of ethical and entrepreneurial African leaders when he discovered that the missing piece to transform Africa is good leadership.
“Don’t worry about being successful but work toward being significant and the success will naturally follow.” (Oprah Winfrey).
18. Brad and Brett Macgrath
They are South African entrepreneurs who founded the brand, "Zoona" in 2009. One is an ex-JP Morgan banker and the other is a former commercial director of a telecom operator in Zambia. The brand is a financial services business.
The startup provides both in-country and cross-border money transfer services in several African countries – Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique. And so far, it has processed more than $1 billion in money transfers, bill payments and other financial services.
In 2016, Zoona raised $15 million of capital from a group of investors led by the International Finance Corporation. The funds are being used to scale up the company’s operations as it aims to reach ten markets and 30 million active consumers across Africa by 2020.
The International Finance Corporation, or IFC, is an example of an international development institution. And there are several more like it that exist to support and invest in businesses, especially in developing regions of the world like Africa. Most international development institutions are funded or sponsored by foreign governments or global institutions like the World Bank, United Nations, European Union etc.
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