Anthony Onyemaechi Elumelu is one dynamic Nigerian billionaire business magnate with a lot of global acclaim.
The dandy banking wizard is so famous with his profile all over the internet as a multiple chairman of top-rated companies with a strong entrepreneurship pedigree. At every important business forum in the country or overseas, you are most likely to find Elumelu there promoting African business and entrepreneurship. As an entrepreneur who owns a controlling interest in Transcorp, a publicly traded Nigerian conglomerate with interests in hospitality, agriculture, oil production and power generation, and who chairs both UBA Plc and Heirs Holdings —a family-owned investment holding company—, Elumelu is also big as a Pan-African philanthropist using his Tony Elumelu Foundation as a platform for the uplift of humanity, most especially the youth demography. Elumelu’s philanthropy has been taken as a case study —his life journey, business journey, philanthropy and what motivates him— by the University of Cambridge. His success story is very inspiring. Rising from his modest beginnings, this astute money manager ascended to the pinnacle of banking in Nigeria, becoming a bank CEO at 34 and one of the youngest at that time, and has significant investments in every critical sector of the economy. He has a lot to teach many young entrepreneurs on how to succeed in whatever they seek to do, business wise. He is indeed committed to helping many of Africa’s emerging leaders fulfil their dreams.
As the global economy faltered in recent years, due to various extraneous factors, Elumelu was still able to make extra billions of naira from his wide investment. Thus on Wednesday March 22 when he clocked 60, many were in agreement that Elumelu had plenty of reasons to celebrate with a moderate but opulent multi-million naira party. On this day of his Diamond jubilee, amidst loads of congratulatory messages from high and the mighty, including President Muhammadu Buhari, President-elect Bola Ahmed Tinubu and several states governors, Elumelu and his wife Awele hosted some of Nigeria’s richest and most influential people at his palatial mansion in Ikoyi, Lagos, to celebrate God’s faithfulness in his life.