Founder and Group Chairman of Heirs Holdings, Mr. Tony Onyemaechi Elumelu, CFR, has several reasons to be elated as he clocks three scores and one today (March 22, 2024) going by his enormous accomplishments in the often volatile and difficult private sector of Nigeria and Africa’s economies.
But for close observers, he doesn’t belong to the category of the high class, who relishes their fortunes but stands out in the crowd as one ever determined to making a difference in his set goal to transform the African economy through strategic long-term investments in sectors critical for the continent’s socio-economic and technological progress.
Also, Elumelu can thumbs up that Heirs Holdings’ philanthropic arm, The Tony Elumelu Foundation, TEF, which launched its flagship, Entrepreneurship Programme in 2015, committing a whopping US $100 million to identify, train, mentor and fund 10,000 African entrepreneurs over 10 years and across 54 African countries, has surpassed its initial target by directly funding 20,000 entrepreneurs in addition to providing over 1.5 million young Africans with access to training via its digital platform, TEFConnect.
So, it is heartwarming that the astute banker, economist, entrepreneur and philanthropist had established Heirs Holdings primarily to drive inclusive growth and building a prosperous future for Africans including Nigerians with a diverse portfolio ranging from financial services, energy, power, healthcare, real estate, hospitality to technology and providing thousands of jobs for the people.
Since retiring as the GMD/CEO of UBA in 2010, the billionaire has rather than quit the stage or give fish to the needy, he, by dint of hard work, deliberately carved a niche for himself as a foremost employer of labour and promoting entrepreneurship in Africa in line with TEF’s belief that the private sector should take the lead in the continent’s development anchored on his economic philosophy of Africapitalism, which means “that the African private sector has the power to transform the continent through long-term investments, creating both economic prosperity and social wealth”.
Truly, Elumelu had, since the establishment of Heirs Holdings left no one in doubt about his determination to changing the old narrative for good, that Africans can’t survive economically without having to depend on advanced nations or foreign donors to accelerate their economic development through strategic investment in the most critical sectors.
In other words, it is not happen-chance that his family-owned investment holding company now holds a controlling interest today in Transnational Corporation, a diversified conglomerate with business interests in power, hospitality, energy, insurance, healthcare, financial services, real estate and technology contributing their quota to the nation’s development.
Born in Jos, Plateau, Nigeria, on March 22, 1963, to Suzanne and Dominic Elumelu from Onicha-Ukwu in Aniocha North Local Government Area of Delta State, Tony studied Economics at Bendel State University (now Ambrose Alli University) obtaining a Bachelor of Science degree in Economics before proceeding to the University of Lagos where he bagged a Master of Science degree also in Economics.
He started work at Union Bank as a Youth Corp member during his National Youth Service Corps in 1985, before embracing temporary career as a salesman. And commenting on his grass to grace trajectory, he revealed: “I started my career as a salesman, a copier salesman to be specific, young, hungry, and hardworking, but the reality was that I was just one of the thousands of young Nigerian graduates, all eager to succeed”.
However, Elumelu came into national limelight in 1997, when he led a group of investors to take over a struggling Crystal Bank which was later renamed Standard Trust Bank and turned it a profitable venture within a few years; while in 2005, he made history leading one of the largest mergers in the banking sector in Sub-Saharan Africa by acquiring United Bank for Africa (UBA).
But following the merger of Standard Trust Bank and United Bank for Africa in 2005, Elumelu led the financial institution as Group Managing Director from a single-country banking group to a pan-African bank with subsidiaries in 20 African countries, France, the United States and the United Kingdom, before stepping down as CEO in 2010.
Among his major attainments was the official handing over of Certificate of Discharge of the five-star hospitality facility on April 14, 2021. Indeed, the National Council on Privatization (NCP),then chaired by the former Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, handed over full ownership of Transcorp Hotels to him after fulfilling all privatization conditions attached to the sale of the property.
Similarly, Elumelu recently attained global academic limelight when in an unprecedented move, the Harvard Business School, the Graduate Business School of Harvard University, announced that it was set to cast the spotlight on The Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF), in recognition of the Foundation’s extraordinary philanthropic achievement in a ground-breaking case study.
More importantly, the case study, the first of its kind on any philanthropic organization in Africa, was launched on Thursday, February 29, 2024, before a class of graduate students in Boston, Massachusetts in the United States and will “explore the Foundation’s unique approaches and transformative initiatives, showcasing how strategic philanthropy offered by TEF is driving positive change and elevating countries and communities”.
According to analysts, therefore, this bold move by Harvard “underscores the Foundation’s pivotal role in empowering young African entrepreneurs across all 54 African countries and places the Foundation at the forefront of global discussions on transformative and catalytic philanthropy, acknowledging its significant contributions towards fostering entrepreneurship in Africa”.
Besides, apart from delving into the Foundation’s innovative approaches and the resultant impact it has garnered over the years, the event also featured an exclusive acknowledgment of the Founder of TEF, Tony Elumelu’s economic philosophy of Africapitalism, which places the private sector, and most importantly entrepreneurs, as the catalyst for the social and economic development of the African continent.
Consequently and to the satisfaction of many, the philanthropist’s vision and mission to make positive impact on the social and economic lives of Nigerians and Africans in the long run had just in over a decade been yielding great dividends through entrepreneurship, a further convincing testament that genuine solutions to Africa’s numerous challenges are domiciled on the continent. Many garlands to a workaholic pacesetter with a Midas touch at 61.
