Africa Investor rewards Elumelu for promoting entrepreneurship

The Chairman, UBA Plc, Mr. Tony Elumelu, has been recognised for promoting entrepreneurship and supporting the arts and creative industry.

In recognition of his efforts, the UBA chairman was named Africa Business Leader of the Year at the 8th Ai CEO Investment Summit and Awards, which took place in New York, a statement said on Thursday.

The Africa investor summit is a business and institutional investors’ forum that represents the leading international investment platform for public and private sector leaders to share their views and proposals on African business, economic development and investment and business environment policy leadership.


Elumelu was also given a special award as honorary counsel for the African Movie Academy in recognition of his support for the African creative industry at the African Movie Academy Awards, which was held recently in South Africa.

According to the statement, the award in New York makes it the second time Elumelu will win the ‘Africa Business Leader of the Year’ award. He first won it in 2006 as the Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of UBA Plc.

The statement explained that he had emerged winner from a strong nominee list of notable business leaders in the continent including the CEO, Equity Bank, Kenya, James Mwangi; the Chairman, Dangote Group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote; and the CEO, Bidvest Group, South Africa, Brian Joffe.

Others are the Chairman and Founder, Econet, Strive Masiyiwa; the Founder and Chairman, African Rainbow Minerals, South Africa, Patrice Motsepe; and South Africa’s retail tycoon and owner of Shoprite, Christo Wiese, among others.

The statement added that Heirs Holdings, a proprietary investment firm also chaired by Elumelu, received the ‘Best Initiative in Support of SMEs and the Millennium Development Goals’ award at the Ai awards ceremony.

For both awards, Elumelu was honoured for his drive to tackle poverty on the continent by promoting entrepreneurship through the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme. TEEP is a $100m initiative that seeks to create 10,000 African entrepreneurs over a 10-year period.

Commenting on both awards, Elumelu was quoted as saying, “It is great to see that the world has already noticed the potential impact of what we are doing with TEEP. I have a strong belief that entrepreneurship holds the key to Africa’s endemic poverty challenge. With TEEP, we plan to create an entrepreneurial revolution that will create jobs and wealth across the continent.”