TIME Named Elumelu as one of the 100 influential Persons in The World

TIME has named the Founder and Chairman of Heirs Holdings, Tony Elumelu in the 2020 TIME100, the annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world.

The list, now in its seventeenth year, recognises the activism, innovation, and achievement of the world’s most influential individuals. Mr Elumelu, who is one of only four Africans on the 2020 list, is recognised for his track record of business turnaround and value creation, and economic empowerment of young Africans.

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Elumelu and his family owned investment company, committed to improving lives and transforming Africa, through long-term investments in strategic sectors of the African economy, including financial services, hospitality, power, energy, technology and healthcare.

He is also the Chairman of pan-African financial services group, the United Bank for Africa (UBA), which operates in 20 countries in Africa, the United Kingdom, France, and is the only African bank with a commercial deposit taking licence in the United States.

He also chairs Nigeria’s largest quoted conglomerate, Transcorp,  whose subsidiaries include Transcorp Power, one of the leading generators of electricity in Nigeria and Transcorp Hotels Plc, Nigeria’s foremost hospitality brand.

Mr Elumelu is the most prominent champion of entrepreneurship in Africa. In 2010, he created The Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF), the philanthropy empowering a new generation of African entrepreneurs, catalysing economic growth, driving poverty eradication and ensuring job creation across all 54 African countries.

Meanwhile, President Muhammadu Buhari has lauds Elumelu for being named among the Time100 Most Influential People of 2020.

The President commends Elumelu’s vision of Africapitalism, which espouses that Africa’s private sector must play a leading role in the continent’s development through long-term investments, entrepreneurship, and regional connectivity, adding that it was just a matter of time before such caught global attention.

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President Buhari says Elumelu’s commitment to the development of African youths, whom he has given a voice and empowerment, investing $5,000 in 1,000 young entrepreneurs per year across 54 countries, pedestals him as a visionary, with milk of human kindness, “and such, among others, must have qualified him for the Time Hall of Fame.”

The President wishes Elumelu greater successes on all fronts and recommends his strides to other high networth people.