Having directly impacted the lives of more than 3,000 African entrepreneurs and inspired more than 30,000 others, Tony Elumelu, has been named one of the top 200 philanthropists in the world, the only Nigerian to feature on the list.
His name sits on the list alongside Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Barak Obama, Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, Richard Branson, Mark Zukerberg, Ophra Winfrey, Hillary Clinton amongst others.
The top 200 philanthropists list, according to the collaboration of the list, Richtopia, is made up of influential people at effectively having soft-power and being pro-active, particularly at being socially concerned.
“Our Philanthropists and Social-Entrepreneurs list is an automatic algorithm based on social media influence, Klout scores and a secret recipe. We take into account various metrics from Twitter, Facebook, Wikipedia, Youtube, LinkedIn and Instagram. This list gets updated once a year.
“All entries are considered by our admins, and Richtopia reserves the right to accept or forbid people from the list as it deems fit. Please bear in mind we do not measure net-worth, but rather social-worth. This list is not about how rich these people are, but rather how influential they are.”
The founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) has over the years become the patron of thousands of entrepreneurs across the continent though the foundation’s TEF Entrepreneurship Programme.
Through TEP, Elumelu has assisted in securing over 3000 startups by providing seed capital of $10,000 each as well as mentoring to 1,000 young African entrepreneurs annually since 2015.
An economist, investor, and philanthropist, Elumelu chairs privately held investment firm Heirs Holdings, pan african bank, United Bank for Africa and Nigeria’s largest quoted conglomerate, Transcorp.
His investments across Africa, span from the oil and gas, financial services to hospitality and power sectors. His investments are informed by his philosophy of Africapitalism: the belief that the private sector can lead Africa’s economic renaissance and that investment should create both economic prosperity and social wealth.
Elumelu sits on several public and social sector boards including the United Nations Sustainable Energy for All Initiative (SE4ALL) and USAID’s Private Capital Group Partners Forum (PCG). He is the chairman of leading pan-African financial services group, United Bank for Africa, with presence in 19 African countries, and offices in Paris, London and New York.
He is also the founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, which has seeded $100 million through the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme, to champion entrepreneurship across Africa over the next 10 years.
Among his numerous roles, he serves as co-chair of the Aspen Institute Strategy Group on Global Food Security, sits on the global advisory board of the Washington DC-based think tank, the Wilson Center, and is a member of the Global Advisory Council of the Harvard Kennedy School’s Center for Public Leadership. He is also a member of the World Economic Forum Community of Chairmen.