In 2019, I was running Baobab Consulting, my young consulting firm between Dakar and New York, and I did something that felt a little presumptuous. We were hosting a screening of The Milkmaid, a Nigerian film, at United Nations headquarters, and I sent an invitation to Tony Elumelu.
Elumelu is an African banker and investor, former chairman of the United Bank for Africa, current Chairman of Heirs Holdings, Founder of the Tony Elemelu Foundation, a living legend. I did not expect the invitation to reach him, but it did. His executive assistant, Omosefe Agwoje, wrote back to say the Chairman could not attend but would send Ms. Sola Yomi-Ajayi, then head of UBA America, in his place. For our small, ambitious firm, that gesture meant more than he likely realized.
Seven years later, I finally watched him work up close, and I understood that the gesture was not a one-off. It was a business system.
It was Sunday night of the high-level week of the 81st UN General Assembly, and the lobby of the Four Seasons in New York was filling with people who had been on their feet since dawn. One by one, members of Elumelu’s team arrived for their nightly debrief, tired but running on the adrenaline only UNGA week produces. They pulled chairs together, compared notes and planned the days ahead.
Then the Chairman walked in.
Baobab’s partner ACP Holdings, an investment firm based in Mauritius and Ghana, had asked us to coordinate a meeting with him. ACP’s founder, Roberta Annan, is a longtime mentee and friend of his, and she had asked for his time. According to her, “Mr Elumelu never gives the answers. He gives access, and then he expects us to use it. When I brought him an idea, his first question was always who on his team I should be building it with. That is how he mentors: he trusts you with his network, and he trusts his network with you.”
In a city full of principals racing between motorcades, I expected a handshake and a promise to follow up. Instead, he introduced himself to every member of our team, sat down and listened. He asked what we were trying to achieve. Then he turned to Somachi Chris-Asoluka, CEO of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, connected us, and encouraged us to find a solution together, with his blessing.
Many leaders at his level keep every decision close. Elumelu hands decisions down. He trusts his people to own outcomes, and they clearly know it. He is a true mentor, and a humble mentee of African industrial greats like Sir Samuel Dossou-Aworet, a prominent businessman and petrochemical engineer from Benin.
Everyone markets the business
Elumelu is a marketer by instinct, and he believes everyone in an organization should market the business and embody it. It showed all week. His content team was everywhere, (follow @paulghenefegor for some jaw dropping shots of the Chairman and NYC during UNGA) capturing him greeting global leaders with the same enthusiasm he gave young delegates on the sidewalk heading in to hear the debates. His staff carried the brand into every room with conviction, whether or not he was beside them.
Omosefe, the assistant who answered my email in 2019, is the clearest example. At Elumelu’s encouragement, he launched a course on how to be an effective executive assistant, drawing thousands of signups and views. Elumelu encouraged him to lean on the brand to do it. Think about what that says. The person closest to one of Africa’s most prominent business leaders was pushed not just to excel in the role, but to build something of his own from it. Elumelu understands that when the people around him grow, his own brand grows with them.
Fifteen years of backing entrepreneurs
Elumelu and his wife, Dr. Awele Elumelu, founded the Tony Elumelu Foundation in 2010 on a simple bet. Young Africans did not need charity; they needed capital and someone willing to back them. He calls it democratising luck.
As a result of our Four Seasons encounter, we were invited to join him, his family, colleagues and close friends as the foundation launched its 15-Year Impact Report during UNGA on September 23. We learned than 24,000 entrepreneurs have been funded across all 54 African countries. Their businesses have created more than 1.5 million direct and indirect jobs and generated more than $4.2 billion in revenue.
What I will remember is the room he curated. Elumelu welcomed his guests with grace and even led everyone in singing happy birthday to Cherie Blair. Then he did something that captured everything I had seen in that hotel lobby. He brought three of his entrepreneurs forward to speak directly to the heads of banks and development finance institutions. He did not tell their stories for them. He gave them the floor.
The launch also showcased a video, and to my delight my friend Racine Sarr, founder of ShopMeAway in Dakar, appeared on screen. He built a platform that helps Africans buy what they need from anywhere in the world at a fair price. “Mr Elumelu could have stopped at Nigeria, or at Anglophone Africa. He didn’t. He gave me more than money, he gave me time and attention, which is rarer. That’s why eight out ten of us are still in business.” I lived in Dakar for seven years and watched founders like Racine build with very little margin for error. Seeing his face on that screen, in front of the people who shape capital flows to the continent, was the proudest moment of my week.
The lesson
What struck me is that Elumelu practices democratizing luck inside his own organization, too. He backs his team the way he backs his entrepreneurs. He gives them ownership, puts them in front of the room, encourages them to build their own platforms and trusts them to carry his name where he cannot go.
That lesson travels well beyond Africa. American business culture often celebrates the founder who is the face of everything. Elumelu offers a different model. Lasting influence does not come from being the most visible person in every room. It comes from building people who can walk into those rooms without you.
He spent UNGA week walking all over New York, unpretentious and doing the work. The clearest sign of his leadership was everyone else doing it too.
Liz Grossman Kitoyi is Co-Founder and CEO of Baobab Consulting, a pan-African strategic advisory firm and Washington DC Correspondent for Africa.com.
