Nigerian Entrepreneurs Shatter Growth Records In Asia, Africa, Middle East

•As Tony Elumelu Foundation, AllWorld Network Spotlight 50 Fastest Growing Businesses

NIGERIA’S entrepreneurs should be encouraged to continue making sustainable investments in the local economy, as this will form a new approach toward building competitive industries in Africa, according to Tony O. Elumelu, the philanthropic entrepreneur whose self-named foundation has been promoting business excellence and leadership across the continent for the last three years.

In fulfilment of its mandate to promote entrepreneurship and competitiveness throughout Africa, The Tony Elumelu Foundation and US-based AllWorld Network, which ranks dynamic fast-growth private companies globally, hosted the inaugural Nigeria50 Awards on Thursday, at the Eko Hotel & Suites, Lagos, to honour 50 of Nigeria’s most innovative and fastest growing companies.

The 50 Nigerian companies, according to the organisers broke AllWorld records of high growth among 15 countries throughout the Middle East, South Asia and Africa, with an astounding annual growth rate of 100 per cent.

AllWorld co-founder, Professor Michael Porter, who was described by the Times of London as the world’s “most influential management guru” and is widely regarded as the foremost authority on company and country competitiveness, emphasised that, “It is entrepreneurs who are going to change the developing world, not governments.

The Nigeria50 companies represent the leading edge of a new approach to the region’s competitiveness.”
“All 50 companies demonstrate Nigeria’s capacity for dynamic growth and investment,” said Elumelu, adding, “these are African entrepreneurs investing for the long term in Africa, driving Nigeria and Africa’s economic development – a key pillar of Africapitalism. They are showing that the private sector has what it takes to turn economies around dramatically.”

In addition to the highly anticipated awards ceremony, a two-day summit that took place in Lagos on March 21-22 at Heirs Holdings, offered capacity development sessions for the executives of winning companies.

Session leaders included Elumelu and Professor Porter, as well as Nigerian and global experts in corporate strategy and governance from Ernst & Young, Dalberg, and the UBA.