Leading African business, finance and investment leaders joined current and former members of the World Economic Forum’s Young Global Leaders community at Access Tower, Lagos, for the Finance and Investment segment of the Aliko Dangote Foundation/World Economic Forum Young Global Leaders Africa-Diaspora Leadership Programme.
The prpgramme which was hosted by Aigboje Aig-Imoukhuede, Chairman of Access Holdings and Coronation Group, explored ‘Finance, Capital and the Real Economics of Building at Scale in Africa’ – examining what it takes to finance, build and sustain African enterprises of global scale.
The session followed participants’ immersion at the Dangote Refinery and used the Dangote industrial experience as a practical case through which to examine the cost and tenor of capital, infrastructure and logistics constraints, development finance, backward integration, technology and talent, institutional capacity, capital markets and the discipline required to translate ambition into enduring enterprise.
Contributors included Zouera Youssoufou, MD/CEO, Aliko Dangote Foundation; Innocent C. Ike, Group CEO, Access Holdings; Obeahon Ohiwerei, Managing Director/CEO, Coronation Merchant Bank; Adebayo Adewolu, CEO, Trium; Temi Popoola, Group Managing Director/CEO, NGX Group; Chuka Eseka, Group Managing Director/CEO, Vetiva Capital Management; David Bird, Managing Director, Dangote Refinery; Kola Karim, Chairman, Shoreline Natural Resources; and Adesuwa Okunbo Rhodes, Founder and Managing Partner, Aruwa Capital Management, alongside other leaders from business, investment and development finance.
A central theme of the discussions was how Africa can move from episodic examples of extraordinary scale to a more repeatable model of capital formation and institution-building, including deeper domestic capital markets, greater mobilisation of pension, insurance, sovereign and private capital, and stronger pathways from concentrated private ownership to broader institutional and public participation.
Speaking during the engagement, Aig-Imoukhuede said: ‘Vision attracts capital, governance maintains capital, and execution by great talent compounds capital. All three must be present for an institution to endure.’
Reflecting on the cohort’s visit to the Dangote Refinery, Aig-Imoukhuede described the project as an example of the scale of ambition and execution possible on the continent:
‘My dilemma as an African is that for the continent to realise its potential, vision, governance, and execution must happen repeatedly across several nations at the same time. It cannot remain episodic. We cannot wait 20 years between mega-projects. Furthermore, we must fix our greatest handicap, learning how to successfully transfer great visions and institutions from one generation to the next without restarting from the bottom.’
He also called for Africa’s financial architecture to extend across the full yield curve, connecting shorter-term commercial financing with the long-tenor institutional capital required to fund businesses and infrastructure across generations.
Reflecting on the purpose of the programme, Zouera Youssoufou noted that developing visionary leadership and expanding Africa’s capital ecosystems are fundamental to the continent’s long-term prosperity.