Africa’s richest man and President of the Dangote group, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, has emerged the 41st of 50 most influential personalities in the world according to Bloomberg, an acclaimed US-based news media which focuses more on business and financial news reporting.
According to Bloomberg Market, it spread the list of influential people across six categories; Corporate Power Builders, Bankers, Policy Shaper, Tech Builders, Money managers and Thinkers.
Two other African men, Tidjane Thiam and Mo Ibrahim, were listed among the top 50 most influential person
The media reported: “Thiam’s success as CEO of Prudential in the UK, earned him the top job at Zurich based Credit Suisse, and he arrived promising to be “ruthlessly selective” as he prioritizes wealth management over investment banking.”
The personalities chosen by the Bloomberg Market consisted of CEOs, world leaders as well as religious leaders who “build companies and assemble fortunes. They run banks, or hope to disrupt them. They shape economies and spread ideas. They manage money and wield the clout that goes with the billions of dollars they invest.”
Specifically on Dangote, the financial news hub wrote, “Africa’s most successful businessman built his fortune in sugar, textiles and cement in his native Nigeria, where today he’s a political as well as a financial power broker. He’s expanding in other countries and may list his cement company in London.”
Bloomberg’s Paul Wallace, lauded the impact of the astute businessman, “Dangote is feted like royalty. He has businesses ranging from cement to sugar to energy in a dozen sub-Saharan countries.
“He’s a fixture at elite gatherings such as the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. No African has ridden the continent’s halting march out of poverty toward potential prosperity as spectacularly as its richest person, the Nigerian industrialist, Aliko Dangote.
“Dangote’s clout extends beyond the boardroom and the high-flier dinner circuit. In March, as votes were tallied in Nigeria’s presidential election, Dangote, 58, served as an intermediary between the camps of the incumbent, Goodluck Jonathan, and the ultimate winner of the election, Muhammadu Buhari.
“There’s no question that he is quite an exceptional person—not only in Africa but globally,” these were the views of Mark Mobius, chairman of the emerging-markets group at Franklin Templeton Investments.
The top three positions were occupied by Janet Yellen, Chairperson of the United States Federal Reserve; the Chinese President Xi Jinping and Apple’s Tim Cook in that order.
Other notable persons listed include President of the United States, Barack Obama (sixth); German Chancellor, Angela Merkel (ninth); Pope Francis (31st) and Madame Christine Lagarde of the International Monetary Fund (38th).
