Tony Elumelu: How My Career Began in a Job I Never Planned For
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| Tony Elumelu (Nigerian economist and entrepreneur) |
Chairman of Heirs Holdings, Tony Elumelu, has shared how he began his career in a role for which he was not qualified.
The billionaire businessman made the disclosure in a post on his social media handle on Saturday.
Elumelu said he was fortunate that someone took a chance on him, but maintained that luck should not be the only route through which African talent gets an opportunity.
“I started my career in a job I wasn’t qualified for. Someone took a chance on me. Everything I have built since has been to repay it. I was lucky. But luck should not be the only way an African talent gets a chance.”
He also spoke on Africa's position in the global artificial intelligence race, noting that the continent holds less than one per cent of the world's AI computing capacity and about three per cent of its AI talent.
“The constraint is not talent. It is electricity. We leapfrogged landlines with mobile. We will not leapfrog electricity,” Elumelu said.
He stressed that African countries must urgently tackle their electricity challenges to avoid losing out on opportunities presented by the digital economy.
According to him, the continent's AI race is also a race to secure sufficient power generation and computing capacity.
“My closing advice: To the youth in the room: start before you are qualified. I did,” he said.
He further appealed to investors and partners to back the growth of young African businesses, pointing to the Tony Elumelu Foundation's seed-capital programme.
“Tony Elumelu Foundation seed capital has proved that young African entrepreneurs are investible. Now co-invest with us to take them to scale,” he said.
