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Dreaming big for Africa’s future
Tope Lawani (MBA 1995, JD 1996) is cofounder and managing partner of London-based Helios Investments, a private investment firm concentrating on socioeconomic development in Africa. Helios is virtually the only pan-African firm of its kind to be founded and managed by Africans.
“I want to demonstrate that, in Africa, we're no different from anybody else in any fundamental way,” Lawani explains. “We're just at a different point in our development.”
With over $2 billion invested in more than 30 countries, mostly sub-Saharan, Helios focuses on financial services, telecom, media, consumer goods, and power generation. Helios also annually contributes a fixed percentage of its gross fee income to nonprofit groups and programs in Africa that improve access to education and health care for the underprivileged.
Lawani credits HBS for giving him the tools to help reshape the future of his country, Nigeria. “The School’s environment encourages you to dream bigger, to realize that more is possible. I knew I wanted to assist in Africa’s development, but HBS helped add much greater clarity as to how I would actually go about doing that.”
(Published April 2014)
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