The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has appointed Tony Elumelu, founder of Heir Holdings and Group chairman of Tony O. Elumelu, as a member of its advisory council on entrepreneurship and growth.
Elumelu is Africa’s leading advocate of entrepreneurship and whose foundation has funded, trained and mentored over 25,000 African entrepreneurs since 2015, championing entrepreneurship as the engine for the economic transformation of Africa.
Elumelu, a self-made businessman, believes that the private sector in Africa should lead the continent’s development by making long-term investments that provide social and economic benefits.
His embrace of entrepreneurship is central to his idea of Africapitalism.
The IMF advisory council is made up of academics, regulators, and executives from multinational corporations who are committed to finding and removing regulatory obstacles to entrepreneurship.
Its mandate is to recommend policies that enhance resource allocation, stimulate innovation, and catalyse sustainable private sector-led economic growth.
Elumelu will be instrumental in ensuring that Africa’s entrepreneurial potential is central to global economic policymaking.
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Other members are Marc Benioff, the chair, CEO, and co-founder of Salesforce; Ana Botín, the executive chair of Banco Santander; Natarajan Chandrasekaran, the chairman of Tata Group; Margherita Della Valle, the chief executive of Vodafone Group; Robert Smith, the founder, chairman, and CEO of Vista Equity Partners; Federico Sturzenegger, the Argentine minister of deregulation and state transformation; and Harberger, Ufuk Akcigit, who is a professor of economics at the university.
Speaking at the inaugural meeting of the advisory Council on Wednesday, Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF managing director, said the council brings together a group of leading thinkers and practitioners in business, finance, academia, and policymaking to share their views and experiences on how macroeconomic and financial policies can provide a supportive environment for innovation, entrepreneurship, and productivity—key ingredients for a thriving private sector and strong economic growth.
