Forbes 2024: Three Nigerians make the list of most powerful black Americans
Three Nigerians made the Forbes List of the most powerful, impactful and wealthiest Black Americans in 2024.
The Nigerians on the list are Wemimo Abbey, Tope Awotona and Adebayo Ogunlesi, all based in the United States.
Abbey, 32, is the Cofounder and Co-CEO, ”Esusu”, a New York fintech startup that helps renters build their credit histories and scores by reporting rent payments to credit bureaus.
According to Forbes, more than 20,000 properties currently offer Esusu’s service, and some 1.8 million Americans have used Esusu to record a rent payment.
In early 2022, Esusu raised $130 million in funding at a $1 billion valuation. Before founding Esusu, Abbey, who grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, worked as a mergers and acquisitions consultant at PWC and cofounder of a non-profit and a data analytics startup.
Report has it that his Nigerian mother sold her wedding ring to fund his travel and education in the US.
Awotona, 43, is the Founder and CEO, ”Calendly”, a scheduling software startup which private investors valued at $3 billion in 2021.
At the age of 15, Awotona moved to Atlanta from Lagos where he was born. He studied computer science at the University of Georgia before switching majors to business and management information.
After working as a salesman for several tech firms and launching a few fa!led startups, Awotona cashed in his 401(k) in 2013 to found Calendly because he was frustr@ted with the number of emails it required to schedule meetings. After bootstrapping the company for several years, in 2021 Awotona raised $350 million to further scale Calendly. Today, he is worth an estimated $1.4 billion.
Adebayo Ogunlesi, 70, is the Chairman, co-Founder ‘‘Global Infrastructure Partners’‘, a New York-based private equity firm Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP).
In October 2024, GIP was acquired by BlackRock for $12.5 billion in cash and shares, with Ogunlesi remaining chairman and CEO of GIP. Today, Forbes estimates Ogunlesi, who earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Oxford, a Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School, and an MBA from Harvard Business School has a net worth of $1.7 billion.
After clerking for Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall in the early 1980s, Ogunlesi worked as an attorney at the ”New York law firm Cravath”, ”Swaine & Moore’‘. Prior to cofounding GIP in 2006, Ogunlesi spent more than 20 years as an investment banker at Credit Suisse.
Others in the list of wealthiest black Americans include Dr Dre, Lebron James, Michael Jordan, Beyonce, Jay-Z, and Gary Linnen, to mention a few.
Read also: WWE Legend, Rey Misterio passes on at 66
