In a historic moment for Nigeria, three exceptional Nigerians—Adebayo Ogunlesi, Wemimo Abbey, and Tope Awotona—have been recognised on Forbes’ inaugural ForbesBLK50 list.
This debut ForbesBLK50 list celebrates the wealthiest, most influential, and impactful Black Americans, marking an important step in addressing the gaps in representation seen in the magazine’s 2009 ranking of the most influential Black Americans. ForbesBLK50 highlights the financial achievements of these honourees and also shines a light on entrepreneurs, innovators, and activists who are changing the world across various industries.
Adebayo Ogunlesi, a seasoned business leader and chairman of Global Infrastructure Partners, brings decades of experience in investment banking and private equity. Wemimo Abbey, cofounder and co-CEO of the fintech startup Esusu, is revolutionising the way renters build credit. Tope Awotona, founder and CEO of the scheduling software company Calendly, has turned a simple idea into a billion-dollar business.
This year’s list also includes powerful figures who have made major strides in business and society, such as Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, and Magic Johnson.
As Forbes shared, “In 2023, when Forbes launched the ForbesBLK platform, creating a new list of the wealthiest Black Americans was one of its main objectives—but net worth isn’t the only way to keep score of impact and influence in the community and world at large.”
Here are the three Nigerian trailblazers who made this prestigious list, along with how Forbes describes their impact:
Adebayo Ogunlesi – Chairman, co-Founder Global Infrastructure Partners
A native of Nigeria and now a U.S. citizen, Ogunlesi is a cofounder of New York-based private equity firm Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP). In October, 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.
Wemimo Abbey – Cofounder and Co-CEO, Esusu
Abbey is cofounder and co-CEO of Esusu, a New York fintech startup that helps renters build their credit histories and scores by reporting rent payments to credit bureaus. More than 20,000 properties currently offer Esusu’s service and some 1.8 million Americans have used Esusu to record a rent payment. The startup also recently launched a direct-to-consumer product, MyEsusu, through which consumers can build credit and monitor their credit scores. 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 cofounded a non-profit and a data analytics startup.
Tope Awotona – Founder and CEO, Calendly
Awotona is the founder and CEO of the scheduling software startup Calendly, which private investors valued at $3 billion in 2021. Born in Lagos, Nigeria, Awotona moved to Atlanta when he was 15, and 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 failed startups, Awotona cashed in his 401(k) in 2013 to found Calendly because he was frustrated 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.
