Mo Ibrahim
Mo Ibrahim
Dr Mohamed "Mo" Ibrahimis a Sudanese-British mobile communications entrepreneur and billionaire. He worked for several other telecommunications companies before founding Celtel, which when sold had over 24 million mobile phone subscribers in 14 African countries. After selling Celtel in 2005 for $3.4 billion, he set up the Mo Ibrahim Foundation to encourage better governance in Africa, as well as creating the Mo Ibrahim Index, to evaluate nations' performance. He is also a member of the Africa Regional Advisory Board of...
NationalitySudanese
ProfessionBusinessman
CountrySudan
Business people get many undeserved prizes - golden parachutes and bonuses even when companies fail. I don't think people should get rewarded for screwing up.
Business is global. Countries need to react to that; taxes need to be paid where profit arises.
I really don't have heroes in business; I never looked up at business people.
In the final analysis, finding a way to do clean business and not to pay bribes actually improves your bottom line.
Experience counts in government even more than in business.
Africa was perceived - it still is to some extent - as a place which is very difficult to do business in. I don't share that view.
Behind every corrupt politician are 10-20 corrupt businessmen.
Increasing extremism - across Africa and the world - must be understood in the context of the failure of our leaders properly to manage diversity within their borders.
In a world of growing food demand, Africa is home to two-thirds of the world's unexploited arable land.
The African Development Bank is one of the most aggressive advocates of regional integration.
I left Sudan when I was 25 or 26 years old. If I had stayed, I would never have ended up being an entrepreneur. You can have the qualities, but if you don't have the environment, you just wither away. It's like a fish: take it out of water, it will not survive.
I never had a doubt that I wanted to do engineering.
I never set out really to build a financial empire or to be a wealthy man.
I'm uncomfortable, frankly, with the hype about Africa. We went from one extreme... to, like, Africa now is the best thing after sliced bread.