Ashish Thakkar’s Twitter biography doesn’t identify him as “Africa’s youngest billionaire,” or “CEO and founder of The Mara Group,” a globally renowned multi-sector investment group, rather, the first word is “refugee.”
Thirty-four-year-old Thakkar’s family is Indian by heritage, but has lived in Africa for four generations. Thakkar was 13 and living in Rwanda when the 1994 genocide forced his family to relocate to Uganda.
His family’s efforts to rebuild their lives inspired him to drop out of school at 15 and start an IT business, buying and selling computer parts. That business eventually evolved into the Mara Group, a company that spans the technology, banking, manufacturing and real estate sectors.
“I wanted to become an entrepreneur and support my family, who had lost everything,” he told The Huffington Post in an interview.
Twenty years after starting in a shopping mall in Kampala, Uganda’s capital, Thakkar’s company now employs more than 11,000 people in 25 countries. He also serves as the chairman of the United Nations Foundation Global Entrepreneurs Council and founded the Mara Foundation in 2009, which serves as an online mentorship portal for young African entrepreneurs.
Ref.: Huffington Post
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