Folorunso Alakija is the richest black woman in the world, according to Forbes magazine. She is ranked 94th on the list of power women in the world with a net worth of $2.4 billion. As the Executive Chairman of Famfa Oil, and the owner of The Rose Of Sharon House of Fashion, Mrs Alakija is a self made African billionaire all through.
Although she recently made it known that never attended a university, Folorunso Alakija is well educated in her field. She took a course in Secretarial Studies, which earned her 12 years in the banking industry. She started her career in 1970, as a secretary at Sijuade Enterprises on Broad Street, Lagos. She later became an executive secretary to the Managing Director of the then First National Bank of Chicago, before becoming the Head of Corporate Affairs for International Merchant Bank of Nigeria. She eventually rose to the position of an Office Assistant to the Treasury Department at the same bank.
For the love of fashion and design, Mrs Alakija went back to London to study fashion at The American College in London, and the Central School of Fashion. She returned to Nigeria to establish Supreme Stitches; a fashion house that catered exclusively to expensive clientele, including the former first lady, Maryam Babangida. In 1996, and after her conversion to Christianity, Supreme Stitches was rebranded into The Rose of Sharon House of Fashion.
Undoubtedly, the most popular part of Folorunso Alakija is her ownership of Famfa Oil; a company licensed to explore and extract crude oil in the Agbami field of Central Niger Delta. Work started on the oil block in 1996 in collaboration with Texaco Oil. Mrs Alakija is the Executive Chairman of Famfa while her husband, Modupe Alakija is the Chairman and her four sons are Executive Directors.
Like many other business owners in Nigeria, such as Aliko Dangote and Funke Opeke, Folorunso Alakija’s story is that of an inspiring and hardworking businessperson; people who constantly and bravely forge into uncharted territories and make history, not only as world’s firsts or world’s richest, but also as ordinary Nigerians who worked day in, day out to realise their dreams.
About the author: Amina Salau is a writer and editor running The Illuminated Pen. You can find her online at www.theilluminatedpen.com and on Twitter (@_Aminah)
