Africa’s most inspirational business leader
Contributed and compiled by Udzungwa Mountains College Students Club of Entrepreneurship (UMCSCE) 30th April 2022 (club @umcsce.org)

“Africa is all about entrepreneurship,” – Sam Jonah.
“I (Sam Jonah) would like to be defined more by what I (Sam Jonah) have done, than what I have,” – Sam Jonah.
“My business was breaking rock,” – Sam Jonah.

“You must be humble enough to know what you know and to appreciate what skills you don’t have, and to have a plan.” – Sam Jonah.

“I (Sam Jonah) saw no barriers. I (Sam Jonah) was determined to get to the highest (level) in anything that I did,” – Sam Jonah.

“Wisdom does not reside in the head of only one person,” – Sam Jonah.

“You learn quickly how to get what you want from people who are better equipped, who are better skilled, who are better experienced, who are much older than you are,” – Sam Jonah.

Sam Jonah was born in 1949 in a military camp in Kibi, Ghana; his father – a sergeant major and World War II veteran, served in the Royal West African Frontier Force. Soon after, Jonah senior left the army and set up a construction company. The family moved to Obuasi where Jonah went to school. It was after high school that Jonah made the surprising decision to work underground at Ashanti Goldfields Corporation’s (Ashanti) Obuasi mine, the only mine in Ghana. Jonah’s classmates were going into law and medicine, while he (Sam Jonah) was going to work shoulder-to-shoulder with men who had barely gone to school. Jonah saw that mining was run by whites and wanted to change it. There were tough days underground. Jonah calls it his most humbling experience and with merely a high school certificate and no experience, he had to sink to the bottom of the barrel to learn to survive.

Sam Jonah won a scholarship to study mining engineering at the Cambridge School of Mines, in England, which later awarded him an honorary doctorate. He (Sam Jonah) returned to Ashanti and moved up the ranks. Then he (Sam Jonah) returned briefly to London to study business at Imperial College, now the University of London. It was during these exciting days at Ashanti that tragedy struck. One day, Jonah was underground when the chamber’s ceiling fell in, trapping and killing miners. It was time for quick thinking. Jonah saw the man trapped under the rubble who showed signs of life by muttering softly. Under Jonah’s guidance, a team worked to pull the man free and carry him to the lift. The miner, whose legs were crushed, drew Jonah close and thanked him.

Four hours later the miner was dead. This was the life Jonah chose as a young man; a life he (Sam Jonah) likens to that of a soldier. In 1979, air force officer, the late Jerry Rawlings, then 32, led a coup in Ghana and nominated Jonah, who was the same age, to be Ashanti’s vice president. In 1986, the late Ting Rowland, the founder of Lonrho, which owned Ashanti, appointed Jonah as managing director. This was at a time when production at the company’s single mine had deteriorated and the industry had yet to see a black man at the helm. In his new position, Jonah introduced his “Africanization Policy”. He (Sam Jonah) wanted to change an industry that was run by whites. He (Sam Jonah) wanted to attract his countrymen to the industry to prosper like he had, by forcing expatriates to fulfill their contractual obligations to impart skills. Moreover, Jonah wanted to cut the expense of expatriates. Why pay a foreigner four times what you would pay a Ghanaian to do the same job?

This policy was unpopular among expatriates but it was all about the big picture in a growing company. Jonah considers the business to be all about people. He (Sam Jonah) feels that it is a leader’s responsibility to identify talent and harness it, to set aside one’s ego and surround oneself with the very best to make one look good. Jonah, the driving force behind Ashanti’s growth sees opportunities where others don’t. In his time (Sam Jonah), Ashanti grew from a single mine in Ghana to the second-largest gold producer in the World. This company (Ashanti Gold Fields) was public until the Ghanaian military government under General Acheampong, took 55% share in 1972 making it a partnership between the government and Lonrho. In the quest for growth, Jonah and his team convinced the partners that better days were ahead of the company went public again. Once Ashanti listed on both Ghana and London, the government-held 17% of the company and Lonrho 27%.

Between 1994 – and 2004, Ashanti went on the acquisition hunt in an attempt to be both an entrepreneurial as well as a conservative company. It extended its operations in Ghana, Australia, Zimbabwe, Guinea, and Tanzania. In 1996 Ashanti became the first African –based company to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange. After his time at Anglo Gold Ashanti, Jonah became a serial director. Some junior mining companies approached him to guide them to success, as he (Sam Jonah) had done for Ashanti. Equinox Minerals, a mining exploration company based in Zambia, was at the feasibility stage when it approached Jonah. Years later, in 2011, the company that had a market capitalization of $63.2 million in 2006, was sold to the Barrick Gold Corporation for $7.4 billion, Moto Goldmines in Ghana, grew from a $50 million Market Capitalization company and was sold to RangGold Resources and Anglo Gold Ashanti in October 2009.

Since Anglo Gold Ashanti, Jonah has set on at least 18 boards of companies.
Sam Jonah has held positions on the boards of a few companies, including Vodafone PLC. He (Sam Jonah) is also the founder and chairman of Jonah Capital, a private investment holding company, based in South Africa, with interests in mineral resources, real estate, agriculture, construction materials, financial services, and oil and gas services. His counsel is still cherished by African leaders and his counsel was extended beyond the business world when the former president of Togo named him on his advisory panel of Eminent Business Leaders, and he continues to fight the African cause internationally. When former South African President Thabo Mbeki set up the international Investment Advisory Council in 2000, Jonah was the first and only African to sit on it. He (Sam Jonah) has also been an advisor to former Nigerian Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo, his successor Umaru Musa YarAdua and Goodluck Jonathan. He (Sam Jonah) was a founding member of Ghanaian President John Kufuor’s investment advisory council and advised the late President of Zambia, Levy Mwanawasa, on investment promotion. Jonah was also on the late Kofi Annan’s UN Global Compact Advisory Council. According to his biography, Sam Jonah and the Remaking of Ashanti by Ayowa.

A Taylor, Jonah turned down the position of Ghanaian vice president twice. On June 25, 2003, Jonah received an Honorary Knighthood in recognition of his achievement as an African businessman at St. James Palace, in London. Knighthoods conferred to foreign citizens are done so on the advice of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. They are bestowed on those who have made an important contribution to relations between their country and Britain. In 2006, Jonah received the Order of the star of Ghana, the nation’s highest award, and the Commonwealth Business Council Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010. Also, Jonah has got to have been appointed – along with 12 other internationally recognized business, academic, and public policy leaders to sit on the newly formed Bank of America Global Advisory Council. He (Sam Jonah) has been reported by African journalists and bloggers, as having a net worth of between $ 500 and $ 600 million and has been celebrated as the richest man in Ghana. Despite all this success Jonah maintains that he is not a wealthy man. Sam Jonah is an avid reader and big fan of Rudyard Kipling.