Board Members

Tony O. Elumelu, CON

Tony Elumelu chairs privately held investment firm Heirs Holdings and Nigeria’s largest quoted conglomerate, Transcorp. Elumelu invests across Africa, primarily in the oil and gas, financial services, hospitality and power sectors. His investments are informed by his philosophy of Africapitalism: the belief that the private sector can lead Africa’s economic renaissance and that investment should create both economic prosperity and social wealth.

Elumelu sits on a number of public and social sector boards including the United Nations Sustainable Energy for All Initiative (SE4ALL) and USAID’s Private Capital Group for Africa Partners Forum (PCGA). He is also the chairman of pan-African financial services group, United Bank for Africa, and the founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation, which has seeded $100 million through the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurship Programme, to champion entrepreneurship across Africa over the next 10 years.

Dr Awele V. Elumelu

Dr Awele V. Elumelu oversees the healthcare investments in the Heirs Holdings’ portfolio. She holds a Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery degree from the University of Benin.

Her experience as a medical doctor includes general medical practice and emergency medicine. In Nigeria, Dr Elumelu has worked with the Lagos University Teaching Hospital and in the UK, with Grantham and District Hospital, Grantham. In November 2020, she was appointed to the Yale Institute for Global Health Advisory Board.

In January 2018, Dr. Elumelu was appointed as the Champion for immunisation in Africa by the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI).

Emmanuel N. Nnorom

Emmanuel Nnorom is a qualified chartered accountant, and brings over 3 decades of professional experience in the corporate and financial sectors, working with publicly listed companies.

He has held senior positions at Heirs Holdings and had served as an Executive Director at UBA and Managing Director of UBA Africa, overseeing the Group’s African subsidiaries and executing corporate strategy in 18 African countries. Other senior roles within UBA included Group COO UBA, followed by his appointment as UBA’s Group CFO, with responsibility for Finance and Risk.

Emmanuel is an alumnus of Oxford University’s Templeton College, and a prize winner and Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria.

Dr Tony Chukwueke

Dr Tony Chukwueke has over 35 years of experience in the energy industry in Nigeria and internationally, having served at various times as Chief Geophysicist, Value and Portfolio Manager, and Business Development Manager Africa at Shell companies in Nigeria and the UK. Between 2004 and 2009, Tony was an Adviser to the Minister and then Director of the Department of Petroleum Resources where he initiated reforms to production sharing contracts and fiscal arrangements in offshore leases. He holds a first degree in Physics, a Masters in Applied Geophysics and a PhD in Geology from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.

Samuel Nwanze

Samuel Nwanze is a versatile Finance and Investment executive with over 22 years of experience in finance, banking, and investments. Previously Chief Investment Officer at Heirs Holdings responsible for the administration and management of the Group’s overall financial activities and investment programmes. Prior to joining Heirs Holdings, Sam worked in banking institutions in various roles where he oversaw strategy, financial control, performance management, treasury, corporate execution; and led a number of local, regional and international deals and projects. He also played a key role in the STB-UBA merger.

He has worked on a number of green and brownfield investments/projects covering oil and gas, power, agriculture, real estate, hospitality, healthcare, technology, financial services and impact investing. He was the Deal Lead for the acquisition of OML17 and associated assets.

He is a regular faculty at the Oxford Said Business School’s Impact Investing programme and has extensive board-level experience both locally and internationally.