Meet The Nigerian Who Emerged UK’s Most Powerful Black Person

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Meet Tom Ilube, a Nigerian who emerged the United Kingdom’s most powerful black man.

Ilube, who’s also a British citizen, was unveiled as the most powerful black man in the country by Powerlist, a publication which selects 100 of the most powerful people of African and African Caribbean heritage.

Powerlist explained that competitors were judged on their “ability to change lives and alter events, as demonstrated over a protracted period of time and in a positive manner.”

An independent panel of judges led by Dame Linda Dobbs, a former high court judge, and Michael Eboda, a publisher, recommended him, after which he was announced.

Ilube, 53, who was born in Isleworth, west London, to a Nigerian father, schooled at the University of Benin, Edo State, where he bagged a B.Sc Physics. He later obtained an MBA at Cass Business School in London.

After graduation, several efforts to get a job all ended in frustration. He applied and was rejected for a graduate trainee scheme at McDonald’s “for not being good enough”.

But he didn’t give up. He sent applications to every company starting with the letter A and was turned down again and again, so he started working through the Bs and ended up working for British Airways as a programmer. He later worked at the London Stock Exchange in the 1980s, where he was one of few black professionals. He was able to work his way to the top.

Ilube is renowned for his outstanding work in education. He founded Hammersmith Academy, which opened in September 2011 and has gone on to become one of the UK’s most innovative technology schools.

A philanthropist, he set up African Gifted Foundation, to help transform the lives of hundreds of children on the continent.

Earlier this year, he opened the African Science Academy (ASA), Africa’s first girls-only science and technology school, based in Ghana, with young women scientists attending from Ghana, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Cameroon, Sierra Leone and Uganda.

Though a fee-paying school, ASA provides scholarships for students with financial needs.

The academy which is driving Africa’s development by inspiring and unleashing the next generation of gifted scientists and engineers, aims to admit over 200 students a year.

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