Equity Group CEO James Mwangi bags prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award

Equity Group CEO and MD Dr James Mwangi has received the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award at the All-Africa Business Leaders Awards held at Sun City, South Africa.

Africa Business News, owners of CNBC Africa and Forbes Africa, award the All-Africa Lifetime Achievement Award to individuals who have made remarkable impact on their industry, country and continent during their lifetime.

Judges select a leader with unique character who has contributed to business growth, education and has used his own family wealth to build one of the largest support programs for educating orphans in Africa.

South Africa Deputy President Paul Mashatile and Africa Business News Group Co-Founder and Chairman Rakesh Wahi presented the prestigious award to Dr Mwangi.

He was feted for his vision, lifetime devotion and dedication to the progress of Africa and empowering Africans through Equity Group and its transformative impact inspiring others.

Dr Mwangi was the first recipient of the Forbes Africa Person of the Year Award 11 years ago and is the champion of Equity Group’s twin engine of social and economic impact.

On social impact, he is renowned for the flagship Wings to Fly scholarship program under Education and Leadership Development that has seen close to 60,000 bright needy students get full scholarships.

In this pillar, the bank has offered more than 8,300 scholars paid internships and more than 18,735 have gone ahead to join universities with 761 students benefiting from the global scholarship program that has seen up to 219 scholars admitted to Ivy League universities.

He has led Equity Group Foundation to set up Equity Afia Medical Centers, under which 81 facilities are run by Equity Leadership Program scholars who pursued medical degrees.

The Group’s medical franchise attends to more than 65,000 patients monthly and has so far attended to more than 1.5 million patients cumulatively at the Equity Afia Medical Centers.

Under the Young Africa Works program, Equity Group Foundation has equipped 539,241 MSMEs with loans or trainings then funded them to scale and set up businesses that have gone on to employ more than 1.3 million young people in the last four years.

Its Fanikisha program has supported women to boost their capacity and de-risk to empower them to access affordable credit facilities, including through Pamoja or Group Banking.

14 per cent of Equity Group’s entire loan book goes to support the agricultural and food production sectors.

Through its Food and Agriculture pillar, the Group has trained 3.87 million farmers to form agro-businesses and supported 251,360 MSMEs in agriculture to scale up their capacity.

Dr Mwangi is notable for donating Sh450 million of his family’s savings towards Covid-19 mitigation efforts in Kenya, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Rwanda and Uganda.

While serving as the Chairman of the Health Committee of the Kenya Covid-19 Fund Board, he supervised the distribution of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to 116 public and faith-based hospitals in Kenya’s 47 counties for three years.

Equity Group Foundation has supported financial inclusion of beneficiaries of Social Safety Net by waiving their payment processing fees through free bank accounts to dignify them.

Equity also has branches in all refugee camps in the region among them Dadaab, Kakuma, Kalobeyei and Gulu in Northern Uganda to economically integrate displaced persons and host communities.

In 2020, Dr Mwangi received the Oslo Business for Peace award, popularly referred to as the Nobel Prize for Business.

Under his leadership, Equity Group has become a global thought leader in the Environment, Climate and Sustainability and has championed the global cause of Purpose Driven Business First and in the post Covid-19 environment, Building Back Better.

Equity was the first African business to sign the Leaders on Purpose Global Letter, is a signatory to the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the United Nations Global Compact, the Taskforce on Nature Related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) and has now applied to be accredited to the Green Climate Fund.

Dr Mwangi is the co-founder and co-chairman of the UN Global Compact’s Africa Business Leaders Coalition (ABLC).

The Group is also focusing on transforming schools, hospitals and universities from using wood fuel to LPG and has distributed Sh1.9 billion worth of clean energy, lighting and cooking devices reaching more than 386,120 households.

Dr Mwangi’s business acumen and entrepreneurship was first recognized globally when he bagged the G8 Global Vision Award in Germany in 2005 under the caption “Initiator of the Global Concept that Will Change the Global Economy.”

The social and economic driven business, reinforced by integrated inclusion and shared prosperity won Dr Mwangi the Global Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2012, making him the first business leader in Sub-Saharan Africa to receive the honor.

In the same year he was named the inaugural Forbes Africa Person of the Year before proceeding to receive 6 honorary doctorate degrees from Kenyatta University, Kenya Methodist University, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Africa Nazarene University, Meru University of Science, and Technology (where he is the Chancellor) and Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology.

His leadership has seen Equity grow from position 66 out of 66 in Kenya to become a systemic financial services Group in East and Central Africa and is among the top 3 banks in 5 countries – Kenya, DRC, Rwanda, Uganda, and South Sudan – out of the six countries in which it has been licensed to operate.

Under Dr Mwangi, Equity’s asset base has grown from Sh27 million to over Sh1.5 trillion, with more than 18 million customers and the Group has diversified to philanthropy, technology, insurance and investment banking to play a more significant role in Kenya.

Dr Mwangi was the founding chairman of Kenya Vision 2030 and saw the country grow from a USD 10 billion to a USd 110 billion economy during his tenure that lasted over a decade.

He has served as the inaugural Chancellor of Meru University of Science & Technology, where he is celebrated for giving Sh100 million of his family savings to build and establish a Research, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development center.

He currently champions the development and transformation of Africa under the Equity architected `Africa Recovery and Resilience Plan’, a collaborative and integrated plan focusing on six pillars centered on productivity gains in Agriculture and Commodities.

The plan seeks to drive Manufacturing and Industrialization, enhance Trade and Investment opportunities for Africa with a specific focus on MSMEs, Social Transformation focused on a clean, green Environment and on Technology and innovation.

His contribution to knowledge has been recorded in over 40 case studies by Business schools including Harvard, Stanford, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Columbia, IESE, Cornell, Lagos, and Strathmore Business Schools.

Equity Group Holdings has banking subsidiaries in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, South Sudan, and the DRC, as well as a Commercial Representative Office in Ethiopia and non-banking subsidiaries in Kenya that provide investment banking and stock-brokering, insurance, custodial services, payment services and telecommunication services.

Equity Group Holdings Plc is listed at the Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE) and other regional exchanges with a market capitalization of USD 1.02 billion.

Equity Group Holdings Plc and its subsidiaries comprise Equity Group, which reported a consolidated asset base of Sh1.53 trillion (USD 11.6 billion), deposits of Sh1.11trillion (USD 8.4 billion) and a customer base of over 18.1 million customers as at March 31, 2023.

Equity Group boasts of 358 branches, 67,979 Agents, over 800,000 Pay with Equity (PWE) Merchants, 42,304 Point-of-Sale (POS) Merchants, 683 ATMs and an extensive adoption of digital and mobile banking channels.

The Equity Group Foundation (EGF), with Dr James Mwangi as the Executive Chairman, was established in 2008 as the social impact implementing arm of Equity Group Holdings.

Since inception, EGF has led high-impact development programs in the region in Health; Education and Leadership Development; Energy, Environment and Climate Change; Food and Agriculture; Enterprise Development and Financial Inclusion; and Social Protection.

The recently introduced Innovation Pillar of the Foundation will accelerate reach and efficiency of execution across all six thematic program pillars and provide young people with an outlet for entrepreneurial social progress.

In his acceptance speech, Dr Mwangi linked his lifetime achievement as a philanthropist, entrepreneur and leader to the influence of his upbringing, a mother’s inspiration and circumstances and situation.

“Being brought up by a widowed mother, the late Grace, taught me not to be left behind while others were going to school or church hence Equity’s inclusion strategy to ensure nobody was left behind. She taught me that I had no father to protect me but emphasized that I would not need protection if I did things the right way – hence the strong effective corporate governance at Equity. My mother taught me not to eat to my fill but to ensure each of my siblings were given a fair and equitable share, hence Equity’s philosophy of shared prosperity and the role of Equity Group Foundation. She taught me the place of values, humanity and hence the strong purpose of Equity in changing lives, giving dignity, and expanding opportunities for wealth creation. My mother taught me the value of entrepreneurship, commerce, and trade in fending for myself by selling and vending charcoal, fruits, milk and eventually tea – hence Equity’s strong entrepreneurial culture, strong performance culture and exceptional support for traders, farmers and entrepreneurs and giving back through financial literacy and entrepreneurship training in the real economy of Agriculture and Enterprise,” said Dr Mwangi.

He recognized the role of the more than 13,000 Equity Group staff members, a passionate management team, a devoted Board of Directors, shareholders, and supportive customers.

Dr Mwangi dedicated his Lifetime Achievement Award to all African mothers and women who, like his own mother, nurture, inspire, mentor, influence and shape children to respond and adapt to their circumstances, setting them up for a lifetime of contribution and impact.