KemetLeadsJean-Kacou Diagou
He helped write the rules of a single insurance market, then built the first firm designed for it.
The rise
Born in Abidjan in 1948 and schooled at the seminary of Bingerville, he read economics at the University of Abidjan and qualified at the École nationale d'assurances in Paris in 1972. Nine years at Union des Assurances de Paris were followed by the general management of the Ivorian insurer Union Africaine from 1981.
What they did
He helped draft the CIMA code that harmonised insurance law across francophone Africa, then founded NSIA in Abidjan in January 1995 with 300 million CFA francs. He bought BIAO-Côte d'Ivoire in 2006 and Diamond Bank's francophone arms in 2017, and listed NSIA Banque on the regional BRVM exchange. The group now runs some thirty companies in twelve countries.
The full picture
He led the employers' confederation from 2005 to 2016, through the post-electoral war of 2010–11, which kept him close to successive governments. His daughter Janine Kacou Diagou has been the group's director-general since 2015, and a 2025 reorganisation split it into two holdings, one for insurance and one for banking.
Why it matters
Francophone African capital is nearly absent from this collection. Diagou's insight was legal rather than commercial: he helped write a single market into existence, then built the first company shaped to use it.
“Insurance is a noble sector, a bearer of security, of stability, of foresight.”