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Adebayo Ogunlesi
From Sagamu to the top of Wall Street: the Nigerian who turned airports and pipelines into an asset class.
The rise
Born in Sagamu in 1953, the son of Nigeria's first professor of medicine, Ogunlesi took a first in PPE at Oxford and a joint law and business degree at Harvard, clerked for Justice Thurgood Marshall, then joined Credit Suisse First Boston in 1983 to advise on a Nigerian gas project. By 2002 he ran its global investment bank.
What they did
In 2006 he co-founded Global Infrastructure Partners, which bought Gatwick for £1.455 billion in 2009, rebuilt it and sold control to Vinci; airports, ports, pipelines and power plants grew to about $100 billion under management. In January 2024 BlackRock agreed to buy GIP for $12.5 billion in cash and shares; he joined its board and global executive committee.
The full picture
GIP's returns came from Western and Gulf assets, including fossil-fuel pipelines at odds with investors' climate pledges. He sat on Donald Trump's Strategic and Policy Forum from December 2016 until it dissolved in August 2017. His Nigerian footprint stayed symbolic: ports in Cotonou and Lomé, he admitted in 2025, none at home.
Why it matters
Few African-born financiers have sat higher in global capital markets, and what he finances — airports, ports, power — is what the continent says it cannot fund. His career shows why the money goes elsewhere.
“In the 21st century there simply is no excuse for unreliable electricity supply. Reliable and affordable energy is a foundation requirement for growth.”