Business
Profile: Wilfred Sam-King – An African entrepreneur who simply won’t quit
Wilfred Sam-King founder and CEO Sam-King Group
Wilfred Sam-King is the founder and CEO of the Sam-King Group, which he founded in 1998 IN Sierra Leone.
By the age of 33, Wilfred Sam-King had earned and lost a fortune three times over. Each time he built a business from nothing, he saw it looted or torched in a coup or a rebel invasion.
When rebels laid siege to Freetown in 1999, they searched everywhere for Sierra Leone’s famed businessman, aiming to take his money. One day they captured him – but he had disguised himself in shabby clothes, pretending to be his own cook. He made soup for the rebels for three days before escaping.
Refusing to leave his homeland – even after his wife and children found shelter in Canada during the civil war – he patiently rebuilt his fortune again, and today has created a small empire of hotels, retail shops and other businesses worth US$20 million.
His determination has made Mr. Sam-King one of Sierra Leone’s most successful entrepreneurs – and living proof of the persistence and imagination that is transforming Africa’s economy.
While foreign mining and oil investors are one reason for the African boom, the new class of indigenous entrepreneurs is equally important. Their stories are testament to the business acumen of Africans themselves, unleashed by the end of war and the fall of dictatorship.
