Nigeria: Aliko Dangote has retired as the chair of Dangote Cement. He has been succeeded by Emmanuel Ikazoboh in the post.

Arvind Pathak, the CEO of Dangote Cement, said “On behalf of the board and management, we celebrate our president, Alhaji Aliko Dangote, GCON, who now steps down from the board, for his pivotal and transformative role in shaping the company’s growth, success, and lasting legacy. His visionary leadership, entrepreneurial spirit and unwavering commitment laid the very foundation of our journey.”

Dangote founded parent company Dangote Industries in 1981 as an importer of bagged cement and other commodities such as rice, sugar, flour and salt. In the early 2000s the company purchased Benue Cement and Obajana Cement from the government when they were privatised. Dangote Cement then built a new cement production line at the Obajana plant in the late 2000s before building other plants in Nigeria and expanding internationally in Sub-Saharan Africa in the 2010s. Today, Dangote Cement is the biggest cement company in Africa with a self-declared capacity of 52Mt/yr, operations in 10 countries and annual revenues of US$2.3bn.

Ikazoboh holds over 40 years of experience in management roles in Nigeria, Ivory Coast, Cameroon and South Africa. He started his professional career at Akintola Williams Deloitte becoming a managing partner in Cameroon and Ivory Coast and then later becoming a managing partner in West and Central Africa until 2009. In 2010 he was appointed by the Securities and Exchange as an Interim Administrator to carry out capital market reforms of the Nigerian Stock Exchange and the Central Securities Clearing System. From 2014 to 2000 he worked as the group chair of Ecobank Transnational. He has been a director of Dangote Cement since 2014. Ikazoboh holds a master’s of business administration (MBA) in financial management and marketing from Manchester University Business School, is a certified accountant in the UK and is a fellow of the Nigeria Institute of Chartered Accountants.