Nigerian born international CEO, Adebayo Ogunlesi has now ceased to be an adviser to embattled US President Donald Trump. Trump sacked him today along with other distinguished CEOs counselling him via two councils on how to “Make America Great Again”.
Adebayo Ogunlesi: to advise Trump on the economy
Trump sacked Ogunlesi on Twitter, when he announced the dissolution of two business advisory councils, in one fell swoop.
Ogunlesi was a member of Strategic and Policy Forum, one of the two disbanded by the unpredictable president. The other group was the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative Council.
Ogunlesi, heads Global Infrastructure Partners, a private equity firm and one of Fortune 500 companies. He was the only African on the panel.
The New York Times reported before Trump’s tweeted dissolution, that members of Ogunlesi’s panel were debating dissolving the body entirely as Trump wallowed deeper into bigotry quagmire. But Trump preempted their move.
“Corporate leaders had hoped that President Trump would help businesses by slashing taxes and gutting regulations. It is not clear how much he will deliver on that score. On top of that, he is putting many chief executives in the position of answering for a president with an unparalleled track record of outraging people, most recently at a contentious press conference on Tuesday when he drew a false equivalence between the white supremacists who protested in Charlottesville, Va., last weekend and counter-protesters.”, NYT reported.
Trump had earned rebuke and isolation from business leaders for supporting racial bigotry, White Supremacists and the KKK, following his remarks that failed to blame the tragic violence in Charlottesville, Virginia on the group. Instead, he blamed all the sides and the group that challenged the racists.
The leaders of three companies — Kenneth Frazier of Merck, Kevin Plank of Under Armour and Brian Krzanich of Intel — were the first to resign from the Manufacturing Jobs Initiative Council.
They resigned on Monday because Mr. Trump was slow to condemn the white supremacists during the weekend and blamed “many sides” for the violence.
When Trump moderated his tone on Monday by saying “racism is evil” and condemning neo-Nazis, he did not assuage some of the CEOs working with him.
Scott Paul, the president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing, an organization backed by the steel industry and the United Steelworkers resigned. he was followed on Tuesday by Richard Trumka and Thea Lee, the president and deputy chief of staff for the union group A.F.L.-C.I.O.. The latter’s resignation followed Trump’s reversed position at a press conference at Trump Tower in New York, in which he said that “not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me,” referring to the white nationalists who were chanting “Jews will not replace us” as they marched with tiki-torches.
Ogunlesi’s Strategic Forum, composed some of America’s most highly respected and successful business leaders.
HIS MOTIVATING PROFILE
A Nigerian, Adebayo Ogunlesi, has acquired the London Gatwick Airport as the new owner. The Gatwick deal is a £1.455 billion agreement with BAA Airports Limited. Adebayo Ogunlesi, then 56, is the chairman and managing partner, Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP), an independent investment fund based in New York City with worldwide stake in infrastructure assets,is the new owner of the London Gatwick Airport.
The Nigerian who led Gatwick Airport Acquisition attended prestigious King’s College, Lagos. He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar Association. He was a lecturer at Harvard Law School and the Yale School. Ogunlesi, whose father was the first Nigerian-born medical professor, studied philosophy, politics and economics at Oxford and then earned law and business degrees from Harvard. Ogunlesi has lived in New York for 20 years and is active in volunteer work. But he also cultivates his ties to Africa. He informally advises the Nigerian government on privatisation.
Prior to his current role, he was executive vice chairman and chief client officer of Credit Suisse, based in New York. He previously served as a member of Credit Suisse’s Executive Board and Management Council and chaired the Chairman’s Board. Previously, he was the Global Head of Investment Banking at Credit Suisse. Since joining Credit Suisse in 1983, Ogunlesi has advised clients on strategic transactions and financings in a broad range of industries and has worked on transactions in North and South America, the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia.
Ogunlesi is very much in touch with developments in his homeland Africa. In Nigeria, as an informal adviser to former president Olusegun Obasanjo, Ogunlesi has been known to advise successive governments on fiscal policies, economic development and strategic management…. Amongst other things has been involved in…AFC, IFC it was AFC that led Africa’s participation in the $750 million syndicated lending facility to develop Ghana’s Jubilee Oil Field, which is deemed one of West Africa’s largest deep-water offshore developments in over a decade.