“Mo” Gulamabbas Dewji, the youngest African billionaire

Mohammed Gulamabbas Dewji is a billionaire businessman, philanthropist, former member of the Tanzanian parliament for 10 years, and owner of MeTL Group, a conglomerate representing around 3.5% of Tanzanian GDP, with an estimated net worth of nearly two billion. US dollars in 2018.

Born on May 8, 1975 in Ipembe, an administrative district of Ziginda district in Tanzania, Mohammed Dewji is the 2nd of the 6 children of Gulamabbas Dewji and Zubeda Dewji. Originally from India, his ancestors who were Shiites left Gujarat in the late 1800s to engage in trade in West Africa.

He went through primary school in Arusha, then went to secondary school at the International School of Tanganyika in the city of Dar Es Salam. In the 1980s, his father had transformed a family shop into a very successful import-export business, which enabled him in 1992 to send Mohammed to continue his studies in the USA. He enrolled at the Arnold Palmer Golf Academy in Orlando with the ambition to be a professional golfer, then at Trinity Preparatory School, and finally at Saddle Brook High School in New Jersey, for his senior year of high school. He also attended Georgetown University in Washington, where he obtained a Bachelor’s degree in international trade and finance in 1998.

crowned by his diplomas, he returned to Tanzania to take over the family business. He thus took the reins of Mohammed Enterprises Tanzania Limited (MeTL), a commodity trading company founded by his father.

In 2000, the Tanzanian government privatized several loss-making companies. The new financial director of MeTL Group, having sniffed out a good deal, bought them a few days later for little cost, and transformed them into profit centers by reducing staff costs. Results ? It is a real success.

From 1999 to 2018, Mohammed Dewji was responsible for the exponential increase in MeTL Group’s revenue from $30 million to $1.5 billion. Today, MeTL Group has investments in areas as diverse as manufacturing, agriculture, commerce, finance, mobile telephony, insurance, real estate, transportation and logistics, as well as food and drink. The group operates in 11 countries and employs more than 28,000 people in 2021.

17th richest person on the African continent, Mohammed Dewji was the first Tanzanian to grace the cover of Forbes magazine in 2013. Founder of the Mo Dewji Foundation in 2014, he joined the Giving Pledge, a community of some of the wealthiest people in the world. committed to giving more than half of their wealth to philanthropy, during their lifetime or in their will. Composed of more than 150 members including Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and Mark Zuckerberg, it is one of the 3 Africans to be a member with the Zimbabwean Strive Masiyiwa and the South African Patrice Motsepe.