When this year’s Choiseul 100 Africa laureates were named, only two Ghanaians made the prestigious list. One was Marcia Ashong, CEO of TheBoardroom Africa, and the other was Dr. Sangu Delle, Founder of two very successful companies – Golden Palm Investments Corporation and CarePoint, formerly Africa Health Holdings.
If you think the name rings a bell, you are not far from right. Yes, he is the son of former National Chairman of the Convention People’s Party (CPP) and one Ghana’s foremost dermatologists of Rabito Clinic fame, Prof. Edmund N. Delle, who is also the Paramount Chief of Nandom.
Let’s quickly shift attention to Prof. Edmund Delle to Sangu, who has not been in the public limelight as much as his dad, in spite for the fact that his prowess in academia, entrepreneurship and technology, most definitely make him one of the fastest-rising investors and social impact champions on the continent.
Needless to say, he came through the very rigorous criteria of The Choiseul 100 Africa and emerged as one of the laureates this year. On the back of that, Techgh24 has had the opportunity to review his achievements over the years and we are honoured and obligated to name him the Techgh24 Personality of The Moment.
Let’s get into the fine details.
The Choiseul 100 Africa laureate list is compiled annually by global think-tank The Institut Choiseul, based on an independent study it carries out over several months. The think-tank work with experts and specialists on the continent to reach its study goals.
It is also very strict on candidates/nominees meeting very specific conditions in order to be considered for the rankings.
The basic criteria are that a candidate must be a citizen of one of the 54 African countries, be 40 years old or below by the December 31, 2021, and be an active contributor to the economic development of Africa.
Once an applicant crosses the basic level, his or her profile must also meet several other weighted criteria based on reputation, background, function, influence and networks, as well as potential and leadership.
The total score obtained in the different categories determines the position of each laureate in the final ranking.
The study methodology is deliberately designed to represent all the African regions and as many countries as possible to identify an elite cohort from across the continent, as well as from all value creating sectors.
This year’s study was completed on August 31, 2022, and Dr. Sangu Delle came in 57.
Rich Profile
Born in Ghana, Sangu’s childhood home was a refuge for victims of torture and violence from neighboring Liberia and Sierra Leone. That is the life his parents chose – to care for the distressed and needy in society, and that would later turn Sangu into a spirited philanthropist many years down the lane.
After attending Christ the King and Ghana International School in Accra, Sangu was fortunate to have been awarded a full merit scholarship to attend the Peddie School, a boarding school in New Jersey.
He then went on to Harvard University on a full scholarship, where he was inspired to pursue social and economic entrepreneurship. Sangu graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard College with highest honours in African Studies and Economics, where he was awarded the Thomas Hoopes Prize, the Reverend Peter Gomes Prize, the Philippe Wamba Prize, the Deshaun Hill & Harvard Stephens and the Maurice Sedwell Prize among others. He further obtained an MBA from Harvard Business School and a Doctor of Law from Harvard Law School, where he was a Soros Fellow and received the Dean’s Award for Leadership.
One would have thought that since Harvard was Ivy league school among Ivy league schools, Sangu would have returned home proudly with his Harvard degrees, but no; he traveled for another 6,484 kilometers from the US to the UK and further pursued a fully funded Master’s in International Human Rights Law at Oxford University, where he graduated with Merit Equivalent as an Oxford-Allan and Nesta Ferguson scholar. Again, just earlier this year, he graduated with a PhD in Economic Anthropology and African Studies from the University of Birmingham in the UK.
Gold Palm Investment
Having bagged all those academic laurels from the topmost universities in the world, Sangu naturally worked with some of the most prestigious multinationals like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Valiant Capital Partners. But his compelling conviction that the real needs of communities can best be met through entrepreneurship, led him to start Golden Palm Investments Corporation (“Golden Palm”) in 2006, to back promising tech start-ups that can have social impact and generate jobs back home in Africa.
Today Golden Palm is a leading venture capital firm with over $100 million of assets under management across Africa and has backed leading tech startups such as Andela, Flutterwave and mPharma among over 24 others.
Golden Palm portfolio companies have collectively raised over $1.2 billion in venture financing in the last ten years. Sangu serves as the current Executive Chairman of Golden Palm and previously served as CEO until 2017.
CarePoint
In 2010, Golden Palm started acquiring healthcare assets and in 2017, spun out its healthcare portfolio into a new company, CarePoint (formerly Africa Health Holdings) with a vision to “build Africa’s healthcare future.”
Sangu currently serves as its Chairman and Chief Executive Officer. CarePoint transforms healthcare assets using technology and innovation and currently serves 1 million+ patients a year through its 65+ locations in Egypt, Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya and its telemedicine platform.
Philanthropy
Sangu is a spirited philanthropist who has historically focused on health and education. He co-founded Cleanacwa (formerly the African Development Initiative) in 2006, which worked on clean water and sanitation initiatives to impact over 200,000 people in 160 villages across Ghana.
In 2013, he endowed a Research Fund for Social Engagement in the Department of African and African American Studies at Harvard University in honour of his mentor Professor Evelyn Higginbotham to help fund the next generation of social entrepreneurs focused on solving problems in Africa and the African diaspora.
In 2014, he set up a scholarship at Harvard College in honour of his mother Amira Delle, who wasn’t able to attend college. This scholarship will help support African girls to attend Harvard University.
In 2014, he also established the Amira Delle Scholarship to fund girls from underprivileged backgrounds to attend the prestigious MISE Foundation summer program in Science and Technology in Accra. Two year later, in 2016, he established a financial aid fund at the Peddie School to support students with financial hardship.
Three years on, in 2019, he stablished the Prof Edmund N. Delle Research Fund, in honour of his father, at the Harvard Center for African Studies to sponsor graduate research in Africa. In 2022, in honour of his 35th birthday, Sangu established the Sangu Delle Foundation as the umbrella vehicle to steward his personal philanthropy and to act as a catalytic agent of change.
Boards
Sangu serves on several boards including mPharma, Rabito, CarePoint, Meridian, Lily and Autochek, among others. He was a member of the Advisory board of AXA, the global insurance company, from 2017 -2020. Sangu is a Trustee of the Peddie School in New Jersey.
At Harvard University, Sangu serves on the Board of Overseers, the governing body that oversees all of the University and its 14 schools. Since 1636, he is the second African after the late Archbishop Desmond Tutu to be elected on Harvard’s Board.
Again, at Harvard, he also serves on the Advisory Board of the Harvard Center for African Studies and on the Dean’s Global Health and Service Advisory Council at Harvard Medical School. He is a member of the West Africa Advisory Group of the Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford and the Selection Committee of the West Africa Rhodes Scholarship, for which he was awarded the George Parkin Service Award at Oxford University in 2019.
Back home in Ghana, Sangu also serves on the Board of Directors of Ashesi University, where he chairs the Audit and Risk Committee, and the Board of Directors of Ghana International School.
Awards and Recognitions
As was to be expected, Sangu has received several international accolades including following:
- 2022 African Young Business Leader of the Year,
- 2022 Eisenhower Fellow,
- 2021 World Economic Forum Young Global Leader,
- Harvard Black Students’ Association 2020 Legacy Award,
- New Africa Magazine “100 Most Influential Africans of 2019,”
- EMY 2019 Award for Young Male Achiever of the Year,
- Africa CEO Forum Finalist for “Young CEO of the Year”,
- Africa Youth Awards “100 Most Influential Young Africans”,
- 2016 GOOD 100 List of “100 people who are improving the world through creativity and innovation,”
- Three times winner of Forbes top 30 most promising entrepreneurs in Africa,
- Future Africa Awards 2014 “Young Person of the Year,” and
- Euromoney’s “Africa’s Rising Stars” Award.
In additional to all those, Sangu is also a TED Fellow, an Archbishop Desmond Tutu Fellow and a GLG Social Impact Fellow. Institut Choiseul and Forbes Afrique also named Sangu as one of the top “100 Economic Leaders in Africa” in 2015.
PolicyMic named Sangu as one of 9 entrepreneurs in the millennial generation making a difference in 2014. In the same year, he received a Young African Committed to Excellence award by Face2Face Africa and was featured on Young CEO on Ndani TV in Nigeria. In 2005, as a high school student, Sangu was featured in TIME magazine’s Tomorrow25 as one of 25 future world leaders.
Sangu is a licensed attorney, admitted to practice law in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.
Hobbies
He loves the outdoors and trekked Mount Everest in 2013 and summited Kilimanjaro during the summer of 2015. He has traveled to over 100 countries globally including 47 in Africa, and is the award-winning author of Making Futures: Young Entrepreneurs in a Dynamic Africa, which was shortlisted for the Financial Times / McKinsey Bracken Bower Prize for best business book by an author under age 40 and was published by Cassava Republic in October 2019. He is a Catholic and a proud member of the Noble Order of the Knights of Marshall and the Knights of Colombus.
Need we say more. That’s our Techgh24 Personality of The Moment – Dr. Sangu Delle.
