Sam E. Jonah

Sir Sam Jonah became chief executive of Ashanti Goldfields at 36 and grew it from about 240,000 to more than 1.6 million ounces of gold a year, taking it onto the New York Stock Exchange as the first operating African company listed there. In 2003 he became the first Ghanaian knighted in the 21st century.

Obuasi to London

Samuel Esson Jonah was born in Obuasi on 19 November 1949 into a Fante royal family. After Adisadel College, where a house is named after his father, Thomas Jonah, he studied mining engineering at the Camborne School of Mines and earned an MSc in mine management at Imperial College.

Business

He joined Ashanti Goldfields in 1979, working underground before rising to lead it, and later co-led AngloGold Ashanti as president. He now chairs Jonah Capital, a Johannesburg investment firm, and has sat on boards including Vodafone, Standard Bank of South Africa, Lonmin, Transnet and Ashesi University, as well as advisory councils for the UN Global Compact and the presidents of Nigeria, South Africa and Ghana. He is Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast. The US National Academy of Engineering elected him a member in 2019.