The Best-Performing CEOs in Africa in 2024

The chief executive role is a tough one to fill. From 2020 to 2024, about a quarter of the CEO departures in Africa were involuntary, according to our analysis.

The fallout from these dismissals can be staggering: Forced turnover at the top costs shareholders millions of dollars in lost market value annually.

Those figures are discouraging for directors with the hard task of anointing CEOs—and daunting to any leader aspiring to the C-suite. Many otherwise capable leaders and boards are getting something wrong. The question is, what?

The knock on most business leaders is that they don’t take the long view—that they’re fixated on achieving short-term goals to lift their pay. So which African CEOs delivered solid results over the long run? Our 2024 list of top performers provides an answer.

It is worth noting that most of Africa’s top-performing CEOs aren’t household names. The AfricanCEO magazine’s ranking of CEOs is meant to be a measure of enduring success. We tracked and analysed each CEO’s performance starting from day one of his or her tenure. Our goal is to create a list that gets beyond the most recent quarterly or even annual results and truly evaluates long-term performance.

Our ranking is not based exclusively on hard stock market numbers. We looked at total shareholder return, as well as the change in each company’s market capitalization. (For more details, see « How We Calculated the Ranking. »)

We like that the ranking is based solidly on data and not on reputation or anecdote. Yet it also felt incomplete because it failed to account for the many aspects of leadership that go beyond mere market performance.

In the long term, social and environmental issues become financial issues. So, we took into account measuring each company’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance. For this, we relied on researching each company’s ESG or sustainability report. We now weigh long-term financial results at 80% and ESG performance at 20%.

Our methodology focuses on CEOs who took the reins before 2020 though there are a few exceptions. We analysed the performance of those CEOs as well, using the returns generated from 2020 onward. The decision to add CEOs who began before 2020 also shook up our ranking. About seventy percent of this year’s top 100 started the job before then, meaning few are new in the CEO role.

At the AfricanCEO magazine, we continue to experiment with the perfect measure of a CEO’s worth, and we look forward to getting our readers’ input. Are we right to include these critical, but less easily quantifiable, measures?

Are there further ways of fully evaluating companies and their CEOs?
Our view is that, in an era of big data and greater transparency, consumers and investors increasingly want to understand a company’s culture and values. They want to analyse its social behaviour, not just its share price. These new measurements will only get better over time.

Peter SaSellu, the publisher and editor of the AfricanCEO magazine argues that « the business of business is longer business. » As Peter puts it, « I would change that to say the business of business is business—but with a long-term perspective. » And in that calculation, social and environmental issues are critical.

What’s included and how did we do the ranking?
The 100 CEOs represent 18 nationalities and 100 companies located in 18 African countries. Women represent 15 percent of their male counterparts, which is a significant move towards having more women in leadership or CEO roles in large corporations on the continent.

However, many CEOs in Francophone countries often move from country to country, making it difficult to track their progress. We also took into consideration stability on the job or job retention as a CEO. With this, we discovered that Nigerian CEOs last longer on the job or in the CEO position when compared to CEOs in other regions or mostly Francophone countries. Little or Less information is « readily » available on Francophone country CEOs as to those of the English-speaking CEOs or regions. This posed a major challenge in our analysis.

To make it an Africa-centred initiative, only CEOs who are of African origin or nationals of African countries are considered, even though non-African or foreign CEOs are heading companies with larger assets in many African markets.

In conclusion, Nigerian CEOs top the list because they have more available information compared to CEOs from other countries or regions, followed by Kenya and South Africa with more accessible information such as CEO tenure, age, education and qualification, date of appointment, etc.

About the African CEO magazine’s Top 100 CEOs List
The African CEO magazine’s Top 100 CEOs in Africa annual list is an initiative to profile the Best-Performing CEOs on the continent. The list is calculated by measuring financial returns during each CEO’s entire tenure and factoring in two assessments of each company’s environmental, social, and governance practices. Africa’s Top 100 CEOs initiative will help drive discussion of how society should measure a business leader’s performance. The goal of the listing is to help promote discussions in the business environment focusing on leadership, growth/return on investment, ESG, and sustainability across Africa.

The editorial team considers and priorities CEOs whose companies are listed on a stock exchange because their companies are regulated because they follow strict rules and in some instances, are expected to meet certain reporting standards, such as good corporate governance, sustainability reporting, accounting, and financial reporting, etc. to meet stakeholder and shareholder expectations.

MCB Group CEO Jean Michel Ng Tseung is among them at the 95th place.