“While I believe in development through market-based solutions, I do also believe that I have a moral responsibility as a privileged African to give back,” says Delle. “In the absence of government action, the role of non-profits is to fill the void.”
Renowned entreprenuer, investor, activist and Lawyer Sangu Delle is Chairman & Chief Executive Officer at Africa Health Holdings (AHH) – an innovative company based in West Africa, which lends focus to “building Africa’s healthcare future” and Chairman of Golden Palm Investments Corporation, dedicated driving and impacting growth across sectors in Africa.
Forever drawn towards the betterment of Africa, Delle, a TED Fellow, right from an early age has been an investor in several African tech startups including Andela, mPharma and Flutterwave.
Drawing from influence of his background; a father who was a prominent doctor and human rights activist, hosting refugees from Liberia and Sierra Leone, at the early age of five, Delle delved into social activism. While in college at Harvard, teaming up with his roommate Darryl Finkton he started College Bound, a set up which connects intercity high school students with Harvard students as mentors in order to help them get through school and accepted into colleges. In 2007, they further founded the African Development Initiative (ADI).
Recalling how it started, Sangu says; “We were doing research and we thought we were going to do something in malaria but then we found out that more kids died from lack of access to water and sanitation than malaria and AIDS combined. During that time, one billion people didn’t have access to clean water and 2.7 billion didn’t have access to sanitation—literally, more people had mobile phones in hand! We thought if we could send a man to space and have all these advancements in technology, it’s crazy that we can’t have clean water. It was so basic. We were outraged and felt compelled to help.”
As time went on, ADI metamorphosed to Cleanacwa, a non-profit initiative dedicated to providing clean water in Ghana’s underdeveloped regions as well as sanitation. Today, cleanacwa is actively working in 120 communities.
The selfless humanitarian graduated from Harvard College with degrees in Economics and African Studies as well as holds two law degrees at Harvard.
He is a recipient of the Soros Fellowship, an Advisory Board member as well as co-Chair of the Leadership Council at the Harvard Centre for African Studies and an Elected Director of Harvard’s Alumni Association.
He served as Chairman of the Board of Stawi Foods & Fruits, a Kenyan award-winning food processing business and is Founding Member of the Rhodes Scholarship for West Africa at Oxford University.
Sangu Delle who has previously worked at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Valiant Capital Partners was selected by Forbes in the ’30-under-30 entrepreneurs’ list in Africa in 2014. .
