Voices of African CEOs: Samaila Zubairu, Infrastructure Champion
Andy Akinbamini
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Samaila Zubairu is among Africa's most influential infrastructure financiers, directing billions of dollars into transformative projects over three decades. As President and Chief Executive Officer of the Africa Finance Corporation since 2018, he has redefined what African-led development finance can achieve. Under his leadership, Africa, AFC doubled its sovereign membership, quadrupled investments, and more than tripled profits by year-end 2024.
His crowning achievement remains the landmark acquisition of renewable energy producer Lekela Power through Infinity Power, Africa's largest pure-play renewable energy provider, which has expanded clean power access to over one million homes. The African CEOs' insights Zubairu shares reveal a leader obsessed with value capture, job creation, and industrialisation through infrastructure investment.
The Journey: From Dangote to Development Finance
Photo credit: theafricareport
Zubairu's path to leading the AFC began in Nigeria's private sector, where he honed skills in complex financing and strategic corporate transformation. As pioneer Chief Financial Officer for Dangote Cement Plc, he launched Africa's largest syndicated project finance facility and managed the unbundling of Dangote Industries Limited. This experience transformed a trading group into a pan-African industrial conglomerate, providing invaluable lessons about scaling businesses across African markets.
Before joining AFC in 2018, Zubairu served as CEO of Africapital Management Limited and held senior positions at Liberty Merchant Bank, FSB (now Fidelity Bank), and Denham Management Company. This diverse experience across banking, investment management, and corporate finance gave him a comprehensive understanding of African financial ecosystems. The leadership skills he developed in Africa, particularly in mobilising capital from diverse sources and managing complex stakeholder relationships, would prove essential when he took the helm at AFC with a mandate to accelerate development impact across the continent.
Strategic Vision: Doubling Down on Infrastructure and Clean Energy
Zubairu's strategic plan for AFC centres on urgent mandates: increasing energy access for Africans, driving sustainable development of natural resources, expanding transport and logistics infrastructure, developing heavy industries, and improving telecommunications access. These aren't abstract goals but concrete pillars addressing Africa's most pressing development challenges. Under his leadership, AFC has pursued coherent ecosystem strategies for value-accretive beneficiation and import substitution, recognising that infrastructure alone isn't sufficient without supporting industrial development that captures value locally rather than exporting raw materials for processing elsewhere.
The African CEOs' insights from Zubairu emphasise proactive risk and portfolio management that improved AFC's credit profile while diversifying funding sources. In 2025, AFC raised $400 million through a Shariah-compliant Commodity Murabaha Facility, marking its strategic return to Islamic finance markets after eight years. Recent project milestones demonstrate this strategy in action: in October 2025, AFC-backed Infinity Power reached financial close on the 200 MW Ras Ghareb Wind Farm in Egypt, securing $153 million in senior debt for a project set to come online in 2027.
Leadership Philosophy: African Solutions for African Challenges
Central to Zubairu's leadership approach to Africa is the conviction that African-owned and controlled institutions must lead the continent's development. As new Chairperson of the Alliance of African Multilateral Financial Institutions, he articulated this vision clearly: building a robust financial architecture that captures and retains value within the continent, mobilises African capital for African priorities, and accelerates infrastructure development through collaboration amongst member institutions. This philosophy rejects dependency on external capital and expertise, instead leveraging Africa's own resources and ingenuity to solve development challenges that outsiders often misunderstand.
Zubairu's agenda as AAMFI Chair prioritises youth empowerment through industrialisation, financial literacy, and pension reforms. He advocates strategic investments in infrastructure, paired with the development of capital markets that enhance liquidity and intra-African investment. His focus on cross-border capital mobilisation and early warning systems to prevent financial vulnerabilities demonstrates a sophisticated understanding that Africa's economic resilience requires institutional frameworks that anticipate and mitigate shocks before they destabilise economies. The African CEOs' insights he provides consistently emphasise long-term thinking over short-term gains, recognising that sustainable development requires patient capital and strategic patience.
Clean Energy Leadership: Setting Global Benchmarks
Zubairu has positioned AFC as a leader in clean energy investment, setting global benchmarks for climate action in emerging markets. He co-chairs the World Economic Forum's Network to Mobilise Clean Energy Investments in Emerging Markets and Developing Economies, leveraging this platform to advocate for frameworks that de-risk renewable energy projects and attract private capital. Under his stewardship, AFC has driven some of the continent's most ambitious clean energy projects, impacting millions of lives whilst reinforcing Africa's role as a global economic powerhouse rather than simply a recipient of climate finance.
The Lekela Power acquisition through Infinity Power exemplifies this commitment, expanding AFC's renewable energy portfolio significantly whilst avoiding millions of tonnes of CO2 emissions. This deal won the AFC the Equity Deal of the Year award from the African Banker Awards in 2023, validating the strategic and financial soundness of large-scale clean energy investments. Leadership in Africa in the climate era requires balancing immediate energy access needs with long-term sustainability goals, a tension Zubairu navigates by investing in projects that deliver both reliable power and environmental benefits, positioning Africa favourably in global climate negotiations.
Practical Advice: Building Pan-African Infrastructure Ecosystems
Zubairu's approach to infrastructure development offers valuable lessons for public and private sector leaders. First, think in terms of ecosystems rather than isolated projects. Infrastructure investments have the most significant impact when coordinated across sectors, enabling industrial development that creates jobs and captures value locally. A power plant matters more when paired with transmission infrastructure, industrial parks, and skills development programmes that help communities benefit from reliable electricity. This integrated thinking distinguishes transformative infrastructure from white elephant projects that fail to catalyse broader economic development.
Second, diversify funding sources strategically. AFC's return to Islamic finance markets demonstrates how accessing diverse capital pools reduces dependency on any single source whilst tapping into investor segments aligned with project requirements. The African CEOs' insights from successful infrastructure financiers emphasise building relationships with development finance institutions, commercial banks, institutional investors, and sovereign wealth funds simultaneously. This diversification provides flexibility when market conditions shift and creates competition amongst funders that can improve terms whilst ensuring project financing survives even when individual funding sources withdraw.
The Future: Scaling Impact Through Institutional Collaboration
As AAMFI Chairperson, Zubairu aims to strengthen partnerships amongst member institutions, African governments, and global agencies. AAMFI members include AFC, Afreximbank, Trade and Development Bank Group, African Reinsurance Corporation, African Trade and Investment Development Insurance, Shelter Afrique Development Bank, ZEP-RE, East African Development Bank, African Solidarity Fund, and the Fund for Export Development in Africa. Coordinating these institutions could unlock unprecedented infrastructure financing capacity by reducing duplication, sharing risk, and presenting unified positions to international partners who often play African institutions against each other in negotiations.
Leadership Africa, in this collaborative model, requires balancing institutional self-interest with collective continental priorities. Zubairu's track record suggests he understands this tension, having built AFC's commercial success whilst maintaining development focus. His vision for AAMFI emphasises building a robust financial architecture that retains value within Africa whilst mobilising capital for priority projects spanning borders and sectors. Success will be measured not just in deals closed but in whether African multilateral institutions collectively shift from supporting roles to leading positions in financing the continent's transformation.
Global Recognition and Continuing Impact
Zubairu's leadership has earned recognition far beyond Africa. He delivers keynote addresses at leading global forums, including the World Economic Forum and United Nations Climate Summits, positioning Africa as a serious investment destination with global relevance. As an Eisenhower Fellow and Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Nigeria, he brings credibility that opens doors in international capital markets. Yet he remains grounded in Africa's realities, using global platforms to advocate for fairer treatment of African borrowers and challenge risk premiums that he and peers like Standard Bank CEO Sim Tshabalala describe as scandalous and unjustified.
The African CEOs' insights from Zubairu's career demonstrate that technical competence alone doesn't suffice for transformative leadership in Africa. Vision, persistence, relationship-building, and the ability to articulate African perspectives compellingly in global forums all matter enormously. His commitment to fostering sustainable economic transformation through innovative financing, strategic partnerships, and impactful infrastructure projects provides a template for aspiring leaders seeking to make similar contributions. As AFC continues executing ambitious projects and Zubairu shapes AAMFI's collaborative agenda, his influence on Africa's development trajectory will only grow.
Exclusive interview with Samaila Zubairu, President & CEO of Africa Finance Corporation. Discover African CEOs' insights and leadership Africa wisdom from the infrastructure financing visionary.
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