Mike Adenuga is a successful business man known for his remarkable achievements in telecommunications and Energy sectors respectively. His laudable success as a high ranking billionaire in Africa has prompted many to inquire into knowing more things about him, his career, businesses, family life and his journey to greatness.
Full name
He is a popular business man in Africa and many only know him as Mike Adenuga. It is common to call someone by his or her shortest names and it’s not surprising that many also adopted to use the shortest form of his name. His full name is Michael Adeniyi Agbolade Ishola Adenuga Jnr.
Age
He celebrated his 70th birthday on 29th April 2023
Parents
His father’s name is Oloye Michael Agbolade Adenuga Snr while his mother’s name is Juliana Oyindamola Adenuga
Wife
He has two wives or spouses who are Adefolake Emilia Adenuga and Titi Joyce Adenuga
Children
He is a proud father and has about seven biological children.
Background/Early Life
Mike Adenuga was born on 29th April 1953 in Ibadan which served as the capital of old Western region and currently located in present day Oyo State South West Nigeria. He was named after his father and that brought the junior attached to his name as a way of differentiating him from his father who is the senior Michael Adenuga. He was born into a home mixed with academic and commerce. His father was a school teacher and it made him to know that education is important while his mother was a full business woman. His mother’s choice of vocation also helped in his inbuilt entrepreneurial drive during the latter days of his career.
Education
He is well educated and he attended Ibadan Grammar School and Comprehensive High School Aiyetoro for his secondary school education before leaving Nigeria for United States of America where he studied Business Administration at Northwestern Oklahoma State University and Pace University New York respectively.
Business Career
Even when he was still a student, he started a taxi hailing business to support himself in school and fund his education. He worked assiduously to pay his bills through the small returns that comes from his taxi business which was another way of sharpening his business skills, building capacity and resilience. He thinks like an entrepreneur at all time which helps him in figuring out ways to solve problem in the society and earn a profit as a reward.
Before he kicked off his bigger businesses, he started from the scratch and somewhere in building his way to the top. He started from where he was standing and made a difference in unique ways. Before his 27th birthday, he was already a millionaire as he started doing business very early as a man on a mission of solving problems and creating massive employment opportunities for the people.
He sold soft drinks as a distributor for many years. He played a vital role in the distribution aspect of the business even when he was not directly manufacturing the drinks. While doing the business, he still kept his eyes on the bigger dream and it led him into oil and gas business where he founded Conoil Plc. He started playing in the upstream and downstream sector of Nigeria oil and gas where he introduced his own different marketing strategies to win a bigger market share while wrestling with other competitors.
His knowledge as a business administrator became an added advantage for him as he was building his business. His background also contributed as he watched his mother doing business when he was still small. He built his oil and gas company using his entrepreneurial spirit in leading revolution in certain areas of the business.
Mike is like notable entrepreneurs that believe they can change the world through efforts in solving perceived and existing problems. His oil and gas company has several retail stations in many States in Nigeria which is a testimony of his elephant stand in downstream sector of oil business.
He is also attributed to have gained a drilling license using his company which enabled his company to discover huge oil deposit in the place he was granted permission to explore. He was fully engaged in his business through nurturing his team, hiring and assigning roles to people that work for him as believe in doing things the right way that brings results or return on investment for him. He works hard for his money knowing how he started from the scratch yet did his best to work his way to the top.
In the 90s, he focused in his oil business while networking with other businessmen and leaders in various sectors but he has eagle eye that helps him to spot opportunity and position very well ahead of the demand.
He saw that the world was fast changing to transit from the restriction of landed phones to the use of portable handset that can be inserted in the pocket, bag and carried about anywhere unlike land phones. In 1999, he has applied to secure a telecommunication license for Nigeria permit on the Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM).
His interest in telecommunication business made him to start Globacom which many refer to as “Glo” as the adopted name of the company sim card. His company became the second largest telecommunication company and he also became the first Nigerian to own a telecommunication company as big as Globacom.
The company became operational in Nigeria and also expanded to other African countries as his way of bringing uncommon things in telecommunication sector.
He is not a business man that witness life as bed of roses. He witness set back in many ways but he was able to use laudable business strategies to overcome obstacles that came his way. Even though he secured operational license for his telecommunication business, it was at a point revoked and he ensured he secured back the operating license as his type of sector of interest in telecommunication business is highly regulated and he was facing unyielding competitors in the same line of business.
He used his leadership skills to grow Globacom into the admirable company it is today as most people that have his competitor’s sim card also have Glo sim card as well due to certain services his company offers that are rarely seen elsewhere.
He did not record hundred percent success in some nearby African countries he expanded his telecommunication company into but he remain dauntless and always coming up with better results that have kept him in business for many decades.
Many Africans don’t know him for his success in oil and gas business. Many got to know him because of what he has used Globacom to achieve in the society and it has made his name to be a household name.
Social Media
He is not a media type of person and he is not active on social media where people expected him to be sharing his personal life, business and family life.
Net worth
He is very wealthy and he is one of the notable rich men in Africa that made the bulk of his money through commodity trading and telecommunication. He is estimated to worth more than $6 billion dollars.