Dr. Akintoye Akindele: Beyond Profits, Into Impact

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When you start a company, the biggest challenge is often money. Capital can make or break a project, even if the idea is strong. Dr. Akintoye Akindele learned this lesson early, but for him, the story of building a business has always been bigger than money; it is about people, community, and creating something that lasts.

He comes from a family where values mattered more than titles. His father was a banker and a servant leader, someone who believed that leadership was about moving everyone forward together. His mother was a manager who retired to become an entrepreneur and dedicate herself to the family. Their home was always full; at any meal, there were over fifty plates on the table. They were feeding not just family, but the community. Growing up in that house, Akintoye understood the responsibility that comes with being blessed and the power of giving back. He remembers his parents’ insistence on integrity, hard work, and being a brother’s keeper, lessons that formed his approach to business and life.

Akintoye studied chemical engineering in Nigeria in the 1990s. While his siblings followed banking, he wanted to help Nigeria build industries and systems, to reduce reliance on imports and make the country more self-sufficient. He started at NNPC, the state oil company, but every project faced the same problem: capital. In the mid-90s, Nigeria and the world were in a volatile period. Military rule had left the economy unstable, global policies were shifting, and raising money for projects was difficult.

To overcome these challenges, he moved into banking, joining Guaranty Trust Bank. The bank trained him in finance, economics, strategy, law, and customer service. He also saw technology emerging as a force that would change every industry, so he earned Microsoft and other technology certifications, combining engineering and finance to see the full picture of how businesses could grow.

During his banking career, Akintoye worked with global multinationals operating in Nigeria. He learned how subsidiaries ran, how shared services worked, and how talent could be cultivated. He moved to run the investment banking unit focused telecoms and technology sectors at another bank, at a time when Nigeria had just returned to democracy and economic change was in full swing.

After seven years in banking, he shifted to private equity at African Capital Alliance. There, he learned how to structure equity investments, manage portfolio companies, and help entrepreneurs scale. He worked across telecoms, manufacturing, power, and services, guiding companies from startup to maturity and helping them attract the right talent.

With that experience, he founded Synergy Capital Advisory. The firm did investment banking, corporate finance, fiduciary services, and principal investments. They took companies public, raised their own private equity fund, and invested in companies while building their balance sheet. Fourteen years ago, Synergy raised over a $100 million private equity fund, with investors like the World Bank,s IFC, CDC, European Investment Bank, and American foundations. During this period, Akintoye also pursued a PhD in finance in France to connect theory with practice and explore creative financing solutions for African businesses.

His experience showed him that Africa’s companies need patient capital. Traditional private equity funds expect returns in five to seven years, but building a company to critical scale takes over 10 years and often 15 years and more. He wanted to build businesses that could thrive over the long term, generating both profit and social impact. That is why he founded Platform Capital.

Platform Capital focuses on sustainable enterprises that deliver impact while generating strong returns. They invest in businesses for the long term, deploy their own capital, advise entrepreneurs, and support third-party investors. The firm shields portfolio companies from short-term pressures, giving them space to grow. Over the past 6 years, Platform Capital has grown its balance sheet fifty times and impacted over 1.1 million lives.

Akintoye’s journey is rooted in family lessons about integrity, leadership, and responsibility. From the crowded kitchen table of his childhood to building companies that change industries, he has turned vision and patience into lasting impact. His story is an example that true success combines wealth with purpose, profit with people, and capital with care.

Let us learn more about his journey:

Experiences That Shape Leadership

Much of his leadership approach comes from these early lessons, especially those learned from his father. He explains that a leader begins as a servant. Observing his father lead through service, empathy, and prioritizing the collective good over personal goals developed his understanding of leadership. These principles remain central to how he guides and inspires others today.

His professional journey reinforced these values. At Guaranty Trust Bank, he worked under founders who invested in people and communities decades ago. They focused on nurturing potential, understanding that the impact of leadership stretches beyond immediate gain. Their commitment created a network of capable leaders and a strong banking community. From these experiences, Dr. Akintoye learned that leadership demands knowledge, authenticity, practicality, loyalty, and dedication to collective success. For him, building a meaningful legacy and contributing to society outweighs personal accumulation.

Dr. Akintoye believes leadership is an ongoing process that adapts to the needs of the people and context. While core principles remain central, his approach evolves depending on the age, experience, or sector of his team.

At Platform Capital, his values, summarized as BLACK, guide every decision: being a brother’s keeper, demonstrating loyalty, showing authenticity, and maintaining competence and continuous strive for knowledge. Leadership, in his view, requires consistent presence, accountability, and adaptability, anchored in principles that remain steady regardless of circumstances. These principles form the way he empowers teams, creating an environment where people feel ownership and responsibility.

Empowerment in Building Strong Teams

For Akintoye, empowerment lies at the heart of building strong and successful teams. At his organisation, management and staff collectively own 97% of the company’s capital, making Platform Capital (www.theplatformcapital.com) a collective owner manager institution . This shared ownership brings his values to life, motivating everyone to contribute fully and invest in the success of the business.

Core values are clear and embraced by everyone, giving employees a sense of purpose. Passion drives the team, as individuals care deeply about the mission of building sustainable businesses that combine capital growth with social impact. Goals are always clear, so everyone understands what is expected of them at each stage, creating an environment where people are self-motivated.

Empowerment comes from within, and the organisation cultivates an environment where people can express themselves, grow, and thrive. Employees gain training, hands-on experience, and exposure, giving them the opportunity to flourish. The results speak volumes: the company has grown its balance sheet fifty times in six years and positively impacted over one million lives, instilling employees with the confidence and drive to achieve even more. This sense of purpose and achievement resonates with a deeper truth, as Dr. Akintoye observes the rarity and wonder of being human.

Gratitude and Humanity as the Core of Leadership

Being human is a profound gift from God, according to Dr. Akintoye. He reflects on the rarity of existence, noting that many potential lives never come into being. Science suggests that for every child born, tens of millions of sperm do not survive. Throughout history, approximately 100 billion people have lived, yet the number of lives that could have existed but did not stretch into quadrillions. Amid such vast possibilities, the chance to exist, to be born, and to experience life is extraordinary and a priceless gift.

Gratitude lies at the heart of Dr. Akintoye’s perspective. Each day, he wakes with appreciation for life and dedicates himself to giving his best because being human allows experiences and opportunities beyond the reach of angels. Humans have the ability to shape the world, to build, to create, to fail, and to rise again. They can experience success, raise children, and pursue ambitions, making life a precious and irreplaceable gift.

Dr. Akintoye maintains his emotional intelligence and connection with others by grounding himself in gratitude. When faced with challenges or doubts, he visits orphanages or hospitals, witnessing resilience and courage in others, and reflects on the impermanence of life in graveyards. These experiences remind him to remain humble, human, and focused on making meaningful contributions.

He believes in fully exploring one’s gifts and capabilities. A life unexamined or a potential unrealized represents a loss of opportunity. Dr. Akintoye approaches both triumph and adversity with acceptance, recognizing each moment as a chance to grow, learn, and leverage new opportunities. Life, in his view, is a gift that demands full engagement, a treasure to be cherished and honored in every action. This same philosophy extends to how he approaches others, as empowering people opens doors to possibilities beyond immediate expectation.

Empowering Others to Drive Innovation

Dr. Akintoye explains that giving individuals freedom allows them to explore paths beyond what is initially imagined. He emphasizes that the journey of innovation cannot be fully predicted and requires openness to possibilities. Empowerment fosters creativity, and innovation carries the potential for results that may differ from expectations, revealing opportunities that could otherwise remain hidden.

What some call failure is a misleading term, as true failure occurs only when one quits. Every attempt generates outcomes, and even those that diverge from the desired goal represent growth and progress. Progress and learning become the true measures of success, exemplified by Thomas Edison, who experimented with electricity repeatedly, learning with each attempt.

Dr. Akintoye notes that innovation thrives in an environment where empowerment and communication coexist. People need room to experiment, make adjustments, and try again. Over his career, he has served on over 160 boards worldwide, incubated over 100 companies, advised, mentored or supported thousands of entrepreneurs, and witnessed groundbreaking innovations such as flying cars and advanced technology projects From North America to Africa. Some ventures have succeeded greatly, while others have not, but every opportunity to empower someone to innovate is embraced.

He gives an example of a company in Kenya supported by his team. Within five years, the company developed a solution that replaced charcoal and kerosene in homes with ethanol, impacting over a million households, saving thousands of lives, and reducing carbon emissions. The investment began with trust in the team’s vision, even before meeting the founders.

Another initiative involved converting human waste into valuable products, demonstrating the tangible outcomes of empowering innovation. Dr. Akintoye stresses that each opportunity to enable creativity produces growth, whether immediate results meet expectations or not. Advancement in humanity depends on empowering people and fostering innovation, a principle central to his work. This commitment to enabling potential extends directly into his approach to leadership.

Fostering Inclusive Leadership

Leadership today goes beyond strategy, embracing inclusion and diverse perspectives. The challenge lies in ensuring that different voices do more than occupy a seat at the table; they must form and influence decision-making. Dr. Akintoye firmly believes in empowering his team, which includes young professionals, women, and people of varied races and nationalities. He places women in leadership positions and supports young talent, having financially supported over 100 schools and built infrastructure for business schools, linking the same principle of empowerment in innovation to building leaders for the future.

As a professor in France and Nigeria, he engages with people across all age groups. He emphasizes that leadership requires understanding different viewpoints, including those of women, young professionals, and individuals of varied backgrounds. By combining these perspectives, a leader can guide a group collectively in one direction.

To make sure these voices are genuinely heard, Dr. Akintoye maintains a flat organizational structure. His team meets regularly and engages in open discussions. He remains accessible to everyone, manages his own communications, and avoids hierarchical barriers. This approach ensures that each team member can contribute directly, creating an environment where inclusive leadership thrives.

Redefining Leadership Principles for Lasting Impact

As the organization grows, leadership naturally evolves, and long-standing principles undergo reconsideration. Dr. Akintoye explains that every leader shapes their approach through their own journey. Styles vary widely, influenced by distinct visions, missions, goals, and strategies. His approach is grounded in personal experiences and values, reflecting a path forged by his own lessons rather than a template for others.

He emphasizes that the future demands courage and deliberate action today. Leadership involves empowering young people, supporting women, and addressing social injustices. For him, leadership goes beyond managing an organization; it is about building a better world and taking responsibility for the impact of present actions on future generations.

Dr. Akintoye urges leaders to adopt a long-term perspective, considering how they wish to be remembered over the next thirty to fifty years. Legacy is measured not by wealth alone but by the lives touched and the positive changes achieved. While financial success holds importance, meaningful leadership is defined by the difference made in the lives of others.

Ultimately, he views leadership as the chance to transform an organization and the people within it for the better. His approach to leadership is shaped by his personal journey, grounded in principles that emphasize resilience, vision, and the power of consistent effort. Central to this philosophy is the belief that leadership carries a responsibility to empower others, creating lasting impact beyond individual success.

Empowering Africa’s Future

Dr. Akintoye hopes to be remembered as someone who gave his best to create the future of Africa, ensuring the continent claims its rightful place in the world. He wants every African entrepreneur and child to have access to the guidance, principles, and mentorship that guided his own growth, tools that help leaders rise, solve problems, and make a meaningful difference.

His vision includes forming Africa’s future by sharing African stories, culture, and history while combining them with emerging technologies like AI. Dr. Akintoye emphasizes that Africa is a land rich in history, people, opportunities, and youthful energy.
He envisions a future where, in the next 50 years, one in every three people will be African, and he aims to help young people scale, grow, and walk the world with confidence. He desires to be remembered as someone who gave every person he met a chance at greatness, turning vision into action through mentorship and guidance.

Mentoring Tomorrow’s Leaders

Dr. Akintoye actively empowers future leaders through structured programs and personal engagement. He runs one of the largest incubation network in Africa, Unicorn Incubation, which supports startups in Nigeria, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Egypt, and South Africa, both in person and virtually, bringing his vision of empowered young Africans to life.

In addition, he serves as a professor and investor in Lagos, where he built the infrastructure for the business school to teach and inspire young minds. His efforts extend internationally, including teaching entrepreneurship in France and addressing youth on how to dare, dream, and take action. Dr. Akintoye dedicates significant time to mentorship because he believes knowledge becomes wasted if it is not passed on.

He considers the graveyard as the largest repository of unused wisdom and ensures that everyone who interacts with him gains value, consistently coaching, mentoring, and teaching. This commitment to nurturing talent is mirrored in his work at Platform Capital, where he applies the same philosophy of guidance and development to his team and portfolio companies.

The Future of Leadership and Nation-Building

Platform Capital is positioned for significant growth. The firm has assembled a talented young team that has witnessed firsthand how the organization has transformed lives. The team ranges in age from 23 to 50. As senior members transition out, the younger generation will continue to drive the company forward. Platform Capital already supports notable portfolio companies in areas such as flying cars, solar energy, cyborg technology, health tech, mobile technology, fintech, agritech, banking and more . These ventures demonstrate the possibilities of the next decade as the world undergoes remarkable changes, showing how mentorship, vision, and innovation combine to form the future.

Space travel will emerge as a commonplace experience, and the world will evolve into a vibrant and promising place over the next 30 years. The younger generation will inherit this world, and Dr. Akintoye intends to contribute through an advisory role while focusing on education and nurturing talent around the continent.

He envisions establishing universities around the world, including in his hometown of Abeokuta, Ogun State, blending technology with history, culture, and presence. His goal is to provide young minds with opportunities equivalent to attending prestigious institutions such as Harvard.

Dr. Akintoye aims to support every African country in reducing urbanization pressures, enabling villages to flourish as self-sufficient cities.

His vision extends beyond managing a company, shaped by a life rich in experience and global connections, including relationships with presidents and world leaders. His purpose is to guide his people toward progress, believing that nation-building requires active participation from citizens, not solely governments, to create a better future for their communities. This same spirit of persistence and commitment informs his guidance for the next generation of leaders.

Advice for Emerging Leaders Navigating Change

He urges emerging leaders to keep going. Keep going. Keep going. Fall down seven times, get up eight times. Keep going. Pivot. Leaders have to pivot. Do not give up. Keep going. It is about compounding. Efforts compound over time into success. Failure happens only when one quits. Only quitters fail. Keep going, keep changing, keep learning. By holding on to their vision and embracing challenges, leaders can contribute meaningfully to the progress of their communities and nations.

He emphasizes being obsessed with the problem, not the solution. Being obsessed with the problem allows one to keep thinking, adapting, and solving. Focus on the problem, and solutions follow naturally. Keep holding on to the vision. Rise every time after a fall. Remember why the work matters. It is a call to duty. The world needs these problems solved. Leaders are relevant; they are valid, so keep going.

Through his vision and guidance, Dr. Akintoye leaves emerging leaders with a powerful reminder: perseverance, purpose, and a commitment to the greater good are the keys to developing a brighter future.

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