Samuel Esson Jonah was born on 19 November 1949 in a military camp in Kibi, Ghana, the son of a World War II veteran and sergeant major, and grew up in Obuasi, home to Ghana's only gold mine at the time.
After secondary school at Adisadel College, Jonah trained at the Camborne School of Mines in Cornwall and Imperial College London, then joined Ashanti Goldfields Corporation in 1979, working his way up from underground operations.
At age 36, Jonah became Chief Executive Officer of Ashanti Goldfields in 1986, overseeing its transformation from a single-mine operation into a multinational, increasing gold production from 240,000 to over 1.6 million ounces a year and, in 1996, leading the company to become the first operating African company listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
In 2004 Jonah engineered a $1.48 billion merger between Ashanti and South Africa's AngloGold, creating AngloGold Ashanti, briefly the world's second-largest gold producer, and became its Executive President.
In 2003 Queen Elizabeth II conferred an honorary knighthood on Jonah, the first Ghanaian so honoured in the 21st century, and he went on to found Jonah Capital, a Johannesburg-based equity fund, while serving as Chancellor of the University of Cape Coast and a non-executive director of Vodafone.
- Transformed Ashanti Goldfields from a single mine into a multinational gold producer
- Led Ashanti to become the first operating African company listed on the NYSE, 1996
- Engineered the $1.48 billion merger creating AngloGold Ashanti in 2004
- First Ghanaian knighted in the 21st century
- Founder and Executive Chairman of Jonah Capital
- Starting at the bottom can be the fastest path to the top. Jonah worked underground at Obuasi before rising to CEO of the same company by age 36.
- Global ambition doesn't require leaving home. Jonah built Ashanti into a global, NYSE-listed company while keeping its operations rooted in Ghana.