Economic Forum honours city businessman

By DAVID SSEMPIJJA

City business Ashish Thakkar, the founder of Mara Group, has been selected and enlisted among the World Economic Forum’s prestigious list of Young Global Leaders (YGL) for 2012.

He was recognised for his professional accomplishments in entrepreneurship, commitment to societal development and efforts to contribute to shaping the future of the world during a summit in Mexico last week.

The YGL honours, bestowed each year by the forum, recognises up to 200 outstanding young leaders from around the world for their good works towards global communities.

Thakkar created Mara from a small information technology shop he opened in Kampala 15 years ago. The firm has expanded into multi-sectoral and international enterprises.

Present in three continents, Mara comprises the real estate Kensington Luxury Heights, SPANCO Raps for IT, Rilley Packaging for paper products manufacturing and Rilley Media for communication, employing 4,500 people.

“We feel that recognising the Mara founder will serve as a catalyst for further innovations aimed at making the world better through strategic entrepreneurial development,” said a statement from the firm.

The forum honoured 192 young leaders from 59 countries for their outstanding works, 18 of them from sub-Saharan Africa.

Past recognised leaders include Maria Bartiromo, the managing editor of the Wall Street Journal Report, David Cameron, the UK Prime Minister, Esther Duflo, a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Zhang Xin, the Google co-founder and chief executive officer.