TOP 10 CEOs OF 2021

Organisational leadership in 2021 turned out to be a matter of learning the ropes anew in the changed
business environment of the Covid-19 ruled world. Corporate leadership needed to learn and relearn in no time
how broken operational functions had to be put back together to keep the system streaming once again.


It has been a year of exploring and testing new ideas to serve changed markets and out the necessity sprang up
innovation from many quarters. Outstanding corporate stories in 2021 sum up to a chorus of innovative responses
to new demands of how markets should be served in an unusual pandemic.

Further straining and reshaping consumer market conditions in the year is heightened insecurity at both physical and virtual ends. The developments created demand for new products and services that haven’t been on the shelves or sufficiently so until now.


Another major challenge came from an overflow of job losers into the informal sector – swelling the number of
the financially excluded, people without access to credit and others with limited or no opportunities in the economy.

The test of the effectiveness of CEOs’ responses to the changed markets and the operating challenges unearthed
formed the standard for the construction of the 2021 Top 10 CEOs of the Top 10 Magazine.


In the group is a low-cost carrier that has made it possible for people to manage their security by creating services that enable them fly at a fraction of usual air fares. This is considered one big step ahead in the aviation industry that has helped to include lower income group into the flying club in Nigeria.


The home builders from the real estate industry made it to the Top 10 this year for playing a counter cyclical role by
sustaining new investments, steering growth and employment as well as income opportunities in a tepid economy. They helped to stem economic decline and rev up recovery.


The next are the fintechs – the digital solutions providers where innovation has run rampant. They excelled by creating and widening access to online transactions as alternative channels to sustain normal operations of people and businesses.

The white flag is up for the fintechs in 2021 for innovations in financial inclusion, particularly in the areas of non-bank mobile money services and quick access to credit to the underserved – through which they have injected a stimulatory force to the economy.

In the top 10 group is a rural electrification agency that added a number of rural and university communities to the list of Nigerian communities with access to electricity in the course of the year.

An IT company is also in the Top 10 CEO’s listing for 2021 for home-grown IT capability tested and trusted by leading Nigerian companies and beyond for its network management and support centre that provides round the clock remote monitoring and support services for IT and network infrastructures.

Top 10 CEOs of the year listing also has onboard a revolutionary tech-driven transport company that provides innovative services that cover the gaps in all forms of transportation on land, air and sea. The transport technology company offers electronic-charter service platform to ease the transportation system in the country.

What they all have in common is the adoption of innovative ways and techniques to bring solutions to the challenges that people and businesses faced in 2021. By charting new courses for handling the complexities and challenges of markets and living conditions, the corporate chieftains have worked to pave the way forward into the future of people and businesses this side of the globe.