LADI DELANO
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| Ladi Delano |
Ladi Delano, aged 35 (2015) and is already one of Nigerians youngest billionaires and is the founder/CEO of Bakrie Delano Africa. He is one anxious entrepreneur with an early hunger to make money and make it big while living in China. In his student days, Delano found he suffered from mild dyslexia and
deafness in one ear making learning more and more difficult as the
idea of school waned. Despite this, with the help of extra lessons,
Delano made it to a top university on a day he describes as glorious.
The novelty soon wore off and academia became Delano’s nemesis. In his
second year of a studying for a political science degree, he made up his mind. It
became clear to him that he didn’t have a passion for his course and rather than flogging a dead horse, he thought it would make
more sense to do something he was more comfortable with. Although Delano believed that the two
types of education are equally valuable he felt the education approach in his case wasn’t. So, he decided to
withdraw from the university. Delano’s decision didn’t go down
well at home, but there was no stopping him. At least university had
planted the idea of becoming an entrepreneur.“
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His hunger pushed him to experiment into different businesses mainly in sales. He sold suits to anyone willing to buy along with a host of other items until 2004 when he was just 22,
Ladi founded Solidarnosc Asia; a Chinese alcoholic beverage company that made Solid XS, a premium brand of vodka. He teamed up with a marketing director, Matt Reid, they developed a marketing strategy creating awareness by sponsoring performances of artists like British DJ Pete Tong and Canadian singer Avril Lavigne along with a host of others. The company grew greatly and later snatched up about 70% of the Chinese market shares along with three other Asia markets, distributing to over 33 cities in China alone with a record of over US $22 million in revenue. He branched out his company to launch The Collection — a dining and entertainment venue
Ladi founded Solidarnosc Asia; a Chinese alcoholic beverage company that made Solid XS, a premium brand of vodka. He teamed up with a marketing director, Matt Reid, they developed a marketing strategy creating awareness by sponsoring performances of artists like British DJ Pete Tong and Canadian singer Avril Lavigne along with a host of others. The company grew greatly and later snatched up about 70% of the Chinese market shares along with three other Asia markets, distributing to over 33 cities in China alone with a record of over US $22 million in revenue. He branched out his company to launch The Collection — a dining and entertainment venue
Before you start dreaming, his story did not go all rosy, the global economic downturn hit them badly, cash flow dried up in the company followed by massive layoff of staffs and they were forced to sell the company for about US $20million.
Meanwhile, while running Solid XS Delano had set up a real-estate investment company, the Delano Reid Group which went on to raise over US $80 million for investments, and he was also a founding partner DRG CIN Energy and Global DRG Capital, which provided energy solutions. In December, 2011 Delano honored his home Africa by building a venture specially for the growing continent, Bakrie Delano Africa; focusing on mining, oil and gas and Agriculture.
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