Isabel dos Santos is the wealthiest woman in Africa. As the daughter of former Angolan president José Eduardo dos Santos. As of 2019, Isabel is estimated to be worth $2.4 billion across her variety of assets and investments.
Background
Ethnicity:
Isabel dos Santos is the daughter of President dos Santos and his first wife, Tatiana Kukanova, a Russian chess champion
Isabel dos Santos was born on April 1, 1973, in Azerbaijan, which was then a part of the Soviet Union. She is the oldest daughter of José Eduardo dos Santos, who rose to the presidency of Angola six years after her birth, and his first wife, Tatiana Kukanova, who was a Russian citizen.
José Eduardo dos Santos and Kukanova had met while José Eduardo dos Santos was studying in Azerbaijan. He is the son of parents from São Tomé and Príncipe, and he went to Azerbaijan to study radar communications and petroleum engineering.
Education
Isabel dos Santos recounts that her father never dissuaded her from pursuing rigorous academic pursuits. In many African cultures, women are disincentivized from pursuing non-traditional roles within society, but Isabel's father encouraged her to pursue her education just as strongly as he encouraged his sons. Isabel cites her father's interest in her education as one of the formative influences that led to her success.
As she entered adolescence, Isabel's father sent her to an all-girls boarding school called Cobham Hall in Kent, England. At Cobham Hall, she learned more about the requirements demanded of professional women in the modern world, and her interest in academics led her to attend King's College in London after graduating from secondary school.
At King's College, she studied electrical engineering. Regarding her time studying, Isabel recounts that she was the only girl in her engineering classes except for a Chinese girl who was studying the same disciplines. While she was studying for her undergraduate degree, she met Sindika Dokolo, the wealthy son of a millionaire from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The two children of prominent Africans married after completing their studies, and Isabel switched gears soon thereafter to become an entrepreneur in Angola.
Career
Upon graduating from King's College, Isabel dos Santos and her husband Sindika stayed in London for a few years, and Isabel held several positions within prominent international corporations. In 1990, however, Isabel returned to Luanda and started her involvement in politics and business.
Her first role as a prominent member of the dos Santos family in Angolan public life was as the project manager engineer for Urbana 2000, which was a subsidiary of the Jembas Group. This investment corporation had received a contract from the Angolan government to clean up the streets of Luanda.
After her involvement in Urbana 2000, Isabel helped modernize a trucking business by implementing the use of walkie talkies in daily operations. Next, she started a nightclub on Luanda Island, which was a previously undeveloped strip of land on the coast next to this major African city. The nightclub was called Miami Beach Club, and it was one of the first businesses to set up shop on Luanda Island.
Over the next couple of decades, Isabel dos Santos used her rapidly accumulating wealth to engage in a number of investment opportunities around the world. These investments were mainly in Angolan and Portuguese companies, and as her investments grew rapidly, Isabel founded several holding companies to manage her assets.
Isabel has significant investments in both Angola and Portugal. She began amassing these investments early in her life, and over the years, her savvy business decisions have resulted in the accumulation of significant personal wealth.
Isabel dos Santo's investments have had a role in stimulating the domestic Angolese economy. For instance, she used her 51 percent controlling stake in the Portuguese corporation Condis to arrange the development of a chain of retail stores in Angola. The first supermarket in this chain was opened in 2013.
In addition, Isabel owns a significant number of shares in Nova Cimangola, which is one of the most prominent cement companies in Angola. She is also heavily involved in the diamond industry in Angola.
Isabel's most recent foray into the domestic economy in Angola occurred in 2016 when she took a controlling interest in Banco Fomento de Angola (BFA Bank). The National Bank of Angola (BNA) approved this acquisition, and Isabel sold her position in BFA Bank in 2017 when Spanish-owned CaixaBank acquired BFA. Overall, Isabel acquired approximately $90 million from her involvement in BFA Bank.
In Portugal, Isabel has steadily increased her investments since 2008. At present, she is involved in several sectors of the Portuguese economy such as the telecommunications, energy, finance, retail, and media industries. For instance, she has control of a company called Jadeium, which acquired approximately five percent of ZON Multimedia several years ago.
Over the years, Isabel has expanded her interest in ZON, and as of July 2012, she has a controlling interest of 29 percent in this international corporation. She is a non-executive board member of ZON, and in 2013, she arranged the merger of ZON with Sonaecom, which was an independent internet services provider in Portugal.
Soon after this merger, Isabel gained a controlling interest in a Portuguese company called SGPS. She immediately announced her intent to merge all three companies into one corporation, and she submitted her offer to the Portuguese Securities Market Commission.
In 2013, Isabel created a special purpose vehicle called ZOPT to hold 51 percent of the shares of the newly merged group. This new group is called Zon Optimus SGPS, and Isabel remains the controlling shareholder in this organization. Upon the completion of the merger, Isabel announced that she would be expanding the merged group into new industry territories, and she continues to play a key role in overseeing the expansion of Zon Optimus SGPS.
Isabel has also been involved in the satellite telecommunications industry in Portugal. She purchased an interest in the Portugal-based satellite TV provider ZAP in 2013, and she formulated a plan to broadcast original Portuguese-language content for the Forbes channel to Portuguese-speaking languages like Angola, Mozambique, and Portugal.
Holdings
Isabel has a variety of holdings that she uses to administer her vast wealth. For instance, she founded Trans Africa Investment Services (TAIS) in Gibraltar with her mother to handle their shared diamond investments. She also owns Unitel International Holdings B.V., formerly known as Jadeium, which is the vehicle she has used to handle most of her Portuguese telecommunications endeavors.
She uses a vehicle called Santoro Finance to manage her involvement in Banco BPI of Lisbon, and she also owns Esperanza Holding B.V., which is an Amsterdam-based oil and energy holding. She is also the owner of Condis, which is a Luanda-based retail chain.
Politics
In her efforts to give back to the community, Isabel has engaged in a variety of charitable endeavors, and she recently started a Christmas telethon that raises funds to help the least privileged in Angola's poverty-stricken communities. She encourages her employees to engage in charitable giving, and she operates a "Special Day" program that gives 10,000 underprivileged children across Angola the opportunity to enjoy a day of experiences that their economic status would usually forbid. She has identified fighting Malaria as one of her main objectives as a socially-conscious billionaire, and she is also a supporter of education and healthcare for children in Angola and throughout Africa.
Personality
Isabel has been married to Sindika Dokolo since 2002, and she and Sindika have four children together.
Over the years, Isabel has opened up about her experience of rising to the top of various traditionally male-dominated industries. While African cultures actively dissuade women and girls from taking on traditionally masculine roles in business, Isabel never believed that there were things she couldn't do. Instead, she was encouraged to pursue whichever path in life appealed to her, and she finally landed on engineering as her vocation of choice.
She also points out that her husband has never seen her as a threat, and she has received steady support from Sindika throughout their marriage. She says that Sindika has been a "great father to all of our four children, being there for them when I am absent, during my long work schedules and overseas trips."
Isabel believes that her status as a woman and a person of color have counted against her in her business pursuits. However, she states that she has overcome these obstacles by demanding fair treatment. She also counts her top-tier education as one of the primary motivating forces for her success.
