The Executive Chairman of KGL Group, Mr Alex Apau Dadey, has urged wealthy African families and business founders to rethink how they manage wealth, calling for family assets to be treated as strategic tools for building sustainable enterprises that can survive across generations.
Speaking at the 10th Ghana CEO Summit on Thursday, May 28, Mr Dadey said many African businesses collapse after the death of their founders because wealth is often consumed instead of being institutionalised through strong governance structures and long-term investment planning.
According to him, Africa’s economic transformation will depend largely on the continent’s ability to preserve wealth and build enduring family-owned businesses capable of creating jobs and driving sustainable economic growth.
“Family wealth must be viewed not merely as inheritance,” he said. “It should be viewed as an asset class for building transgenerational enterprises.”
Mr Dadey noted that while many African entrepreneurs focus on accumulating wealth, far less attention is given to building systems that guarantee continuity beyond the founding generation.
“One of Africa’s weaknesses and current economic challenges is the inability to preserve wealth across generations,” he stated. “Too much African wealth disappears within one generation because it is consumed rather than structured, fragmented rather than institutionalised.”
He observed that many successful business owners prioritise luxury spending instead of creating institutional frameworks capable of sustaining businesses and investments over the long term.
“When we make money, we buy the cars, the buildings, and all those luxuries, and the wealth disappears when the founder passes on,” he remarked.
Mr Dadey stressed that sustainable development cannot be achieved if wealth disappears with every generation, urging African entrepreneurs to think beyond personal success and focus on building institutions that can endure.
“No civilization advances to sustainability when wealth disappears every generation,” he added.
He pointed to some of the world’s longest-standing corporations as examples of businesses built on disciplined family capital, effective governance systems, succession planning and continuous reinvestment.
According to him, African business founders must intentionally invest in family offices, holding structures, governance systems and productive sectors of the economy to preserve wealth for long-term development.
“This requires intentional investments in family offices, governance systems, succession frameworks, and long-term capital redeployment into productive assets of the economy,” he explained.
Mr Dadey further argued that successful entrepreneurship should not only be measured by wealth creation, but also by the ability to transfer institutional memory, values, skills and productive capital across generations.
He also called for stronger leadership and institutional discipline across the continent, saying Africa’s long-term economic transformation would require consistency, strategic thinking and resilient enterprises capable of competing globally.