Somali businessman tops list of most influential black people in UK

By: BBC and Horndiplomat

Ismail Ahmed, the founder and chairman of WorldRemit – a global digital money transfer service operating in six continents – has been named the most influential black Briton.

The Powerlist 2020 covers the most powerful people of African and African Caribbean heritage in the UK and includes grime artist Stormzy and the Duchess of Sussex.

The top 10

1 Ismail Ahmed – founder and chairman of WorldRemit

2 Pat McGrath, MBE – makeup artist and founder of Pat McGrath Labs

3 Michael Sherman – chief strategy and transformation officer at BT

4 Jacky Wright – the chief digital officer at Microsoft

5 Stormzy – grime artist

6 Edward Enninful – editor-in-chief at British Vogue

7 Ebele Okobi – public policy director, Africa, the Middle East and Turkey

8 Paulette Rowe – global head of payments and financial services at Facebook

9 Lynette Yiadom-Boakye – artist

10 Richard Iferenta – partner at KPMG

BBC Adina Campbell went to meet him to hear about his journey from Somaliland to picking strawberries, to becoming a fin-tech leader.

Watch below BBC Interview with Ismail Ahmed