CHIDI ACHEBE '92 - GO BIG!

Left to right: Chinua Achebe Jr., Zeal Achebe , Chidi Achebe ’92, Nnamdi Achebe, and Maureen Achebe Photo by Chris Kayden

Dr. Chidi Achebe ’92 is changing the world’s healthcare systems—using investor-driven development of vital services—one continent at a time, starting with Africa. Achebe is chairman and chief executive officer of the African Integrated Development Enterprise (AIDE), a forprofit investment company whose goal is to improve health care in Africa at every level, and support sound agricultural practices, up-to-date telecommunications, and clean energy. The organization has a not-for-profit arm through which it can accept donations in support of programs, but the primary thrust is capital investment for profit.

In Africa, the need for affordable medicine is dire. While the world is facing the threat of COVID-19, African countries are also tackling the ongoing spread of fatal illnesses such as Ebola, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria, sleeping sickness, and scores of other highly infectious diseases that could be controlled with adequate public access to care.

Achebe says that one of his inspirations was his father, the Man Booker International Prize–winning novelist Chinua Achebe, who was Charles P. Stevenson Jr. Professor of Languages and Literature at Bard from 1990 to 2009. He died in 2013. Chidi recalls his father saying, “So you are a medical doctor. You belong to Nigeria and to the United States, a citizen of both countries. You have a master’s in public health. What are you going to do with that education?”

“My father would play thrilling mind games with me,” Achebe says. “He was always laying out the next challenge, even if I was still struggling with the current one, whether it was my medical residency or graduate school.” After earning a master’s in public health from Harvard, Chidi went on to earn an MBA at Yale School of Management. His father again asked him, “You have had the best education in the world. What are you going to do with that?”

Chidi Achebe is now combining his knowledge of medicine and public health with a Wall Street–style, investment-based approach to providing the highest quality medical service to Africa. This is an enormous undertaking, which is being backed by a consortium of German banks and other private investors, some from the United Arab Emirates. AIDE will ultimately build 18 health facilities on the African continent, beginning in Nigeria, where AIDE is about to roll out a $200 million initial investment in infrastructure, financial oversight, and staffing. “Nigeria has a population of 200 million people, most of whom are unable to access basic medicine,” Achebe says.

Achebe has stopped practicing handson medicine so that he can focus on AIDE, which is at a critical point and will need full-time guidance through the early development stages. “In order to build confidence among our investors,” he says, “it’s very important that we have tight financial oversight and transparency, and that we show stress-proof plans to address any investor’s concerns.”

Achebe, who received the John and Samuel Bard Award in Medicine and Science at this year’s Bard College Awards, says his father was a great proponent of the sentiment “go big or go home.” Even for a man of his many strengths and talents, the challenges he is confronting will require a massive effort. But this, he can tell his father, is what he is going to do with the world’s best education.