Meet the first black woman hot air balloon pilot in Africa

Mark-Anthony Johnson

MARK-ANTHONY JOHNSON is the founder and CEO of JIC Holdings, an innovative private holding company established in 2009 which he has built into an international asset and investment management company with offices, associates and investments around the globe. This followed the success of the JIC Group which he founded in 1985. He was educated in the UK at Mill Hill School and then achieved a BA (Hons) in Business and International Finance at University of Westminster. Mark-Anthony’s vision has long been towards emerging and frontier markets with particular emphasis on Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean and his philosophy can be summed up in the phrase “knowledge is power”. Mark-Anthony is also enthusiastic about the latest communication tools, which he uses intensively to keep in touch with up to the minute data. With a deep-rooted connection to the African continent, Mark-Anthony has been passionate about developments in Africa for over 30 years. He has worldwide interests in mining, infrastructure, power, electricity, shipping, commodities, agriculture and fisheries and is currently looking to develop farms across Africa. Mark-Anthony has a vision for a future Africa as the breadbasket of the world. For many years Mark-Anthony has been active on the ground in Africa through his charitable foundation, the Johnson Foundation. Created in 1989, it first provided assistance to people in his ancestral home country, Sierra Leone, even before the civil war. Once the war started, his aid was even more necessary and became focussed on Mark-Anthony’s major concerns for Africa -education, clean water and medical assistance. Over the years, the Foundation’s work has been extended into many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa and has been instrumental in setting up new clinics and rehabilitating villages, schools, places of worship, water facilities etc.