Dr Stephen Akintayo is Africa’s most sought after investment coach. He is the CEO/MD of Gtext Global which is the mother company of so many subsidiaries which includes Gtext Homes, a real estate company with a highly innovative and young workforce. It is based in Nigeria, United Arab Emirates (UAE), with presence in the United State of America, United Kingdom, etc. Other organisations include Stephen Akintayo Consulting SAC, a vibrant organisation that heavily building capacities all over the world through paid mentorship programmes in the areas of real estate brokerage and investment, e-commerce, digital marketing, freelancing, authoring and speaking, cryptocurrency and forex trade training,etc. In 2020, the Stephen Akintayo Online University was launched for people to study online and get certified on completion. Other subsidiaries include Ginido (an e-commerce platform), It has hundreds of organizations as its clients including multinational companies like Guarantee Trust Bank, PZ Cussons, MTN,Chivita, DHL,GNLD among others.
Born in Gonge area of Maiduguri, Borno State, the north eastern part of Nigeria in a very impoverished environment and with a civil servant mother who raised him and his four other siblings with her meagre salary given that his father’s contract business crumbled. His passion for philanthropy was informed by his upbringing. In his words, “my surname was poverty. Hunger was my biggest challenge. I had to scavenge all through primary school to eat lunch as I don’t go to school with lunch packs. We were too poor to afford that. Things got better in my secondary school days. Although, my mum would go to her colleague to borrow money to send me to school each term. It was humiliating seeing their faces looking at my mum with utter dismay who keeps begging. It hurts dearly. I hate poverty and I pray to help more families to come out of it”.
Stephen learned how to spell the word; “THE” in JSS 1. His educational background was faulty. You could easily conclude that Stephen will never amount to anything in life. He spent ages 8-12 in an environment without electricity, within a forest region of Maiduguri-Damboa road. I laid on a mattress at age 13 for the first time.
At 16, he read his first business book, “Rich Dad Poor Dad” and the rest is history. He started business at the age of 17 selling food supplements by GNLD introduced to him by his cousin. And his first online based business is selling e-books he bought for N3,000. He ventured into other businesses in the process. His main drive to succeed was to compensate a very hardworking mother who denied herself of everything just to educate her 5 children.
While a student, he organised students’ trade fairs within the students community. His mother died of ovarian cancer at age 23.
This was the toughest season of his life and business career as his mother had been his main financier. If there was anyone who believed in his entrepreneurial skill, it was his mother. Even one of his early staff said he was not a businessman because of his soft spokenness and his willingness to share his success secret with others – qualities he learned from his mother.
“The day you start giving is the day you start living, the day you stop giving is the day you start dying. Give daily to live daily. Give Joy,Give counsel, Give Smiles, Give Food and Give Business Ideas to change the world” . Stephen Akintayo.
Stephen Akintayo’s story is indeed of grass to grace. His singular regret in life is that his hardworking mother died a few years before he got the big break, not witnessing what she had always wished for.
Founder of Gtext Global, formerly known as Gilead Balm Group Services has assisted a number of businesses in Nigeria to move to enviable levels by aiding them to reach their clients through its enormous nationwide database of real phone numbers and email addresses. It has hundreds of organizations as its clients including multinational companies like Guarantee Trust Bank, PZ Cussons, MTN,Chivita, among others. Today, the same organisation has metamorphosed into a conglomerate with numerous subsidiaries such as Gtext Homes, Stephen Akintayo Consulting, Ginido LLC, Gtext Hub, Gtext Farm, etc.
He is also the founder and president of Infinity Foundation and Stephen Akintayo Foundation, a non-governmental organization which assists orphans and vulnerable children as well as mentor young minds. The foundation has assisted over 2,000 orphans and vulnerable children. It has also partnered with over 25 orphanage homes in the country. An arm of the foundation, Infinity Foundation cared for victims of Boko Haram attacks in the north-eastern part of Nigeria.
The Stephen Akintayo Foundation focuses on donation of relief materials, food and financial grants for school children and for businesspersons. It offered grants of 10,000,000 naira to 20 entrepreneurs in 2015. It has since then, expanded its reach nationwide in this regard. Projects like Upgrade Conference (Upgrade Summit) and lots of others are funnels that have been used to empower people.
In 2020, Dr Stephen Akintayo took giant strides that had landed the entire conglomerate in the global scene, expanding business networks to other parts of the world. The business empire has grown to a multi-million dollar corporation, with the vision to take over the centre stage in real estate and digital marketing sectors.
He is a prolific author who has 35 books in his name which includes Survival Instincts, The Information Millionaire, Maximising Your Real Estate Investment, Managing Family Finance, among other life-transforming books.
Stephen is a media personality in the television, Radio and Print media. He ran a series on radio tagged CEO Mentorship with Stephen Akintayo. In 2020, he started the revolutionary business tv show, Investment Chat in a Rolls Royce with Dr Stephen Akintayo which is a blend of luxury,entertainment and investment talks on it. The TV show is two-phased, the Nigerian and Dubai series. The Nigerian series has been airing since 2020 on Channels Television and his Facebook and YouTube social media platforms.
His mentorship platform has a wide reach as it caters for both personal and corporate development. Stephen strongly believes young Nigerians with the passion for entrepreneurship can cause a business revolution in Nigeria and the world at large. Little wonder why his business empire is run by young and vibrant people.
His first degree is in microbiology from Olabisi Onabanjo University, Ogun state, Nigeria. He is a member of Institute of Strategic Management (ISMN). He is also a graduate of Harvard University, where he studied essential management skills for emerging leaders. He is also a trained coach by The Coaching Academy, UK.
He is a multiple award winner.
He is happily married and blessed with three children, two boys, and a lovely girl.