The Aberdeen Billionaire who gave away £500 million
- Raymond Smith
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
Sir Ian Wood is the largest living Philanthropist is Scotland having given away and Invested over £500m for his charities. he has achieved many things, amongst which he has taken nearly 60,000 tea farmers in Africa out of poverty. Below is an extract from the new book, Sir Ian Wood Aberdeens Billionaire.
The below is an extract from the trip Sir Ian Wood made to Africa to be thanked by the tribal elders of Rwanda.
Sir Ian was collected from the airport and closed the door in his waiting car. As the early morning hustle of Kigali gradually gave way to the outskirts of the city around 7 am, the landscape transformed. Rice fields emerged beyond the factories, with occasional farmers tending to their watery plots in the sunlight. Leaving the city behind, the roads were alive with people transporting bundles of tobacco, eucalyptus, and charcoal on bikes and atop their heads. Yellow buckets of fermented banana moonshine swung from handlebars, giving a lively scene. Sir Ian's route ascended higher into the mountains, venturing deep into tea country. Vast fields of dark green tea bushes stretched out, with hundreds of farmers diligently working in the mist. After 19 hours of travel, Sir Ian's transport came to a halt, and he disembarked, anticipating a meeting with a few happy farmers to express their thanks. He was guided to a makeshift area on an old football pitch near the Mulindi tea processing factory. Walking through an overgrown entrance covered in bushes, Sir Ian entered a scene of awe-inspiring gratitude. The stadium was filled with 5,000 tea farmers, some having walked for two days to get there, with many journeying through the night to attend. Each farmer eagerly awaited the arrival of the man who had transformed their lives financially and educationally. As Sir Ian stepped into the arena, a joyous frenzy erupted. Farmers rose to their feet, waving arms, with the singing growing louder as he moved among the crowd. Dancers pounded the ground, encircling him with clapping and smiles. Babies were passed over for a hug from Sir Ian, who, tall and pale in a blue business shirt, stood out in the vibrant crowd. Sir Ian, not one for self-gratifying emotional displays, found the reception a bit embarrassing and humbling, but his sons, who accompanied him on the trip, were astounded by the warmth of the welcome.
Ian said of the day. “If it was a UK crowd, I would have been even more embarrassed, but these are really poor farmers, and they are really genuinely positive and happy about what has been happening, so I wanted to show I was happy for them. I was trying to let the farmers know that I had seen them, as well as them seeing me. That is what it’s all about – these people. It is about nothing else. “The real comfort I got was that after the celebration, these people would go back to their ordinary lives and that those ordinary lives would be better than they were before.”
Sir Ian pressed forward with the expansion of The Wood Foundation's initiatives in Africa, spearheading a significant undertaking involving major partners in a $180 million investment. Notable collaborators in this venture included Unilever and tea giant Luxmi, the latter embarking on its inaugural operation outside of India. Both companies are set to construct factories, with The Wood Foundation Africa (TWFA) providing support for the preparation of two new greenfield sites in Rwanda, as well as a third in Tanzania, along with the smallholders who will cultivate them. The UK Department for International Development has also committed to the investment. The tea farms at Nyaguro and Rugabano represent a substantial undertaking, potentially doubling Rwanda's black tea production. The project aims to engage 8,000 smallholders and employ 2,000 staff to support the enterprise. However, the challenges are intricate. The land is steep, with a typical incline of 7 percent, and the transportation of tea may necessitate the use of zip wires. These areas, situated near the border with Burundi, endured severe consequences during the 1994 genocide, where up to 1 million people, predominantly Tutsis, were tragically slaughtered in a mere 100 days. Today, elderly women may be the sole survivors left to manage their family's smallholdings in these regions. Sir Ian and his business partners will attempt to rebuild communities and a local economy where, in parts, 60 percent of people are unemployed and 19 per cent live in extreme poverty with an income of less than $1.25 a day.
EXTRACTED FROM THE BIOGRAPHY - SIR IAN WOOD ABERDEENS BILLIONAIRE
A word from our sponsor
Billionaire industrialist Sir Ian Wood stands as the wealthiest homegrown founder of a company in Scotland. When he stepped down from the helm in 2013, his creation—Wood Group plc—had grown into a global powerhouse valued at $12 billion, operating in more than 60 countries, employing 60,000 people, and elevating his personal fortune to over £2 billion.
A figure both formidable and fiercely debated, Sir Ian Wood’s life unfolds as an extraordinary saga—one marked by relentless effort, unwavering determination, profound personal sacrifice, moments of tragedy, brushes with disaster, and the darker currents of betrayal, greed, immense wealth, and influence.
Beginning with his family’s modest fishing-boat repair business in 1967, he boldly steered the company into the emerging world of oil and gas just as the industry reached Britain’s shores in the 1970s. From there, he built a sprawling empire that touched shipping, energy, fishing, technology, travel, electronics, power generation, offshore drilling, and property development. His leadership oversaw the most dramatic industrial transformation Aberdeen had ever seen.
Now, for the first time, the story long hidden behind closed doors is revealed. This is an explosive, deeply revealing journey into the sometimes shadowy, often ruthless, yet undeniably electrifying world of the Aberdeen oil and gas sector—its power brokers, its high-stakes decisions, and the man whose influence shaped an era.
Sir Ian’s real-life ascent makes HBO’s Succession seem like little more than a gentle bedtime tale.
His achievements stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the greatest entrepreneurs in any industry, at any point in history.
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