BUSINESSPEOPLE from Rwanda

Top 2

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary Rwandan Businesspeople of all time. This list of famous Rwandan Businesspeople is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Félicien Kabuga (b. 1933)

With an HPI of 55.60, Félicien Kabuga is the most famous Rwandan Businessperson.  His biography has been translated into 24 different languages on wikipedia.

Félicien Kabuga (born 1 March 1933) is a Rwandan businessman and genocide suspect who played a major role in the run-up to the Rwandan genocide. A multimillionaire, he was closely connected to dictator Juvénal Habyarimana's Hutu nationalist MRND party and the Akazu, an informal group of Hutu extremists who helped lead the Rwandan genocide. Kabuga is noted for his role as the primary financier of Hutu extremist media outlets, such as the RTLM radio station and Kangura magazine, which advocated for the killing of the Tutsi minority. In 2020, Kabuga was arrested by the French police in Greater Paris at the age of 87 after 26 years as a fugitive. He was transferred to the custody of the IRMCT branch in The Hague to stand trial for crimes against humanity, but was declared unfit to stand trial in 2023 due to dementia.

2. Paul Rusesabagina (b. 1954)

With an HPI of 50.88, Paul Rusesabagina is the 2nd most famous Rwandan Businessperson.  His biography has been translated into 29 different languages.

Paul Rusesabagina (Kinyarwanda: [ɾusesɑβaɟinɑ]; born 15 June 1954) is a Rwandan human rights activist. He worked as the manager of the Hôtel des Mille Collines in Kigali, during a period in which it housed 1,268 Hutu and Tutsi refugees fleeing the Interahamwe militia during the Rwandan genocide. None of these refugees were hurt or killed during the attacks. An account of Rusesabagina's actions during the genocide was later depicted in the film Hotel Rwanda in 2004, in which he was portrayed by American actor Don Cheadle. The film has been the subject both of critical acclaim and controversy in Rwanda. On the back of newly found international fame, Rusesabagina embarked on a successful career as a public speaker, mostly touring universities in the United States. He campaigns for the Hotel Rwanda Rusesabagina Foundation, which he founded in 2006. He holds Belgian citizenship and a U.S. green card and has homes in Brussels, Belgium and San Antonio, Texas. Since fleeing Rwanda in 1996, he has become a prominent critic of Paul Kagame and the RPF government. He founded the PDR-Ihumure political party in 2006, and is currently President of the MRCD. On 31 August 2020, believing he was taking a chartered flight to Burundi from Dubai, he arrived in Kigali, where he was arrested on nine charges of terrorism that related to his association with the FLN (National Liberation Front), the armed wing of PDR-Ihumure, who claimed responsibility for terrorist attacks in 2018 that killed at least nine people. On 20 September 2021, he was convicted on terrorism charges and sentenced to 25 years in prison. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention rendered its opinion on 18 March 2022 that Rusesabagina had been illegally kidnapped, tortured, and sentenced after an unfair trial. The Working Group further found that Rusesabagina has been targeted by the government on account of his work as a human rights defender, because of his criticism of the government on a broad range of issues. In 2023, after serving two years in Mageragere Prison, Rusesabagina's sentence was commuted by the Rwandan president.