Nigerian-born entrepreneur Kase Lawal is the epitome of the American dream. Arriving to the US a young, idealistic student, Lawal has carved a name for himself in one of the most competitive industries in the world: Oil.

Now head of a multi-billion dollar empire, his Houston-based company, CAMAC, is one of the largest black-owned businesses in the U.S., generating over $2 billion dollars a year.

Founded nearly 25 years ago, Lawal built CAMAC (which stands for Cameroon-American) from a small agriculture business into a global oil company. But it’s taken a lot of hard work, determination and guts to get him to the top.

Born and raised in Ibadan, Nigeria in 1954, Lawal became interested in America and its civil rights movement during his teens. After finally persuading his father, a local politician, to send him to university in America, Lawal headed to Georgia and then Houston, where he attended the Texas Southern University.

After graduating with a Bachelor of Science in chemical engineering in 1976, Lawal, like many of his classmates, started out as a graduate in the energy industry. First as a chemist for Dresser Industries (now Halliburton) and then as a chemical engineer with Shell Oil Refining Co.

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kase lawal, oil tycoon