Mustapha Gore

Location: London, United Kingdom

During his childhood, Mustapha Gore slept alone in a Ugandan dormitory, orphaned by violence in his home country of South Sudan. “The community took it upon itself to educate me and take me to their homes for Christmas and Eid [the festival marking the end of Ramadan],” he says. After crossing the Mediterranean in 1999 and building himself a new life in London, Gore hasn’t forgotten the hardship of his childhood—or the generosity he encountered in Uganda. With his salary at Citigroup (No. 28), where he works as an executive services agent, Gore began sending money back to the Ugandan town of Bombo, telling his friends to buy bricks without saying why. In 2010, with some financial help from his colleagues at Citi, he opened Greenacres Junior Academy to about 115 students, including girls, indigent children and orphans in Bombo. Gore visits the school twice each year, for Eid and for Christmas. “These children have nowhere to go but they see me and we rejoice together,” he says. “When I get there, the rules go out the windows. They run out of the classroom and come greet me, yelling, ‘Director’s here! Director’s here!’” Each year, the school has grown larger—now, it houses and educates more than 315 students.