Please remember in your prayers Hussein Samatar ’00 M.B.A., 45, who died Sunday, Aug. 25, of complications from leukemia.
Samatar was featured in a 2008 story, Micro Loans-Macro Impact, in St. Thomas’ B. magazine. The story notes that four days after completing his undergraduate degree in economics, Samatar was forced to flee his homeland of Somalia when a civil war erupted. He fled to Kenya and then sought refuge in Minnesota.
After earning an M.B.A. at St. Thomas in 2000, he left a successful career at Wells Fargo to found in 2004 the African Development Center. According to its website, the center is an “entrepreneurial nonprofit organization that works within the African communities in Minnesota to start and sustain businesses, build wealth, and promote community reinvestment.”
As executive director of the center, Samatar created several culturally targeted alternative finance products and frequently addressed financial, governmental and other community institutions on the topic of building wealth in emerging markets.
He won a seat on the Minneapolis School Board in 2010, becoming the first Somali-American in Minnesota to be elected to public office.
Obituaries can be viewed on MPR and StarTribune websites.
Funeral services were 1 p.m. Monday, Aug. 26, at the Burnsville Masjid.
