Manny Ohonme

Manny Ohonme Speaker Biography

Emmanuel “Manny” Ohonme is the Co-Founder, President and CEO of Samaritan’s Feet International, a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that shares hope with those in need by washing their feet, giving them a new pair of shoes, and helping them to believe that dreams can come true. Manny is also the Founder and Chairman of World Shoe, Inc. a multinational social enterprise shoe manufacturer, producing innovative footwear in Africa for global retail markets and humanitarian requirements. His social enterprise is dedicated to the vision that high-quality, low-cost footwear can unleash human potential, promote global health, and protect the environment.

To walk in Manny Ohonme’s shoes requires first imagining life without shoes. Like the 600 million people worldwide today who don’t own shoes, Manny grew up in Lagos, Nigeria without many of the basic necessities that create the opportunity to escape poverty and hardship.
A new world of possibility opened for him at the age of nine when a chance encounter with a missionary gave him the opportunity to win his first pair of tennis shoes in a basketball competition. From a childhood spent selling water and soft drinks on the streets of Lagos, Manny’s new shoes put him on an unlikely path to earning a university scholarship in the United States to play basketball and building a prominent career in tech and global business.

Manny has leveraged his success and unique perspective to drive social impact on a visionary scale. In 2003, he founded Samaritan’s Feet International with his wife, Tracie, as a way to give individuals in need that same opportunity for life-change, by providing them with new shoes and a message of hope. To date, Samaritan’s Feet has impacted the lives of over 11 million people by providing new shoes, hope and encouragement in 113 countries and over 625 U.S. cities. Samaritan’s Feet and Manny have worked with organizations such as Walmart, Coca-Cola, Turner, General Motors, Skechers, Adidas, CROCS, Sears, Sanford Health, Truist, NCAA, NFL, MLS, the NBA, and the South Africa Springbok rugby teams, along with world leaders, philanthropists, presidents, governors, mayors, and global partners to help develop strategies to eliminate public health risks associated with not wearing shoes. Additionally, Samaritan’s Feet has expanded its outreach and now has affiliates and in-country representatives in over 10 countries.

Manny, through Samaritan’s Feet, founded, and provided the proof-of-concept for launching World Shoe, Inc., a leading social enterprise, which represents the strongest expression of Manny’s ambitions to date, merging product function and health services that create unlimited potential for millions of people worldwide to improve global health and advance economic development. With the launch of their first factory in 2024 in Ghana, West Africa, producing antimicrobial, biodegradable shoes and the creation of a world-class management team, World Shoe has the potential to become a large-scale market opportunity and social impact. The factory in Ghana currently has the capacity to manufacture 5 million pairs of shoes per year.

Manny is the author of Sole Purpose, co-authored The Journey, and is the recipient of the 2021 Pontifical Hero Award for Inspiration from the Vatican and the Cura Foundation. He is a 2022 U.S. President’s Lifetime Achievement award recipient and a 2023 Rotary International Global Service award recipient. Manny is a regular speaker to leaders and communities around the globe. He currently serves as the Chair of Sanford Health World Clinics Board of Directors and a North Carolina USGLC Advisory Board member. In 2022, Manny was conferred a PhD and Doctor of Humane Letters from Averett University. He is the father of four children, Nike, Dele, Yemi and Wale, and happily married to his college sweetheart Tracie, his bride of 32 years.