Héritage &Mission

Omar never chose the construction industry: he was born into it. On Sundays, his father Aliou Sow would pile the four boys into the car for the tour of the job sites. As the eldest son, he inherited a tacit but crushing command: take over the company. "Had I been even the second son, I would have had a different destiny." BTP is not his passion — it is his duty, and he has accepted it without regret since September 28, 1987.

Facing heads of state as easily as ministers, Omar does not flinch. His secret isn't arrogance, it's the opposite: "Whoever you are, you are nothing. You only exist by the goodwill of the Almighty." This vertical humility — before God — produces absolute horizontality before men. Even Yerim, his billionaire brother, "keeps a low profile." It's the DNA of the Sow family, drilled in by Aliou.

Omar's core advice to young people: "You must believe in what you want to become and never let go." He cites the book "The Secret" without irony. At his own modest level, he sees it confirmed every day: when he truly wants something and does everything for it, he gets it. His brother Yerim would say exactly the same thing. Faith in the outcome is the entrepreneur's first tool — before the business plan, before the funding.

It is the first value Aliou Sow instilled in Omar, simply by living it. "When you've given your word, it's worth a signature — even if it costs you money." In a trade where public contracts are negotiated for hundreds of billions of CFA, this rule becomes a competitive edge. It is the reason why, 55 years after its founding, CSE is still a benchmark and a "national heritage" — as the father himself said in front of President Wade.

During the 20 years of the Diouf administration, Omar "barely existed" at CSE. He was an apprentice; his father was the face of the company. Then in 2000, Wade comes to power with ministers Omar's age, and the wheel turns. One day, it's Omar who brings Aliou to an audience with Idrissa Seck, prime minister — instead of the other way around. In that precise moment, his father understands that his time has passed.

Omar is not an engineer — but no engineer at CSE can feed him nonsense. Why? Because he started as an administrative agent in Sierra Leone in 1987, then country manager in Guinea, with stints in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso. Years in the field, in the bush, with one week in Dakar every 3 months. Technical legitimacy cannot be bought — it is earned on the job sites, in the mud.

"My father didn't leave us billions in the bank, you need to know that." Aliou Sow left his sons companies — and companies in trouble. In 2017, at the time of his death, CSE was "rock bottom," with the Senegalese State and Sierra Leone still owing large sums, barely enough to pay salaries. Omar says it openly: he will do the same with his own children. "It's your turn to fight."

Omar holds no cash. His assets are in real estate, invested, in motion. "Having billions in a dormant account serves nothing." Only two options: spend it on yourself, or use it to help others. Any other stance — accumulating for accumulation's sake — makes no sense to him. What matters is circulation, not stacking.

In 2006, the Sow group sells its stake in BST to CBAO for the equivalent of 40 years of dividends. Omar personally: a stake of 200 million CFA turned into 2.5 million euros. A 10x multiplication in just a few years. The money earned, Omar immediately reinvested into Bridge Bank, his brother Yerim's new banking venture. A good deal never stops — it funds the next one.

After 2017, Omar made a structural decision that transformed CSE: split the company into 4. The historic CSE (roads), CSE Immobilier (building and development), CSE Granulats (aggregates — now the group's most flourishing subsidiary), and CSEG (energy). The road business was dragging everything else down because it is "the worst paid and the most capital-intensive." This simple reorganization boosted the group's revenue — without a single euro of extra investment.

Aliou Sow confided to Omar: "If I had founded CSE in the 2000s, I would never have succeeded." In the 70s, it was enough to be serious and to work hard. Today, without relationships, you go nowhere. The Chinese arrive with their Exim Bank and projects subsidized at 20%; classic public tenders have almost disappeared. You need to identify a project, structure the financing, and present an offer to the State — and that depends on who you know.

"The beginning and the end is human." Most people who join CSE stay — not for the high salary, but because they are attached to the company's image. Vinci and Satom poached many of their talents; many came back. CSE is a recognized "training lab": even the Senegalese administration (AGIR, APIX) recruits from them. Joining CSE means joining a family — that's what creates retention.

Someone who has given 20 years of their life to CSE and is retiring, "you can't just leave them in the struggle, it's not possible." Housing, retirement bonuses, conversions into consultants — the company puts in place a whole system to hold on to its veterans. That's what explains the natural goodwill with which his father's old collaborators welcomed Omar at the start: "Not a single one fought me." Downward loyalty creates upward loyalty.

Omar has an obsession: do not hand over too late. He wants to leave his post in 2029 — in good health, to see the system run without him while he's still alive. Why? Because the 3rd-generation transmission is the hardest of all: Aliou carried CSE as a biological child, Omar as an adopted one — not the same attachment. And the next heir? That one will have seen only established prosperity, never the building. That's where empires die.

When his father passed, Omar made the shift: "I truly realized that succeeding in life isn't about being the richest entrepreneur or accumulating possessions. It's about impacting the maximum number of lives." That is, being useful. Period. The rest — the revenues, the real estate holdings, the spreadsheets — is scenery. The question to ask is not "how much do I have?" but "how many lives have I served?".

Since turning 60, Omar has lived with a constant countdown. The luckiest reach 90 — what percentage is that? Since the dawn of humanity, roughly 100 billion humans have lived. We are 8 billion ants today. Each one thinks of himself as the center of the world — and is the center of nothing. Becoming aware of the ridiculousness of our duration changes everything: you stop pushing to next month what you can do today.

It's Omar's motto: "I work to live better, not the other way around." At 60, he adjusted his schedule — office in the morning, nap in the afternoon, meetings at home in the evening. Racehorses (with his own colors at France Galop), the Bijagos islands where he bought land for a Robinson Crusoe hut, the book on his 35 years of art collecting — none of it is luxury, it's the very point of the work.

The only time Omar said "I love you" to his father, it landed like a punch in the conversation — Aliou froze, then simply answered: "Omar, you my first child." That was his way of saying I love you. Because no one had ever said it to him. Omar carries that regret: not having pushed his father further, not having been closer. Lesson: whatever you do for someone gone, you will have regrets. Do it while they are alive.

Omar lives with deep faith — and so with a deep fear of death, which he owns. But he has found serenity since he started going to the mosque (18 months). His rule of life: "If I had to pick my problems, I'd rather have money problems than health problems." That's why he never complains about cash-flow problems. "Today, health is true wealth." The final lesson of a man who has handled everything and knows what cannot be bought.

Omar has collected art for 35 years but never shows his collection. His brother Yerim, a billionaire, "keeps a low profile." That's Sow family DNA: those who have truly succeeded don't need to prove it. Those who prove it haven't succeeded. Sobriety isn't a posture — it's an absence of need for validation. Noise always betrays the one who doubts.

Omar personally knows Macky Sall, IBK, Roch Kaboré, Mohamed Bazoum — all heads of state before and after their rise. But he observes one constant: the moment they reach power, something changes. "My most recent experience proves to me that they have no friends." Power doesn't kill affection — it transforms it into protocol, into interests, into permanent calculation. The man remains, but the relationship doesn't survive.

Omar discovers — through the Sufis — that giving to others is not a sacrifice. It is a form of noble selfishness: you do yourself good first, by relieving the suffering around you. "Taking care of others, you take care of yourself." This reframe changes everything: generosity doesn't need to be disinterested to be real. Personal well-being and the common good are the same thing — just seen from different angles.

Omar has a non-negotiable rule: the moment he walks out of the office, he doesn't talk about it anymore. Not to his wife, not to his children, not to his friends. He criticizes entrepreneurs who drag their laptop home and turn every meal into a meeting. "I leave the office, I stop talking about work. And I think about work again when I go back to work." It's the only way to keep a family, a mind, a life. The job is jealous — if you never leave it, it will never let you go.