Macauley Atasie is the MD/CEO of NEXTZON, a business he started with some of his top management members at HEIRS Alliance between August 2004 and March 2005 to commercialise their activities/skills. In March 2005 NEXTZON started business and in about 36 months of operations, Mac has led this business to become well known and respected, with clientele and staff strength growing in rapid pace. The company has clients, project activities and partnerships in Nigeria and across Africa. Mac's marketing and technical expertise as well as his leadership skills have been brought to bear fully on this entrepreneurial effort.

Before NEXTZON was set up, Mac worked as the CEO of HEIRS Alliance Ltd, between 2003 and 2005. The company was set up as a holding company for several banks and non banks totaling 10 companies with assets under management of over $1 Billion. As pioneer CEO of HEIRS Alliance he was responsible for setting up the company, building its systems, brand and culture. He restructured the HEIRS/STB group fostering enhanced integration amongst its members, modeling its operations after the Indian conglomerate known as Tata Sons which manages the Tata group of companies. He supervised the expansion of the group by the set up of a few new entities such as: a bank in Ghana (now known as United Bank of Africa - Ghana), HEIRS Insurance (which later became UBA Insurance and is now under the management of Nicon Insurance). He also set up a payments company known as Global Payments Services Limited and a logistics company known as eXL Management services Ltd.

Before joining HEIRS Alliance, Mac had gained valuable experience in the Financial Services, Payments, Brewing, Manufacturing, Oil and Gas, and Aviation Industries. He started his career as an Assistant Manager at Nigerian Breweries Plc. West Africa's largest brewing company, before moving to Accenture where he worked for over a decade. At Accenture, Macauley was Head of Venturing/Payment Systems & Senior Manager, Strategy. He led numerous projects including developing corporate and business unit strategies for large, medium sized and small Nigerian banks and the largest ground handling company in the aviation industry. He was also involved in developing a new strategic direction and operating plan for one of the largest soft drinks companies in Nigeria. As head of Venturing/Payment systems, Macauley led several industry-defining initiatives such as the National Switching Project, ATM Consortium Project, and Application Services Provider Project aimed at small and medium-sized enterprises.

At Accenture, Macauley was exposed to several of the firm's global training sessions on strategy development, logistics planning and supply chain management, customer relationship management, and payment systems. He also facilitated several courses within the firm and received offshore exposure by visiting other Accenture offices to interact with colleagues and gain relevant skills. Macauley has delivered several papers at the Lagos Business School and other organized conferences and seminars on topical issues including e-Commerce, the future of the Financial Services industry, Customer Relationship Management and logistics and smart cards and ePayment systems. Mac has also attended courses and executive programmes at some top global business schools including Stanford University in the United States, Cranfield University in the U.K and Witts University in South Africa.

Mac has investments in a few young businesses such as Customer Feedback Systems (CFS) West Africa, Sattrak Services Ltd, as well as Universal Leather Services Ltd. He sits on the board of these three companies, as well as NEXTZON, Trend TV Ltd., Paymaster Ltd., International Sport Management Africa (ISMA), Integrated Capital Services Ltd., Moneybox Nigeria Ltd, South-West Ikoyi Micro Finance Bank, Ikoyi amongst others.

Macauley has a BSc. (Second Class Upper Division) degree in Microbiology and an MSc. in Pharmaceutical Microbiology, both from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka.