Our History

Michael C. Fanning was born on Tuesday, 7th April 1987 at exactly 1:45am in Libreville, Gabon. His father, Jacques Adrien Rolagho held a 9 to 5 job his whole life and his mother, Genevieve Mambou was a stay-at home mom. She was his biggest inspiration and taught him to believe in himself first before expecting anyone else to do so.

While studying at Nelson Mandela high school in Libreville, Michael C. Fanning won a trip to Johannesburg, South Africa, under the auspices of the South African embassy in Gabon. He always hoped to meet his hero Nelson Mandela and this was his only chance to make it happen. Sadly Madiba fell sick at the time and could not receive visitors.

He was awarded a national scholarship to study abroad in any University that would admit him for a bachelor’s degree. His first choice was the U.S. But his parents could not afford to put a downpayment to secure his admission. The only country he could go to without heavy financial constraints was France, which he explicitly declined. Instead, he chose to go back to South Africa, but this time, to study Information Systems & Finance at the University of the Western Cape. His life forever changed when while studying abroad, he received a phone call announcing the sudden and unexpected passing of his beloved mother, his inspiration and only person who genuinely believed in his potential and audacious dreams.

He successfully incorporated and launched his first startup company called iThlone Inc., which was a web hosting company specialising in providing small business owners with an entry-level website to build and expand their online brands. He soon realised he had to learn to write lines of HTML, CSS and JAVA scripts in order to stand out from the competition and keep startup costs low.  

This year, he had to close down his IT company and quit the entrepreneurial route for the whole year. He leveraged his financial investments to live off of his interests income to volunteer full-time at a local non-profit organisation. That’s when he realised that his entrepreneurial expertise could become an opportunity to empower, educate and equip the next generation to invest in income generating assets, just as he had successfully done in his early twenties. And this is how Philtech Business Academy was born.

He met Larissa Fanning, his future wife and best friend this year. They met in Cape Town, at the local non-profit organisation where he had volunteered the previous year. However, this same year, Larissa sent him a link to a competition for social entrepreneurs to stand a chance to get trained on the fundamentals of sustainable entrepreneurship in Stuttgart, Germany. He applied and successfully was admitted to the program. He flew to Germany and by December that same year, he proposed to Larissa in Paris at the Eiffel tower’s feet. 

He got married to Larissa, the love of his life in the city where it all started; Cape Town. It is in that same year that he published his first book Business Creativity, which was published through Philtech Business Academy. He then flew back to Hamburg, Germany to write his second textbook titled Sustainable Business Planning.   

He published his second textbook in Hamburg, Germany. And relaunched his official website to provide everyone with some basic knowledge of the stock market, various investment instruments, real estate, NFTs and Cryptocurrencies.