BUSINESS AFRICANS

Success always takes time, which is why the most successful people start early. Entrepreneurs are a unique breed of people. We like to do things our way and are known for our almost obsessive attraction to habits. But, there’s a good reason for that. Habits help us achieve our goals, keep us motivated, eliminates wasted time, and improve our lives altogether. Arguably, the most important habit for an entrepreneur is their morning routine. After all, if you start your day off on the wrong foot, how productive, motivated, and focused are you going to be for the rest of the day? To make sure that you start your day off on the right foot, here are seven things that every entrepreneur should before 7 a.m. 1. They’re wide awake. Successful entrepreneurs like Richard Branson are known for waking up bright and early. "I have always been an early riser. Like keeping a positive outlook, or keeping fit, waking up early is a habit, which you must work on to main

Rachel Sibande is the founder of M-Hub, Malawi’s first technology hub. It is an incubator for technology startups with a special focus on building young tech entrepreneurs by offering them training, skills development and mentorship.  “M-Hub champions the development of technology solutions as its main lifeline.The hub invests its profits in social good programs that build capacities of children, girls and youth in developing technology applications. Ultimately, M-Hub wants to be the prime software solution provider in the nation and beyond, employing skills of young Malawians.” Girls and Their Toys Rachel’s interest in technology started in her school days when she found herself playing with different gadgets, radios and anything tech she could find. Later on, she studied computer science at Malawi’s Chancellors College and then sparked off her career as a programmer before diverting into lecturing and teaching. “Growing up I had a passion for gadgets. I

The utmost significance of an innovation is that it improves lives, and that is exactly what Igwe Stanley Onyekachi is doing with his platform WeFix.com.ng, an online platform that connects handymen and repairmen with customers. The graduate of Chemistry from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana, had experienced the challenges of getting repairmen to fix a bad appliance and decided to solve the problem. “First, you don’t find them when you need them. Secondly, you cannot be entirely sure that they will show up. And lastly, their quality of service,” he said in an interview with online media, BossMan. Unlike similar platforms which simply connect repairmen to customers, this Port –Harcourt based start-up also operates a pickup – drop off repair delivery system. Also, the repairmen are professionally and specifically trained for different appliances and brands. Therefore, customers are assured of a satisfactory service. Whatever you’re bu

Here are 7 inspiring young African entrepreneurs who you need to watch out for in 2017. They are all juggernauts in nurturing nascent businesses into maturity on the African continent. Still under 40 years of age, these young and dynamic entrepreneurs have the legendary courage to dare and conquer. These 7 exceptional talents would surely play significant roles in charting the course of businesses in the African continent in the years ahead. Adeniyi Makanjuola , Nigerian Adeniyi Makanjuola is anything but conventional. His unassuming, self effacing demeanor belies the fact that he is an integral part of the birthing of a plethora of business ventures ranging from aviation to oil & gas, environmental utilities, energy and the financial sectors. After completing his degrees in Financial Economics from the University of Essex and an M.Sc in Urban Planning and Development from the University College London, UK, Adeniyi moved home to Nigeria to start up a helicopt

Mariatu Turay braided hair to survive when she was homeless and penniless after fleeing war-torn Sierra Leone at the age of 16. Now she is prominent in London's African community as an entrepreneur with her own fashion boutique and believes her story demonstrates that anyone can follow their dream. Turay was born in London, the daughter of a Sierra Leone government official. But was raised in Freetown in the west African nation until being sent to America with her mother and brothers at the age of 16 when civil war was raging. Homeless in the U.S., she fell back on the hair braiding skill she had learned at school where all the girls had to plait their hair. Begging from work, she ended up in a hair salon, then learned secretarial and office skills so she could get corporate work. Moving back to London, she used her hairdressing skills to pay her way through college, earning a degree in economics, politics and public administration. Then she w

Losing her father as a young girl, Nkem watched her widowed mother like other women in her community and communities around her struggle to feed and educate their families because of lack of skills and access to finance needed to start a business. Rather than bring her down, this inspired her to start up what is today called Mamamoni. With a mission to eradicate poverty through economic empowerment of poor women, Nkem set up Mamamoni, a social enterprise that is addressing community transformation by empowering women to carry on small businesses. Loan recipients get low interest loans in return for signing up for a system designed to create impact on financial inclusion and children’s education. She started Mamamoni at a time where she says she had very limited funds to help these women, but today through her intervention over 4000 low-income women and their families have been impacted and Mamamoni has grown beyond bounds, earning recognition of the Nigerian presidency and v

Leaving her job with a Fortune 100 power company was not an easy decision to make but a necessary one to pursue her passion of exploring the Agro-beauty sector. Joycee Awosika is the MD/CEO of ORÍKÌ (a luxury skincare brand that fuses natural ingredients & scientific research to create extraordinary personal care products) and a 2015 Tony Elumelu Entrepreneur recently recognized on the YNaija 100 Most Influential Women. Her first visit to Nigeria in 2011, was the propelling force to starting ORÍKÌ, in her words “I couldn’t help being impacted by the evident abundance of human and natural resources. Nigeria is a colossal gold mine that has been largely untapped and I felt a connection to the potential that could be explored… Beauty manufacturers and corporations around the world exploit the natural ingredients grown abundantly in Nigeria and other African nations yet there are very few proudly indigenous brands that compete globally. A few months after this visit,

 In line with US$100m commitment made in 2015 to empower 10,000 African entrepreneurs over the next 10 years ‎ Lagos, Nigeria, 22 March 2017  — The Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF), an African founded and funded 21st century philanthropic organization committed to entrepreneurship development, ushers in 1,000 African entrepreneurs, to form the 2017 class of its prolific $100m Entrepreneurship Programme. Applications were received from over 93,000 entrepreneurs across 55 African countries –  over 100% increase from 2016, and nearly quadruple of the 2015 application numbers. Proving that African youth are indeed interested in feeding the continent, Agriculture led the pack with nearly 1 in 3 successful applicants active in this sector. Further analysis of the other figures brings even more welcome news for Africa. The next most popular sector was ICT (11%) and then manufacturing (9%), evidence of a paradigm shift away from extractives to a more sustainable mindset that

Nestlé is providing locally made bamboo bikes to help child labour officers in Ghana monitor their work on the fields as part of its commitment to prevent and  eliminate child labour from its supply chain . The company has teamed up with  Ghana Bamboo Bikes , a social enterprise in Bekwai in the Ashanti region, which aims to create employment opportunities and training for skilled and unskilled young people, especially women. 30 bamboo bikes will be given to 30 new community liaison officers with an additional 60 to be given to 60 officers, who are being trained to monitor child labour and carry out sensitization campaigns in Bekwai and Nsokoti in Ashanti, where two  Nestlé Cocoa Plan  farms are based in each village. This is part of the launch of the Child Labour Monitoring and Remediation System (CLMRS) in Ghana on March 1, to reinforce the monitoring of child labour in cocoa-growing communities under the Nestlé Cocoa Plan. Launched in 2009, the Plan is a h

“Entrepreneurship helps you gain a new sense of self-awareness. You start to understand who you are. You start to realise your strengths and start to see another side to yourself that you didn’t know even existed.” So says South African Ntsoaki Phali, founder of Beyond Ability Talent Solutions and the recent winner of the 2017 Woman of Stature’s Woman Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Her company, started in 2009, specialises in the recruitment, training and placement of people with disabilities into employment. It also works with firms to help them adapt their workspaces to better cater for employees with different physical capabilities and has worked with large clients that include the likes of Discovery Health and Volvo. Addressing a need In 1998 the South African Department of Labour introduced the Employment Equity Act, which aims to protect employees from unfair discrimination and ensure that businesses play their part in readdressing the social and economic im

Geopolitical events, fallen commodity prices, and slower global growth are all factors that have negatively impacted many African economies over the last few years. Take Nigeria as an example. Three years ago, the west African country overtook  South Africa  as the largest economy in Africa and was the poster child for the ‘African rising’ narrative. But a lot of this optimism faded after the oil price took a dive in mid-2014. With less revenue from  oil  exports, the country has plunged into economic instability, and foreign direct investment (FDI) has suffered.  According  to Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics, capital importation via FDI has declined from US$768.86m in the fourth quarter of 2014 to $344.68m in the fourth quarter of 2016. At the recent GTR Africa Trade Finance Week in Cape Town, a handful of business leaders, who are successfully operating companies in Africa, shared some of the ways they are dealing with today’s realities – with the hope of sho