African Entrepreneurship

From the founder of the award-winning website (www.howwemadeitinafrica.com) comes the stories of 25 entrepreneurs who've built thriving businesses. * Be inspired by the experiences of Africa’s most dynamic entrepreneurs * Gain insight into the continent’s business opportunities * Find the courage to make your own dreams and ambitions become a reality Discover why Ken Njoroge is building a billion-dollar pan-African digital payments company (it is not because he wants to drive a Ferrari); Find out how Jean de Dieu Kagabo grew a Rwanda-based industrial group from a simple product: toilet ...

The road to success is rarely linear and never easy. But with courage, hard work, perseverance, and dedication to duty, Jim Ovia, founder and chairman of Zenith Bank, proves we can achieve the unthinkable. Jim has been called the Godfather of Banking by Forbes Africa. And this should be no surprise. In a time of tension between military and civilian regimes, periods of incredible economic instability, and a decaying infrastructure, Jim founded Zenith Bank in Nigeria.

In The Billionaire Mindset, Daniel Strauss, the Strauss in the investment firm Stocks & Strauss, and a highly successful venture capitalist, explains how to adopt this life-changing new mindset. He shares his secrets of success, including how to access capital, where to find the right people to help you reach your goals, and explains how to free your mind from self-imposed limitations, so that you can also think like a billionaire.

The inspiring, instructive, and ultimately triumphant memoir of a man who used hard work and a Master Plan to turn a life sentence into a second chance. Growing up in a tough Washington, D.C., neighborhood, Chris Wilson was so afraid for his life he wouldn't leave the house without a gun. One...

“A hero’s tale of what’s possible when we unlock our potential, continue the search for knowledge, and draw on our lived experiences to guide us through the darkest moments.”—Stacey Abrams From a Black, gay woman who broke into the boys’ club of Silicon Valley comes an empowering...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An inspiring personal story of redemption, second chances, and the transformative power within us all, from the founder and CEO of the nonprofit charity: water. At 28 years old, Scott Harrison had it all. A top nightclub promoter in New York City, his life was an...

Imagine starting with a bold mission in 2012: to achieve financial inclusion through a multi-country bank. Within a decade, this vision becomes one of the fastest-growing fintechs in the world. Now, picture starting this business in South Africa, a country the IMF ranked as the hardest place to...

NATIONAL BESTSELLER Instead of waiting for White people to change, Black people must prioritize their own prosperity, power, and self-determination by navigating, challenging, and exiting racist systems—a radical argument from a Harvard behavioral scientist. LONGLISTED FOR THE PORCHLIGHT...

Risk and Return is the story of one man’s return to Africa - a journey that begins with a search for self-fulfillment, which then evolves into an entrepreneurial adventure filled with tribulations, triumphs, and many life lessons that will keep listeners engaged from start to finish. In a casual conversational voice, the author, Yomi Jemibewon, gives an honest, often hilarious and sometimes sobering account of what it feels like to chase a dream under highly uncertain circumstances.

John H. Johnson, the remarkable entrepreneur who founded the Ebony publishing empire, tells the story of his success. The wealthiest African-American in the US today, Johnson shares his rags to riches saga, from the many obstacles that confronted him to his ultimate triumph.

According to the Wall Street Journal, entrepreneurs are happier than wage-earning employees. Having the freedom to develop your own business creates the potential for both trials and triumphs. The wise entrepreneur knows that true success is all about the inner game and leveraging those obstacles into opportunities. Author and seasoned entrepreneur Oabona Michael Kgengwenyane wasn’t born in Silicon Valley but rather in an African village. He grew up in a low-income Botswana family, struggling barely to survive.

Welcome to “AfriCAN” - the can-do continent, the vast, vibrant, and diverse continent offering a wealth of human and natural resources that translate into opportunities for business - your business. Complicated? Not necessarily. Africa, with all its diversity and largesse, can be difficult to understand and to grasp. Just like most new business ventures. However, successful business in Africa is as straightforward as ABC: Appetite, Bandwidth, and Capital.

Why do brilliant African businesses collapse before they mature? From the outside, it looks like bad luck. Power cuts. Corruption. A struggling economy. But from the inside? It's sabotage by the founder. Death by ego. Suicide by informality. In Why African Businesses Die Young, The Chartered Vendor, Jerry More Nyazungu, pulls back the curtain on the real reasons our ventures fail, not because we lack ideas, but because we lack systems. Not because there’s no demand, but because we chase it blindly. This is not theory. These are battle scars.

How did a nightlife promoter from southeastern Nigeria become one of the most recognizable personalities in the country? Was his rise the result of strategic networking, digital influence, or cultural moments that captured the imagination of millions? In Cubana Chiefpriest, this concise biography explores the fascinating journey of Pascal Chibuike Okechukwu — the man widely known as Cubana Chiefpriest. From the vibrant nightlife scene of Owerri to national fame fueled by celebrity friendships and social media influence, this book examines the events, relationships, and controversies that ...

This “empowering and inspirational” (People) memoir of struggle and perseverance offers new ways of envisioning economic equality for everyone—from a leading activist and fashion pioneer. “With community and sisterhood at its center, Wildflower teaches us that against all odds, we can...

WHY THE PROJECT – “I TESTIFY TEF” The Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) and the Man Behind Africa’s Foremost Entrepreneurship Movement Dr. Tony Elumelu is more than a name; he is a phenomenon in African entrepreneurship. There’s a popular aphorism that says: “History made but not written is like a sweet dinner eaten in a dream.” And just as “the mushroom cannot forget the dead tree trunk on which it grew,” we, too, cannot cross a river without remembering the mud that carried us through. For me, the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) represents that mud—an unforgettable part of ...

The hard place is real. Power cuts. Unstable prices. Delayed payments. Weak systems. Customers who bargain hard because trust is low and money is tight. Family pressure that turns your small business into a family emergency fund. If you are building inside that reality, you do not need motivational noise. You need a field guide. The Hard-Place Entrepreneur is written for builders who cannot rely on smooth infrastructure, easy capital, or predictable markets. It helps you choose a business that fits your environment, protect cash flow like oxygen, price fairly without starving yourself, sell...

The opportunities that we look for are within us. We create the opportunities we want in life. Wrong orientation can make us believe that there are no opportunities where we are. Looking at the structure of our economy and industries, entrepreneurship is where any of us can start with nothing and still become hugely successful. There are no entry requirements and nothing prevents any of us from becoming an entrepreneur. We have the best of our dreams by becoming entrepreneurs. Many hurdles, criticisms, losses, doubts, etc. We win if we don’t give up. It is life long journey of learning. ...

It is hard work to get the African to be positive about Africa. While others are coming to African in numbers the sons and daughters of Africa are finding all ways and means to get out of African to find better life. Some say it is economic migration, but I say it is part of the results of the constant assaults that we have gone through as Africans for centuries. It takes a lot of courage and strength to be confident and positive as an African and about Africa. Resilience is that divine power within that keeps on energizing us, inspiring us as we build our businesses as entrepreneurs on the...

The inspiring story of the creation of what is proving to be one of the world’s most innovative education philanthropies, which has helped thousands of underserved African communities take control of their own futures through sustainable and localized low-fee private schools.