Africa Business

Africa's Business Revolution provides the inside story on business in Africa and its future growth prospects and helps executives understand and seize the opportunities for building profitable, sustainable enterprises.

When André de Ruyter took over as Eskom CEO in January 2020, he quickly realised why it was considered the toughest job in South Africa. Aside from neglected equipment, ageing power stations and an eroded skills base, he discovered that Eskom was crippled by corruption on a staggering scale. De Ruyter takes the listener inside the boardrooms and government meetings where South Africa’s future is shaped, with ministers often pulling in conflicting directions, and candidly reflects on his three years at the power utility.

As the newly appointed minister of education in Sierra Leone, David Moinina Sengeh assumed that the administration he served—not to mention his family and friends—shared his conviction that all girls belong in the classroom. He was shocked to learn that many of those closest to him, including a member of his own family, were against lifting a long-standing policy banning pregnant girls from school. Radical Inclusion is the dramatic narrative of Sengeh’s drive to guarantee pregnant girls’ right to an education.

In Business Spotlight Audio 05/2023 für Mai hören Sie Artikel und Interviews aus der Welt des Business-Englisch. Mit Übungen verbessern Sie Ihre sprachlichen und kommunikativen Kompetenzen. Der Schwerpunkt liegt auf Afrika, u.a. mit Beiträgen über die reichste Frau Nigerias, Kleinunternehmen in Uganda, dem einzigen Kino in Benin, Afrikas erster Beauftragter für die Folgen extremer Hitze. In "Business Skills" erfahren Sie, wie Sie das Gegenteil Ihres Strebens erreichen, nämlich kein guter, sondern ein schrecklicher Vorgesetzter zu werden.

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.

Greatness comes from acting on purpose, and there is a generation of South Africans solving problems for the future. Learn how Pratley beat Armstrong to the moon, how a former Eskom quantity surveyor capitalised on Britain’s obsession with meerkats to create the UK’s most visible price comparison website, how to take a Mediterranean-style food concept to the Mediterranean, and how a device designed to beat diamond smuggling made it from the set of a popular US hospital drama into emergency rooms and pathology labs across the US.

Africa, the cradle of humanity, is a continent brimming with potential. From its vast natural resources and swathes of arable land to its vibrant youthful population, Africa is ready to usher in a new age of prosperity and claim its place on the global stage. But the continent will not flourish without visionary leadership, careful planning, thoughtful innovation, and openness to change.

Often, new exporters will feel a bit overwhelmed about trading with South Africa. Much consideration and planning will need to go into deciding on the company type, delivery of products and services, marketing strategies, and local conditions.

Wins, losses, lessons and laughs. From 'naughty lists' to sprinting swans, wandering ducks to Amarula-based incentives, The First Kudu takes you on the roller coaster ride of a start-up and dives into real learnings along the way. The narrative invites you to journey through the chaos with the young team, and unpacks in gritty detail what goes into building a tech start-up—with stories of fun and failure honestly told in equal measure.

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.

Making Futures brings together 18 young entrepreneurs from 14 countries doing incredible work across the continent. Their stories are both inspirational and aspirational, providing a template for listeners who might be interested in embarking on their own entrepreneurial journey, and allowing others to see the incredible energy and work that is happening across the continent.

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.

Will Africa be the world's next hub of manufacturing? China is answering in the affirmative and investing accordingly. This book dispels the notion that this crucial story is merely about China's exploitation of Africa's resources, illuminating deep questions about our own Western approach to development and the implications for the future of manufacturing. The fact that China sees Africa not for its poverty but for its potential wealth is a striking departure from the attitude of the West, in particular the United States.

KC Rottok Chesaina seeks to uncover the unique personality traits, business acumen, and leadership values that have turned CEOs into captains of industry. Based on extensive research and focused interviews with the leaders of some of South Africa’s top companies, including Vodacom, Bidvest, Capitec Bank, RMB, Dis-Chem, Discovery Health, Nedbank, Sanlam, Momentum, Curro, Exxaro, Harmony Gold and MTN, Chesaina’s book takes you to the heart of corporate South Africa.

大前研一氏推薦！　“人類発祥の地「アフリカ」がいよいよ来た！”この本は、現地情報×ファクトフルネスで、30年前の頭を切り替える新感覚ビジネスパーソンの教養書です！

The founder of multibillion-rand financial services empire Sygnia Limited, Magda Wierzycka is South Africa’s most successful businesswoman. In this engaging and insightful book, she tells the story of her life, from her childhood in communist Poland, her family’s escape and relocation to South Africa, her early struggles in the male-dominated financial services industry and the formation and growth of her own company, Sygnia.

The most novel collection of unknown insights about Africa's consumer markets.

An astonishing 94.6 percent of businesses fail to sell. They close at an enormous cost to the owner, their family, their staff and the economy. Most business owners realise too late that there are only two destinations for any business: a sale or closure. You’ve got to build to $ell. Sweat, Scale, Sell shares real business-building stories about how ordinary business owners took charge of their fate using the Asset of Value™ method.

With twenty years of experience in frontier markets, including a decade working in Africa, author Jonathan Berman engages with top business leaders on the vast opportunities and challenges of the continent. Success in Africa pushes past the headlines on Africa's growth to answer the questions often asked by companies and investors: Who do I work with there and what drives them? How do I deal with government? What about war, disease, and poverty? What about China? How do I win?

Chasing Black Unicorns is an autobiography written by Marek Zmyslowski, one of Poland’s most respected internet entrepreneurs. Witty and humorous, the book covers many dramatic and often dangerous events. Before moving to Nigeria to set up the "Amazon of Africa", Zmyslowski worked for one of Poland’s biggest financial services companies and is the founder of many online ventures in Central Europe.