Zenith Bank’s next growth opportunity lies beyond Nigeria’s borders. Founded by Jim Ovia, the Nigerian financial group has completed its acquisition of Paramount Bank Kenya and is now engaging the Kenyan government over its plans for the market. The discussions signal a new phase in the bank’s international expansion, with Kenya offering a potential base for reaching businesses and […]
A good business idea can be dangerously persuasive. You imagine the customers, calculate the money it could make, picture the brand taking off and begin spending before anyone has demonstrated that the business deserves to exist. The logo comes first, then the website, equipment, packaging, rent and perhaps a loan. Months later, the uncomfortable question arrives: what if people […]
Don Jazzy has spent more than two decades making music, but his most consequential work may have happened away from the microphone. The hits made him famous. The businesses made him formidable. Somewhere between the producer behind Mo’ Hits, the founder of Mavin Records and the executive who helped build careers for some of Africa’s biggest contemporary stars, Michael […]
A house is easy to understand. A city is a different proposition. It requires a longer imagination, more capital, more patience and an acceptance that the thing being built may outlive the person who conceived it. That distinction goes a long way towards explaining Mustapha “TAF” Njie, the Gambian entrepreneur whose name has become closely associated with large-scale housing […]
. Who Says It’s Too Late? . African Business Builders & The Long Game . —- . At 25, Aliko Dangote was not the man whose name would eventually become synonymous with African industry. There was no $20-billion refinery project, no sprawling conglomerate stretching across the continent, no global billionaire ranking attached to his name. There was simply a […]
Long before hibiscus became a fashionable ingredient on global wellness menus, Nigerians knew it as zobo. For Timi Oke, however, the deep-red flower represented something more consequential: a commodity with a market beyond Nigeria’s borders. While working in banking in the UK, Oke spent his spare time studying agricultural products that could be traded internationally. In 2012, that curiosity […]
At 16, Belusochim Ugochukwu is already working at Apple on machine learning, computer vision and robotics research. For a Nigerian teenager to arrive at one of the world’s most influential technology companies at an age when most of his peers are still making decisions about their first degree is remarkable. But Ugochukwu’s story becomes more compelling when the achievement […]
African fashion has moved beyond the question of whether the world is paying attention. The more important question now is who will capture the value. For decades, African fashion was too often presented to the world through a narrow vocabulary: traditional prints, ceremonial clothing, craftsmanship and colour. That picture is no longer large enough. Across Lagos, Accra, Johannesburg, Nairobi, […]
Sport has produced countless champions, but very few competitors have transformed the economics of athletic success. Michael Jordan did exactly that. In 2014, the six-time NBA champion became the world’s first athlete to reach billionaire status, a milestone achieved not through playing contracts alone but through an extraordinary ability to build enduring commercial value. His journey redefined what was […]
Africa’s largest industrial investor may soon deepen his footprint in East Africa. Aliko Dangote, the continent’s richest man and founder of the Dangote Group, is reportedly evaluating major new investment opportunities in Tanzania, a move that could strengthen the country’s industrial capacity while reinforcing its position as one of East Africa’s fastest-growing economies. The interest comes at a time […]