Young African Entrepreneur Victoria Crandall

Dr. Lulu Gwagwa is CEO of Lereko Investments, a black-owned investment firm in South Africa. You can connect with Dr. Lulu at http://www.lulugwagwa.co.za. Born in a rural village in KwaZulu-Natal, Dr. Lulu came from a large family that included 25 family members. Growing up, she wanted to be a doctor, but there was no math teacher in her village, which halted her future medical career. She studied at University of Fort Hare, a historically important black university. Encouraged by a professor, Dr. Lulu completed her masters in urban planning at the University of Natal, a predominantly white higher education institution where she was one of a handful of black students. She qualified as the first black town and regional planner – a remarkable achievement in apartheid South Africa. In the late 1980s, Dr. Lulu left for London for further graduate studies; she graduated from the London School of Economics with a masters in social policy & planning and the University College London with a PhD. With the election of Nelson Mandela in 1994, South Africa’s apartheid regime was no more. Dr. Lulu joined the government as a director in the national department of public works. For the next ten years, she worked in development, consulting, and research, notably for the World Bank. In the early 2000s, Dr. Lulu parlayed her diverse professional experiences into business. She set up Lereko Investments with partners and quickly established herself as a power player in South Africa’s corporate world. She’s also a non-executive director at FirstRand, Massmart, and Sun International. Dr. Lulu has built an extraordinary career. She’s achieved many firsts, academically and professionally. I was inspired by her story, which is a testament to her grit and spirit. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Dr Lulu Gwagwa.

Karan Singh is the founder and CEO of Yegomoto, Rwanda’s motorcycle taxi ride-hailing startup. You can connect with him @yegomotoafrica on Twitter. Karan is a successful entrepreneur who grew flourishing businesses in both India and Singapore. In 2015, he travelled to Rwanda on business and saw an opportunity to use tech to organize the informal motorcycle taxi sector, which is prone to road accidents and associated with theft and crime. The Rwandan government had even banned, albeit briefly, motorcycle taxis from Kigali around this time, but as the main means of transportation, they had to let them back onto the streets. He set up Yegomoto which mounts a IOT-enabled device with a point of sales terminal onto all of its bikes, which helps drivers, who are earning better wages and avoiding deadly accidents, and riders, who no longer have to haggle for fares and are safer. And the exciting part of Yegomoto’s business model is that it can use the reams of data on its bikes, including the speed, location, fare costs, for other businesses. In fact, Karan, who is quite the ambitious and forward-thinking entrepreneur, doesn’t see Yegomoto as just a platform play but rather an infrastructure play, which he explains in fascinating detail. We talked about Karan’s long-term vision for Yegomoto, why it’s different from other ride-hailing apps like Taxify and Uber, and the four questions he asks every aspiring entrepreneur. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Karan Singh.

Akin Sawyerr is the Managing Director of Feleman, an investments and consulting firm focused on payments systems, remittances, and blockchain solutions to catalyze growth in emerging markets. You can connect with him @akinsawyerr on Twitter. Akin is also the co-founder of RocRemit, a blockchain remittance company, and is a director of Splash Mobile Money, a mobile payments company in Sierra Leone. Akin is a fount of knowledge on mobile money and payments in Sub-Saharan Africa. We chatted about his early involvement in Splash, why blockchain will revolutionize remittances in Sub-Saharan Africa, and the changing profile of the successful African startup founder. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Akin Sawyerr.

Leo Stiegeler is the general manger of Ringier Africa, publisher of the popular Pulse media brand. You can connect with him @LeonardStiegeler on Linkedin. Leo is passionate about Africa’s digital media and marketing. For the last five years, he has led the expansion of Ringier, a 200-year old Swiss media giant, into Nigeria, Ghana, and Kenya’s booming digital media markets. Leo is quickly establishing Ringier as one of Africa’s leading digital media brands. In July, Ringier reached a total of 169 million users across its platforms. Before Ringier, Leo was at the forefront of Africa’s e-commerce as one of the co-founders of Jumia Nigeria. He later served as the CEO of Startup Partners Africa, a Lagos-based internet incubator. We talked about Leo’s early fascination with Sub-Saharan Africa, his experiences in Nigeria’s budding e-commerce market, and the vast potential of Africa’s digital media. He’s an adamant believer in local content and the power of video, saying if “a Nigerian is spending his/her last kobo, it will be on video.” Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Leo Stiegeler.

Mira Mehta is the founder and CEO of Tomato Jos, a tomato paste company based in Kaduna, Nigeria. You can connect with her @ShoutsAndMiras and @TeamTomatoJos on Twitter. Mira was born and raised in New England in the US. Fresh out of college, she landed her first job at BlackRock, a large asset manager. Driven and ambitious, Mira quickly realized that she’d never have a leadership role, as her department was just a “line item” in the company’s P&L. She was looking to make more of an impact and joined the Clinton Health Access Initiative, which sent her to Nigeria. While she was once driving to Kano in northern Nigeria, Mira saw a glut of tomatoes lining the side of the road. The quantity of rotting tomatoes was so great that the road resembled a red carpet. The image lingered with her. Why was Nigeria, which imports hundreds of millions of dollars of tomato paste per year, not able to manufacture tomato paste locally from its domestic tomato crop? After finishing her MBA at Harvard, Mira still couldn’t shake the tomato processing idea, and she decided to bite the bullet. In 2014, Mira moved to Nigeria to set up her tomato processing company, Tomato Jos. Mira talks candidly about the difficulties and challenges inherent to Nigeria’s agroprocessing sector, why profitable farming is the key to any successful processing project (and explains why Dangote’s tomato paste factory rests idle), the ins and outs of her outgrower program, and how she works with her investors. Plus, Mira gave one of the most thought-provoking answers to one of my favorite questions about where she’d travel in Sub-Saharan Africa to improve her business --- so don’t miss her response. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Mira Mehta.

Nnamdi Oranye is the founder of Disrupting Africa, an open platform promoting Africa’s innovators. You can connect with him @Nnamdi Oranye on Linkedin and @nnamdi_oranye on Twitter. Nnamdi is passionate about Africa’s tech innovation. He is the author of Disrupting Africa and Taking on Silicon Valley. Nnamdi is also the former host of a weekly show featuring African innovators on radio station PowerFM 98.7 in Johannesburg, South Africa. He’s a regular contributor on African tech innovation to the BBC, CNBC Africa, and Mail & Guardian. Nnamdi spent his early years between the UK and Nigeria before moving to Botswana with his family where he studied engineering at university. Itching to leave for the “first world”, he immigrated to Australia. But a bullish McKinsey report changed his perceptions on the opportunities in Sub-Saharan Africa. When he was asked to lead the Africa expansion of an Australian mobile money company, he jumped at the chance, moving to South Africa. This experience in Africa’s fintech sector during the takeoff of mobile money dramatically shaped his perceptions on African innovators. He met many brilliant African innovators who struggled with getting visibility. When he joined PowerFM 98.7 as a contributor, he spoke with many African founders and innovators, which marked the beginning of his life mission to promote African innovation abroad. We chatted about Nnamdi’s early experiences in fintech, his fascination for all things digital payments, the one takeaway every African innovator should remember (hint, it’s about mindset), and 3 innovative African companies that he admires. Without further ado, here’s my conversation with Nnamdi Oranye.