Items12The creator’s order
  1. 1Mo IbrahimMo IbrahimBorn 3 May 1946Mobile networks. Ibrahim, a Sudanese engineer, founded Celtel in 1998 when Western operators saw Africa as too risky, and won licences in 14 countries, each negotiated separately. In 2006 Celtel launched One Network, letting customers in several East African countries roam across borders without…0i
  2. 2Strive MasiyiwaStrive MasiyiwaBorn 29 Jan 1961Telecoms and fibre. Masiyiwa fought a five-year court battle against Zimbabwe's state monopoly to launch Econet in 1998, then took the business into other countries, including Botswana, Lesotho, Burundi and an early stake in Nigeria. His later company Liquid built fibre-optic cable networks across…0i
  3. 3Phuthuma NhlekoPhuthuma NhlekoMobile networks. Nhleko led South Africa's MTN from 2002 to 2011 as it grew from a domestic operator into one of Africa's largest, building on its costly 2001 Nigerian licence and buying Investcom in 2006 to enter markets from Ghana to Sudan. MTN's Nigerian business became its largest, and also…0
  4. 4Naguib SawirisNaguib SawirisBorn 15 Jun 1954Mobile networks. Sawiris built Orascom Telecom from Egypt into North Africa and beyond, launching Mobinil in Egypt, Djezzy in Algeria and Tunisiana in Tunisia, often bidding for licences others thought too political. Djezzy's long dispute with the Algerian government showed how exposed a foreign…0i
  5. 5Tony ElumeluTony ElumeluBorn 22 Mar 1963Banking. Elumelu took over the small Standard Trust Bank in Lagos, merged it with the much larger United Bank for Africa in 2005, and took UBA into about 20 African countries, each requiring its own banking licence and local capital. He then founded Heirs Holdings and the Tony Elumelu Foundation,…0i
  6. 6James MwangiJames MwangiBanking. Mwangi turned Equity, a near-insolvent Kenyan building society, into a bank for small savers and traders, then took the same low-cost model into Uganda, South Sudan, Rwanda, Tanzania and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where it bought a majority of a local bank. Expanding meant separate…0i
  7. 7Aliko DangoteAliko DangoteBorn 10 Apr 1957Cement and refining. Dangote began as a commodities trader in Lagos, importing goods such as cement, then switched to making it, building plants in Nigeria and then in around ten other African countries, including Ethiopia, Senegal, Zambia and Tanzania. Producing locally rather than shipping cement…0i
  8. 8Whitey BassonWhitey BassonSupermarkets. Basson ran Shoprite from 1979, when it had eight stores, until 2016, and from the 1990s took it into more than a dozen African countries. The hard part was logistics: trucking goods from South Africa across borders, building local supply where possible, and dealing with currency…0
  9. 9Koos BekkerKoos BekkerBorn 14 Dec 1952Pay television and internet. Bekker launched the M-Net pay channel in South Africa in 1986, then built MultiChoice and its DStv satellite service across sub-Saharan Africa, selling decoders and subscriptions in dozens of countries and adding local-language and African football content. At Naspers…0
  10. 10Tewolde GebremariamTewolde GebremariamAviation. Tewolde, who rose through Ethiopian Airlines from a junior post, was chief executive from 2011 to 2022 and made Addis Ababa Africa's main connecting hub, so travellers between African cities no longer had to fly via Europe. Where other countries' carriers were weak, Ethiopian took stakes…0