Indholdsfortegnelse for March 2020 i Forbes Africa

THERE’S PESSIMISM IN THE AIR, LITERALLY. A new decade has just begun and there’s pandemonium over a planet-ravaging virus spreading faster than the news on it. Conferences are being cancelled, business travel is taking a back seat, and airlines are cutting back operations. In an article, Forbesreports global aviation monies to fall by at least $5 billion in the first quarter of 2020, with the expected impact on the industry to be greater than the 2003 SARS epidemic. The globe’s peripatetic tribe of corporate travelers are either reigning themselves in or companies are cancelling business trips. The suitcase is changing its character and turning into glorified first-aid kits with reinforcements to keep the virus at bay. This includes industrial hand sanitizers, Betadine throat gargles, face masks, gloves, wet wipes and…

LONG BEFORE HE BECAME THE CHIEF executive of one of the largest audit firms in South Africa, KPMG, Ignatius Sehoole was a leader. This warm and good-natured man who grew up in the townships of Pretoria, South Africa’s capital city, had a vision for his life and executed it. Once he had decided he would become a Chartered Accountant, he didn’t just become one, he went on to be one of the most well-respected in the industry. Navigating this world with integrity is not only a way of life for him, but a way of being. Sehoole was expelled from the University of Limpopo, in the South African province, for organizing a protest against it. That did not deter him from executing his goal of working in the accounting profession.…

SHARP PAINS SHOT THROUGH THE PATIENT’S STOMACH, AND HE HAD CONSTANT DIARRHEA. SEVEN ROUNDS OF ANTIBIOTICS OVER 18 MONTHS HAD ONLY MADE HIM FEEL WORSE. A PREVIOUSLY HEALTHY MAN IN HIS 20S WHO WISHES TO REMAIN ANONYMOUS, HE HAD CONTRACTED A RECURRING CASE OF CLOSTRIDIUM DIFFICILE, OR C. DIFF, AFTER HAVING HIS GALLBLADDER REMOVED IN 2012. HOSPITAL PATIENTS ARE PRONE TO C. DIFF SINCE ANTIBIOTIC TREATMENT FOR OTHER MALADIES DECIMATES THE INFECTION FIGHTING CAPACITY OF WHAT SCIENTISTS CALL THE GUT MICROBIOME, THE TRILLIONS OF CELLS THAT MOVE THROUGH THE HUMAN DIGESTIVE SYSTEM. “IT DIDN’T JUST AFFECT MY GUT,” HE SAYS. “I WAS EXHAUSTED ALL THE TIME. I HAD REALLY BAD BRAIN FOG. I COULDN’T CONCENTRATE.” Desperate, he researched possible therapies and discovered articles about fecal transplants wiping out the infection.…

IN 2019, I WITNESSED A MAJOR change in my television viewing habits; I took to Netflix with a vengeance, almost like playing catch-up for time lost. A movie I enjoyed recently was The Two Popes, an intense film with key lessons in dealing with ideological differences, confessions and forgiveness. It does not matter who you are but seeking forgiveness and then atoning for your sins is a blessing. The banter and fervent exchanges between the two Hollywood legends in the film is captivating. Anthony Hopkins, as Cardinal Josef Ratzinger and finally Pope Benedict XVI, makes an important statement when Jonathan Pryce, playing Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio and finally Pope Francis, refuses to be nominated for Pope: “Not wanting to be a leader qualifies you the most to lead”. It’s a…

LIKE A DUMP TRUCK on a mine, the four-day Mining Indaba in February in South Africa spilled forth a torrent of topics that kept nearly 7,000 delegates talking for four days: gold; power; precious metals; Ebola; risk; an investment battle in a boxing ring; battery metals and a bishop from Birmingham looking for a bounty. Pardon my alliteration, but it was a remarkable week if you looked behind the scenes. Deals emerging, within weeks from the Mining Indaba may be few and far between, but in the next few months there is likely to be action. Mining Indaba old hands describe the networking gathering as a catalyst that ushers in deals, albeit in the long term. In recent years, many thought the Mining Indaba was mirroring the cloud over South…

The privilege of new beginnings is reflection. At the commencement of the new decade, and as the pursuit for personal and continental progress endures, it’s the ideological contemplation of what ‘power’ is that challenged FORBES AFRICA to compile an unprecedented, unranked listing of Africa’s 50 most powerful women. We examine ‘power’ as more than wealth, assets, control or accomplishment. We explore ‘power’ as a utility of success. The stories, journeys and current efforts of all the women uncover the truth of the great African proverb: “When sleeping women wake, mountains move.” The list on the following pages is in no particular order. CLARE AKAMANZI, RWANDA CEO, RWANDA DEVELOPMENT BOARD Clare Akamanzi is a cabinet member of the Rwandan presidency serving under the stewardship of President Paul Kagame. On February 4,…

WITH JUST $2,700 IN her bank, transferred from her savings account in France, Zazi Nyandeni returned home to the South African fashion industry with her freshly-minted talent. But if Paris was school, Johannesburg proved to be university. Qualifying was never easy. About 53kms from Johannesburg’s OR Tambo International Airport is Constantia Kloof, a scenic, upmarket suburb in the West Rand, where we meet Nyandeni, the up-and-coming 25-year-old fashion entrepreneur whose brand, Zazi Luxury, has showcased in Paris, the fashion capital of the world. “I wasn’t really introduced to fashion, but more so to art,” recalls Nyandeni of her early days. “Ever since primary school, I was exposed to paintings, drawings and music by my father when he would come back with artworks from his travels.” She thought she was going…

LAST YEAR, BILL Gates named his 10 breakthrough technologies for the year. Among the technological developments he outlined were robot dexterity, new-wave nuclear power, customized cancer vaccines and the cow-free burger. It was the first time that the list, usually compiled by MIT Technology Review, was created by a guest editor. It is no wonder that Gates rightly predicted that home computers and the internet would infiltrate much of our lives. Yet, when I went through this list, it was not necessarily universal. Many of these breakthrough technologies made sense through Western lenses. We have to ask, which of these breakthrough technologies will have the most significant impact on the African continent? Perhaps the most pressing issue for Africa now is agriculture. Climate change has had a devastating impact on…

MACKENZIE BEZOS was not fussy, which was helpful, as there was no time for fussiness at Amazon headquarters in early 1996. She shared her office with a junior employee in a space that doubled as the company kitchen. For 12 hours a day, as workers squeezed by to use the microwave, she presided over the accounting. At night she headed to the warehouse to pack orders. She “was a huge contributor,” says Mike Hanlon, Amazon’s seventh employee. “She really is a talented person in a way that I think gets lost when you’re the billionaire’s wife.” The mystery around MacKenzie, 49, seems carefully cultivated. She largely slipped into anonymity after Amazon’s early years and has granted no interviews since January 2019, when her split from husband Jeff became public. The…

METHODOLOGY: In compiling this list, our research looked at female African leaders across sectors and industries, as well as government agencies and non-profit institutions. We sifted through other recognition lists and nominations that came in from our editorial teams across Africa, and applied our own metrics of leadership, influence, consistency and most importantly, impact. We also engaged an external panel of judges, who are experts in their fields: Melanie Verwoerd (politics), Ayesha Kajee (development and governance), Nick Said (sports), Gina Schoeman (economics), Yasmin Furmie (media) and Ayanda Myataza (business). For every woman featured in this compilation, there are many more making history as we speak and will no doubt grace the list and these pages in years to come. You were born in 1945, the youngest of six children. What…

The potential to increase Africa’s agricultural yields through the strategic use of data could place the continent’s farmers at the heart of tomorrow’s global economy. “New technologies readily available to Africa’s farmers mean that the continent is finally at the moment where Africa’s vast agricultural opportunity can be made relevant to capital, mechanisation and new global markets,” says Antois van der Westhuizen, Managing Director: Sub Saharan Africa, John Deere Financial. Farmers in Kenya and Tanzania, for example, now transacting on M-PESA can access the formal economy by selling and buying goods online. Since these previously economically excluded farmers now have a digital footprint, “we can start getting a picture of their inputs, suppliers and costs, as well as their yields, off-takers, incomes and payment histories,” says Van der Westhuizen. This…

“I think Rafa has to go to Table Mountain, and then also of course to the Cape of Good Hope, maybe some of the vineyards, and Bo-Kaap – I went there this morning… I think [this trip] is going to make him want to come back to have a proper time with his wife and maybe his kids, in the future, and really travel South Africa and Africa extensively. He came here for the 2010 FIFA World Cup finals when Spain played at Soccer City in Johannesburg so he’s got a little taste here already and I think this one is definitely going to motivate him for many more returns,” said Federer to FORBES AFRICA.…

The deadly coronavirus that has spread through China and beyond has emerged as a big threat to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games just months out from their July 24 start. By mid February, there had been nearly 60 confirmed cases in Japan, leading to major concerns that the flood of athletes and spectators from around the world who will descend on Tokyo could be in danger. "I am extremely worried that the spread of the infectious disease could throw cold water on the momentum toward the Games," Toshiro Muto, chief executive of the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee, told Japanese broadcaster NHK. "I hope that it will be stamped out as soon as possible. “We need to make sure the public, the athletes and stakeholders feel safe and secure. We have…

I CURSED UNDER MY BREATH FOR THE THOUSANDTH time as another clump of red sand landed on the cracked car windshield. The taxi driver was navigating the Namib Desert at a hundred miles an hour with Chris Rea singing somewhat prophetically Road To Nowhere at full blast through the sound system. Locals in Namibia laughingly call the experience of grit meeting gravel beneath one’s car wheels “an African massage”. Red sunrays kiss sunburned sandbanks, the highest in the world, as the Namib Desert straddles the Atlantic coast. But the elderly driver behind the wheel was clearly out of control. My desperate shouts of ‘slow down’ seemed to incentivize him to go even faster. Two hours into this roller-coaster ride from hell, he suddenly registered my pleas for a toilet and…