the pride of Africa's women entrepreneurs
Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu, founder of soleRebels & Republic of Leather, Ethiopia
As part of International Women's Day celebrations ILO News spoke to Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu, a young Ethiopian entrepreneur who has created one of the world’s fastest growing footwear brands by betting on decent work.
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Kenya's Keroche Breweries is investing 5 billion shillings ($55 million) to increase its capacity tenfold and help it grow its share of the alcohol market six-fold to 20 percent in about a year, its chief executive said. Founder, Tabitha Karanja told the Reuters Africa Investment Summit the money was being used to build a new 1 million hectolitres-a-year brew house and bottling line to be launched this month that would help the company raise its market share from 3 percent.
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Keroche Breweries, founded by leading Kenyan entrepreneur Tabitha Karanja, is all set to launch its new, ultra-modern and automated beer bottling plant in March. The Naivasha-based bottling plant will commence full operations end March producing over 30 beer brands, increasing Keroche Brwereries annual beer production from 10m litres to 100m litres. The investment in the new plant has been estimated at 2.5 Billion Kenyan Shillings.
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Dr. Jennifer Riria (Right) with her EY Award in the master category for the Kenyan region
Source: CNBC Africe | by Elayne Wangalwa | 12 February 2015
The award was won in the master category for the Kenyan region. The internationally acclaimed entrepreneur awards being held in Monte Carlo, Monaco saw Riria represent East Africa alongside other regional master category winners from more than 145 cities in more than 60 countries across the globe.
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Tara Fela-Durotoye, founder of the House of Tara International, Nigeria
House of Tara International in partnership with First City Monument Bank has launched a new women economic empowerment initiative in Nigeria known as the ‘Beauty Business on the Go’ (BBOG). The initiative is aimed at empowering women to become entrepreneurs, setting them on a path to realise their aspirations and dreams. With this wonderful new initiative Tara aims to recruit and empower 5,000 women to become beauty representatives.
Read moreVideo: Joburg Today Television | Published on February 3, 2105
This month, top South African business television programme, Leading Opinion, invited Melanie Hawken, founder and editor-in-chief of Lionesses of Africa into the studio to discuss the rise of African women entrepreneurship and its socio-economic impact on the continent.
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Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu is a woman passionate about leather, especially when its handcrafted by talented artisan craftsmen and women in her home country, Ethiopia. So much so, that Bethlehem, who has achieved great success with her global shoe brand soleRebels, has in 2015 launched a new business, Republic of Leather, which creates bespoke, handcrafted luxury leatherwear for men and women. Given Bethlehem's track record of success as a leading woman entrepreneur we are sure her new venture is headed for great things.
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Dr. Jennifer Riria (second from left) CEO of Kenya Women Holding
Source: Women's World Banking | by Gayle Gatchalian | 1 February 2015
Few women in the microfinance world are as recognizable as Jennifer Riria. She is the CEO of Kenya Women Holding, twice-voted Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year (East Africa and Kenya respectively in 2013 and 2014) and a Ford Foundation “Champion of Democracy.” She was first female Board Member of the Nairobi Stock Exchange and the Chair of Post Office Savings Bank for four years. She is also the chair of Women’s World Banking’s Board of Trustees. This level of success however, more so for a woman in a patriarchal society like Kenya, was not easy.
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SecureID founded by one of Africa's leading women entrepreneurs, Kofo Akinkugbe, commissioned a brand new state-of-the-art manufacturing facility on January 19th. This new facility in Lagos is a world class, EMV-certified smartcard manufacturing plant – the first of its kind in Sub-Saharan Africa.
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Divine Ndhlukula, founder of SECURICO Security Services, Zimbabwe
Source: News Day Zimbabwe | January 27, 2015
Leading woman entrepreneur and queen of Africa's security industry, Divine Ndhlukula, talks about her plans to expand Securico's operations beyond Zimbabwe into Mozambique. “In 2015 our major thrust is to look beyond the borders, we would want to begin with Mozambique and we have already done the ground work. We are hoping by end of this year it will be operational and then going forward will work towards opening other branches in Zambia among many other countries in Africa.”
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Tara Fela-Durotoye, founder and CEO of House of Tara International, Nigeria
Source: CNN African Voices | January 26, 2015
Tara Fela-Durotoye is founder and CEO of House of Tara International, a household name in her native Lagos, her company develops makeup, perfume and accessories all created specifically to meet the needs of Africa's beauty market. Learn more about this inspiring woman entrepreneur who is rapidly developing her pan-African cosmetics and beauty training brand in this fascinating interview.
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Rapelang Rabana, founder of Rekindle Learning (South Africa)
Source: InfoRocked | by by Anesh Sukhnandan | 22 January 2015
The temptation to idolize an international role model seems as natural as the globalization of business celebrities, who becomes more mainstream with young entrepreneurs, regularly glorified as they sell their start up for millions, rather billions of dollars. Why stray so far away when these stars can be found on our shores.
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Kofo Akinkugbe, founder and CEO of SecureID, Nigeria
Kofo Akinkugbe the founder of SecureID in Nigeria has launched the first EMV Plant in Sub-Saharan Africa that enables the local production of SIM cards, and SIM packages for the telecoms industry, bank payment cards and other high security polycarbonate identity cards.
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Following on from the hugely successful launch of her Naturals Beauty R&R Baby Range, South African natural skincare entrepreneur, Tanya du Bois, has just launched another great range, this time for kids.
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Bilikiss Adebiyi-Abiola, co-founder of WeCyclers, Nigeria
Source: Fast Company | January 5, 2015
Lagos, Nigeria, is home to 21 million people, but only 40% of their trash is collected. The rest ends up in heaps, spreading disease. To lessen the burden, a local named Bilikiss Adebiyi-Abiola launched the recycling startup Wecyclers. Its challenge: Teach people to care about trash.
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Lorna Rutto, founder of EcoPost, Kenya
Source: BBC News Africa | November 10, 2014
Lorna Rutto is an entrepreneur who founded Ecopost, a Nairobi-based company that recycles plastic waste. Five years ago she gave up her job deciding, instead, to pursue her dream of ridding Nairobi of plastic waste through recycling. Without much experience and money, many thought her ambition crazy. She told the BBC how she made her dream a reality and shared advice for aspiring entrepreneurs. Watch her interview....
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Lorna Rutto, founder of EcoPost, Kenya
Source: Standard Digital News Kenya | December 27, 2014 | by Faith Ronoh
Lorna Rutto, the founder of EcoPost Limited in Kenya, has despite her tender age already attained a remarkable list of achievements in environmental conservation that has seen her garner several international awards.
Read the article here.
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To kickstart 2015 off on a truly inspirational note, we are sharing our Top 50 Inspiring Quotes from some of Africa's leading women entrepreneurs. We found so much motivation and encouragement in their words and we hope they inspire you too as you continue on your own entrepreneurial journey to success in the year ahead.
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Kofo Akinkugbe, founder & CEO of SecureID Nigeria Ltd
SecureID Nigeria Limited, founded by Kofo Akinkugbe, a leading Nigerian digital solution provider certified by Visa, MasterCard, and Verve for Chip Embedding, Chip Encoding, Chip Personalization, Card Personalization, and Card Fulfillment, in partnership with Sterling Bank has provided a Biometric ID Card to enable ‘Financial Inclusion’.
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Lorna Rutto, founder of Ecopost, Kenya
Source: Standard Digital | December 27, 2014
Lorna Rutto has won the 2014 Green Award by the Transform Kenya Awards, a joint initiative of the Standard Group and Deloitte in recognition of her work. Her company, EcoPost, has saved over 250 acres of forests and withdrawn over 1,000,000 kilograms of plastic waste from the environment.
Read the full article here.
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