By the Lionesses of Africa Operations Dept

The year 2020 was the 250th anniversary of the world’s greatest composer, Beethoven. Many consider Mozart to be the greatest, but his abilities came too easily, he never had to struggle, his music flowed as if from the heavens. Beethoven was mortal, he was human, he struggled. Mozart found composing easy, as if he had a ‘hot line’ to the angels, and indeed if you see his original manuscripts, there are no corrections, he wrote everything down once (when was the last time you wrote an email with no corrections?) - this was an orchestral work with 20 different parts! Beethoven, however, struggled and with errors, scribbles, corrections, angry lines crossing out, starting afresh many times, he forced incredible music out, finally accepting (begrudgingly) that he had gained immortality on paper.

By the Lionesses of Africa Operations Dept

“…a company cannot achieve long-term profits without embracing purpose and considering the needs of a broad range of stakeholders. A pharmaceutical company that hikes prices ruthlessly, a mining company that shortchanges safety, a bank that fails to respect its clients – these companies may maximize returns in the short term. But, as we have seen again and again, these actions that damage society will catch up with a company and destroy shareholder value.”

by the Lionesses of Africa Operations Dept

Terrific Tuesday (or ‘TT’ as we like to call it) is, if you remember, when the Head of Finance (HoF) gives us the morning to think outside the box, to move for a moment away from the incredible projects with which we are busy and step back for a moment from the crazy energy that is Melanie who, in the last 2 months, not only brought us the amazing LOA/Harvard Conference, then the Lioness Xpo B2B platform with Absa, and not stopping for breath just this week, the brand new (and in time for Christmas no less), incredible LOA / Facebook - Virtual Masterclass Series.

by the Lionesses of Africa Operations Dept

“But every person in poverty, they dream of a better life, they want a better house, they want to provide for themselves, they want better roofing, they want water inside, they want electricity inside their homes.”

…so said an inspirational Lioness who is setting the world alight winning awards for her work to bring clean water to villages and into homes in Rwanda. At the tender age of 26 (so she is still a Lioness cub!), she is of course Christelle Kwizera of Water Access Rwanda.

By the Lionesses of Africa Operations Dept

“Dream with ambition, lead with conviction and see yourselves in a way that others may not, simply because they've never seen it before.”

…and so said the brilliant and inspirational Kamala Harris in a speech that many of us feared might not be possible as we saw the initial numbers coming out of the US Election on the night of the 3rd November 2020.

From the Lionesses of Africa Operations Dept

It was looking like it was going to be a quiet day in the Lionesses Hub. It was 9:30am, the Head of Finance (HoF) was deep into a third coffee, all was as normal. But was it? Emerging from the darkness that is the Finance PowerRoom (as the HoF likes to call it!), we were shocked to hear the announcement, “Retail is Dead. Long live Retail!” boom across the stunned room.