by Eldari Visser
This time of the year is when writers like to look back and reminisce on the year just gone and to get new ideas. Let’s get it clear - this past year was like flat green cold tea! Yuck. We can all do with something new.
Read more5 Reasons why your business should get better at Email Marketing
by Nkemdilim Uwaje Begho
One of my mantras is “go where your customers are”…. and inboxes are one of those places you will find them! Studies have shown that people working in corporate environments easily spend between 4–6 hours every day doing their emails. Whether you are focused on a B2C segment within a specific income bracket or offer B2B services, do you really think that you are doing your bottom-line any favours by not prioritising Email Marketing if your target audience is spending this much time on their emails?
Read more4 Tips to Much Better Emails
by Laura Camacho
You are surely familiar with email drama. Perhaps you got involved in one yourself, where the misinterpretation of a message, or one that got sent to the wrong person, spun off into a totally unproductive soap opera segment.
Read moreThe distributed energy future is here!
Impact Partner Content / Absa
We recognize Africa’s vulnerability to climate change, and together with like-minded individuals and organisations, we will contribute to creating sustainable, value-creating solutions to some of Africa’s greatest environmental challenges.
Read moreBig Fish: An Entrepreneur's Guide to Success, Impact and Legacy by Caroline G Nuttall
Caroline G Nuttall
Book Review
In her book, Big Fish: An Entrepreneur's Guide to Success, Impact and Legacy, Caroline G Nuttall believes it has never been easier to be ignored. Glazed over with the unconscious, habitual swipe of a finger. No matter the industry, we are swimming in a sea of commoditized competitors rapidly expanding every day as technology, pandemics and other external forces remove all barriers to a vast virtual world. How we are marketing is not only wasting our time and money, but it is making us more irrelevant with each passing minute. In today's tactic-overload marketing landscape, we have blinders up to the only problem we have to solve: nobody is listening. And the reason nobody is listening is because we're all saying the same thing, which means we're all saying nothing.
Read moreFear, risk and being human
by the Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
“If there be light, then there is darkness; if cold, heat; if height, depth; if solid, fluid; if hard, soft; if rough, smooth; if calm, tempest; if prosperity, adversity; if life, death.” — Pythagoras. “…if prosperity, adversity” or put another way, ‘if profit, there is risk’. Risk is there, it may be hidden, but it is there… you cannot have one without the other.
Read moreThe 101 of dying when you're a Homeowner
by Sinal Govender and Claire Keet, cofounders of life.file in collaboration with property specialists, Araujo Attorneys
Buying a property usually involves a bit of creative thinking. You walk into a show house and start to imagine it as a home - your home. Your mind’s eye paints feature walls, open plans the kitchen and pictures your life - and all its big, happy moments - unfolding in the space. The last thing you’re likely to be thinking is: “what happens if I buy this home and then... die?”. People don’t like to think about and plan for the worst bits of life, like dying. (Who can blame us?!). But death and property ownership is a pretty big deal that we just don’t talk about enough. If you own property, or plan on entering the market, here are some of the most important things to know about kicking the bucket when you’re a homeowner...
Read moreTricky Situations – 10 Tips to Handle Them Eloquently
by Anja van Beek
As an entrepreneur and a Chief People Officer (CPO) you may have faced/experienced various challenging scenarios. One of my coaching clients shared this specific dilemma with me: She has recently been appointed as the HR Director, and within the first few weeks at the company, one of their clients contacted her. The client attended a social event hosted by their company and the client made a complaint against the CEO and stated the CEO consumed too much alcohol and was inappropriate and out of line. How’s that for a tricky situation? Where do you start this discussion with your CEO? How do you address this in a respectful yet candid way?
Read moreThe strain of making clothes
by Brigette Mashile
A lot of people always say to us ‘just a simple dress, nothing difficult’ and we just stare at them. The words in my mind as I stare at a client saying this, ‘then maybe you should make it’; because if it is that simple…..I mean!? My favourite lecturer said to us, the simpler looking clothes are difficult to make versus the difficult looking ones. This statement will only make sense once you start making clothes, it sounds impossible but it is true.
Read moreA Life Worth Living
by Elizandra dos Santos
Living is the biggest challenge that human beings face, and most of them exist and are driven by the feeling of fear. Fear is not bad if it is used as a feeling that moves us to take action, which is not the case I am referring to in this article. I speak of fear as a paralyzing feeling, a feeling that makes us uneasy, no matter if it is in our imagination or real facts.
Read moreMeghan McCormick, a fintech entrepreneur in Ghana equipping entrepreneurs to make data-driven decisions
Meghan McCormick, co-founder & ceo of OZÉ (Ghana)
Startup Story
Currently, Meghan is the Co-founder & ceo of OZÉ, a fintech company in Ghana that equips African entrepreneurs to make data-driven decisions to both improve their business performance and access capital. Meghan McCormick started her work as a Community Economic Development Volunteer in the Peace Corps in Guinea. During her service, she founded Guinea’s first business accelerator, Dare to Innovate, and scaled it to be French-speaking Africa’s most active small business accelerator. Meghan previously worked as an Innovation Strategist at Monitor Deloitte. She has an MBA from MIT and an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School.
Read moreClaudia Folgore-McLellan, a South African creative entrepreneur helping brands connect with audiences
Claudia Folgore-McLellan, founder, Visual 8 Creative (South Africa)
Startup Story
Visual 8 Creative, founded by Claudia Folgore-McLellan, is a graphic design and digital media studio based in Johannesburg South Africa. The business helps companies, entrepreneurs, as well as established brands, to communicate effectively with their respective target audience. We offer a thorough understanding of branding, print media creative following through into digital media.
Read moreFunkola Odeleye, a legal technology change-maker empowering entrepreneurs
Lioness Weekender Cover Story
DIYlaw, a legal technology company in Nigeria providing access to simplified, quality and affordable legal services
Funkola Odeleye is co-founder at DIYlaw in Nigeria, a legal technology company committed to empowering entrepreneurs through the provision of accessible and affordable legal services and free legal and business resources. She is a Cartier Women’s Initiative 2020 Fellow, 2019 Obama Africa Leader, 2019 Sub-Saharan winner and Global Finalist of the Entrepreneurial Award of the British Council Study UK Alumni Award, 2019 Africa 35 under 35 Laureate and a 2015 Innovating Justice Fellow of The Hague Institute for the Innovation of Law (HiiL). Funkola was recently recognized as one of five business leaders whose work significantly impacts their countries’ economies by the Reykjavík Global Forum. DIYlaw was founded in 2015 and today employs 19 people.
Read moreLifePass: A Groundbreaking Approach to Goal Setting by Payal Kadakia
Payal Kadakia
Book Review
Goal-setting is something that every woman entrepreneur needs to do as part of her business building journey, but in author and entrepreneur Payal Kadakia’s new book LifePass, she introduces a whole new approach to not just setting goals but reaching them too.
Read moreFátima Suliman, a Mozambican entrepreneur turning a passion for cookie-making into a successful business
Fátima Suliman, founder and CEO, Cookie World (Mozambique)
Startup Story
Fátima Suliman is the founder and CEO of the company Cookie World. The company is based in Maputo Mozambique. She is an aspiring pastry chef. Fátima's business is focused on decorated sugar cookies and macarons mostly for parties and events. She founded the company 3 years ago in 2018. Fátima believes in women empowerment and her employees are women. She is hoping to open a pastry shop soon.
Read moreDaniela Samakosky, a South African artisan footwear manufacturer committed to slow fashion
Daniela Samakosky, founder, Walk The Talk Africa (South Africa)
Startup Story
Daniela Samakosky is the founder of Walk The Talk Africa in Cape Town, South Africa. Following in the family footsteps of a long line of Italian shoemakers, the idea of upcycled fabric shoes, slides and slippers was born in 2016. A lifetime of reverence for nature coupled with sustainable living underpins the values that drive the vision of creating a brand that creatively transforms fabric books and remnants into beautiful ‘one of a kind’ slippers and shoes.
Read moreNavalayo Osembo, a Kenyan running shoe brand-builder with a big vision
Navalayo Osembo
Lioness Weekender Cover Story
Enda, a proudly Kenyan running shoe brand on a mission to be one of the top three running shoe brands globally
Navalayo Osembo is the Co-Founder and CEO of Enda Athletic, Inc. Enda creates original men’s and women’s running footwear and apparel made in Kenya, for sale under its branded name, on both online retail and wholesale to running and athletic retailers. As a made-in-Kenya running shoe, Enda possesses a unique brand and selling point that no existing competitor can match. Navalayo is a graduate of the London School of Economics and has worked internationally, including in the US, UK, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Kenya where she utilizes her diverse skills as an accountant, a lawyer, risk manager, and in international development. She is from a town near Eldoret, Kenya that has produced generations of the world’s greatest distance runners. Prior to creating Enda Athletic Inc., Navalayo started a sports academy in Bungoma, Western Kenya to provide sports proteges from disadvantaged backgrounds access to much-needed professional training without compromising their education. In order to maximize social impact in Kenya through sports, Navalayo teamed up with her Co-Founder to create Enda Athletic Inc., a made-in-Kenya running shoe brand that creates jobs, invests in local communities, and spurs economic development through exports.
Read moreFour Thousand Weeks
by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
“I have become to myself a land of trouble and inordinate sweat.”
St Augustine in his confessions (here) wrote: “Assuredly I labour here and I labour within myself; I have become to myself a land of trouble and inordinate sweat.”
I labour within myself.
We’ve all seen them - the surveys that ask just how busy we are, how much time we have for a walk in the Park or a chat with our neighbour. The results are all depressingly similar - as the years move on so we become busier and busier. Running at full speed is never enough and as we fall exhausted into bed after yet another day spent at 100mph we have that nagging thought that perhaps we just didn’t achieve all we set out to do when we bounded out of bed that morning.
Read moreThe Great Return…Back to the Office
by Alice da Silva
I share my thoughts on how to prepare for the return to the office, with the aim of minimal disruption - emotionally or to productivity. The preferred objective is for the change to be as seamless as possible, so that one’s energy can rather be spent on being positive to embrace the new challenge, instead of ruminating on the negatives, and focusing on resistance to leaving the home office.
Read moreThe 101 of dying when you're a landlord
by Sinal Govender and Claire Keet, cofounders of life.file in collaboration with property specialists, Araujo Attorneys
“Buy an investment property,” they said. “It’ll be a fantastic long term investment,” they said. Before making this enormous life decision, it’s important to think about all the aspects of being a landlord. There’s a lot to consider - like calculating when you’ll start turning a profit, finding (and keeping!) a reliable tenant, handling a lease agreement, becoming a member of a body corporate, hiring a managing agent, dealing with burst geysers, furnishing (or not furnishing) your property. A lesser discussed item on the list is what will happen to your properties and tenants when you kick the bucket one day...
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