the pride of Africa's women entrepreneurs
Jane Finette
Book Review
In her inspirational book, Unlocked: How Empowered Women Empower Women, author Jane Finette reflects on how, according to the World Economic Forum, women lost thirty-six years of progress in 2020 alone, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. That's an entire generation lost. But by empowering one another, women can help each other to realize their potential and make the biggest impact on society as a whole.
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Sofia Maquile, founder & CEO, Smaqs (Mozambique)
Startup Story
Sofia Maquile is the founder and CEO of Smaqs in Mozambique. She is a young entrepreneur and Digital Influencer. Sofia's business is focused on making high quality digital pictures and videos for the international and pan-African market. She founded the business in 2017 and now employs and trains over 10 interns, 70% of them being from local communities. She has over 10 years of social media experience as a manager and influencer. Sofia strives for growth and motivates the young people to follow her path.
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Startup Story
Princess Adeyinka Tekenah is a Mom and Coffee Entrepreneur, and the founder of an indigenous Nigerian coffee brand and company, Happy Coffee. She is a pacesetter in the Nigerian Coffee Industry. She remains an integral member of the nation building process and enjoys travelling. She also believes that Human Relationships are crucial to the overall optimization of our human experience and existence.
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by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
We were fortunate enough recently to be invited to listen to various Lionesses as they pitched their fabulous businesses to different Private Equity firms we had introduced. We say ‘fortunate’ because firstly the pitches we heard were absolutely perfect, with the right blend of ‘story’ with detail, and secondly the various PE Firms came back with questions that not only showed their interest, but also their concerns which the Lionesses each answered clearly and with conviction.
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by Mandisa Makubalo
“The greater the adoption the wider the experience divide.”
Today’s temperature is a scorching hot 35 degrees, the kind of weather that is unbearable for most households, especially those in the townships due to the quality of the housing structures. Most people are sitting outside their houses, children are playing in the streets, throwing water at each other, and some residents have made their way to the beautiful beaches of Cape Town in an attempt to escape this rather unbearable heat.
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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.
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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...
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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?
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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