the pride of Africa's women entrepreneurs
Toyin Umesiri
Book Review
Those who aspire to build globally relevant brands and businesses must adopt winning mindsets, according to business coach Toyin Umesiri, author of Mindset of an Entrepreneur: Strategies, Skills and Mindset for Achieving Business Growth and Success. She believes that to master entrepreneurship is fundamental, and in her book she shows you how to adapt business growth strategies and develop the skills to monetize and structure commercial ventures.
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by Nthabiseng Maidi, Principal Director, MMCP Wealth and MMCP Business Advisory Services
Some owners focus on growing their profits, while others are obsessed with sales goals. Have you ever considered making it your primary goal to set up your business so that it can thrive and grow without you?
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by Sharon Castle - Lifestyle and Wellness Coach
I feel so happy sharing this blog with you. For a while I have been involved with the 3 Principle community on a global scale and have been involved in getting the 3P Africa interest going. I wrote this blog post for the 3P Africa website, which will be published very soon but I couldn’t wait to share it with you. I would love to hear from you with a message of what you got from this blog. As a part-time writer, I’m still exploring my voice and wondering how things are ‘heard’ by those that read my blog post. So please let me know at sharon@sharoncastle.co.za – I truly love receiving your messages and read every one.
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by Ronel Jooste
Many people set New Year resolutions at the beginning of a new year. Some people aspire to lose weight, to exercise on a regular basis, to eat healthier, to spend more time with their loved ones or to start a new business. We all have more energy, new ideas and new goals at the beginning of a new year. It is also the perfect time to get your personal finances in order for the remainder of the year. Definitely a resolution that you want to turn into reality, because it will create financial security and stability for you and your family.
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by Teboho Seretlo
There have been a lot of articles, social media posts and research done on this topic of bullying and harassment in the workplace. It seems that this is a huge challenge festering and lurking out there and one is left wondering if, like issues of sexual harassment, discrimination etc, which some companies even go to the extent of having an HR Policy about, are the ones that occupy our minds more.
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by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
“In the last two decades a large number of African countries have registered solid growth in per capita GDP. What is deeply worrying is that in most cases the impact of this growth on poverty and employment has been limited. Africa has the lowest elasticity of poverty reduction with respect to growth of any developing area of the world. And, despite growth, it is not creating enough good jobs.”, this was in 2015 in a paper entitled Aid, Employment and Poverty Reduction in Africa (here) by John Page and Abebe Shimeles for the AfDB’s excellent ‘African Development Review’ (‘ADR’) which brings study and analysis of development policy in Africa to the fore.
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Rukudzo Hillary Mukwenha, founder, Hilsmag Corporation Private Limited (Zimbabwe)
Startup Story
Rukudzo Hillary Mukwenha is the founder of Hilsmag Corporation Private Limited, a research-based housekeeping solutions company in Zimbabwe providing solutions for both consumers and job seekers. She is also a passionate mother of four. Rukudzo is extremely motivated to constantly develop her skills and learn something new every day. She has an unapologetic interest in serving and empowering other young girls and women hence setting up of Hilsmag. She has managed to create a working value chain within her business which has been in operation since 2020. Rukudzo is a holder of a Bachelor of Accounting Sciences in Financial Accounting as well as a Human Resource Management Diploma from IPMZ. She is also a member of Junior Chamber International, Lionesses of Africa and PROWEB. The business has 6 employees.
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Beatha Shitemba, Founder and CEO, Nel's Babies & Kiddies (Namibia)
Startup Story
Beatha Shitemba is the Founder and CEO of Nel's Babies & Kiddies in Namibia. She is a seasoned entrepreneur and award-winning business leader. Beatha's business is focused on manufacturing and providing high quality, affordable baby and kids products to the international and pan-African market. She founded the business in 2017 and now employs 3 people, all of them women from local communities. She has over 17 years of working experience in the financial industry as a former Risk & Compliance Manager.
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Vera Osei-Bonsu
Lioness Weekender Cover Story
Eat smart Foods and Start Right Nutrition Ltd, a food business putting baby and children’s nutrition first
Vera Osei-Bonsu is the founder and CEO of Eat Smart Foods and Start Right Nutrition in Ghana. Back in 2012, she was looking for a vibrant local business that made nutritious local food products for babies that are naturally fortified. Seeing the lack of healthier local baby food options in the area, she saw an opportunity. Start Right Nutrition was created in 2012 to advocate for healthy balanced foods for children from the ages of 6 months to 5 years and Eat Smart Foods was created in 2021 with the goal of bringing and manufacturing naturally fortified local baby food options. Currently, the business has over five products selling across the retailing sectors in Ghana, and has created jobs for 10 employees.Vera was awarded as the Emerging Star in Agribusiness in Africa in 2022, and the International Business Award in Africa in 2022 by Women in Agribusiness and Guzakuza.
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Esther Dassanou, Manager, Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa (AFAWA), African Development Bank Group
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Press Release
On Global Women’s Entrepreneurship Day, Lionesses of Africa’s Business Confidence Report celebrates African women entrepreneurs’ optimism about business
Women entrepreneurs in Africa are expressing widespread optimism and continuing resilience despite the prevailing economic climate, according to the 2022 Lionesses Business Confidence Report and Index launched on Global Women’s Entrepreneurship Day, 19 November 2022.
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Elizabeth Miner
Book Review
Entrepreneurship is a Marathon, according to international business coach, global speaker, digital nomad, and author Elizabeth Miner. Her book, The Entrepreneur Advantage: Emotional Intelligence for Building and Growing Your Business, is a great tool to have in your personal business building race. Elizabeth shares her knowledge and encourages entrepreneurs to think more deeply and personally about how they operate and show up in their business to create complete and sustainable success.
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Award Winner
In recognition of her courageous leadership and impact in the field of public health and gorilla conservation in Uganda, Dr. Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, Founder and CEO of Conservation Through Public Health and Gorilla Conservation Coffee, is one of three winners of the 2022 Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize!
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Purity Gakuo, founder, Kuza Freezer (Kenya)
Startup Story
Purity Gakuo is a climate change advocate and founder of Kuza Freezer in Kenya. Her business bridges the cold chain gap in the fish value and supply chain by making refrigeration affordable to the small-scale fishers of Africa. She has a zeal for improving the livelihood of people in her community and Africa at large, especially women and youth, through affordable refrigeration. She has a professional background in business management with 4 years of experience, and has won several awards including the AFCFTA Caravan Prize, in recognition of her role as a community champion.
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Mamela Luthuli
Lioness Weekender Cover Story
TakeNote IT, a South African cyber security business providing innovative IT solutions to clients
Mamela Luthuli is a well-known business leader, founder, entrepreneur, and CEO of Take Note IT in South Africa, which provides cyber security and innovative IT solutions to its clients. The business was established in 2007. Her purpose is “I am dedicated to protecting and keeping businesses and our people safe in South Africa and the rest of the world. I believe that technology and 4IR are only at the tip of a disruptive revolution that will create a new way of life for us all.” As a CEO, she guides her team of 65 young leaders to build a future for themselves the business, and the future of the country. Her contribution to the Cybersecurity and IoT industry has been realized through engineered products & services that secure digital and physical assets by proactively mitigating the risk of hacking, vandalism, and theft, through engineered cyber security and IoT solutions - helping to protect your business, protect your people, protect your reputation.
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Victoria Haihambo, founder, Agelvipa Online (Namibia)
Startup Story
Victoria Haihambo is a Founder of a startup called Agelvipa Online in Namibia. She is also a Startup Business Coach and an Author. Her business aims to support micro women vendors by linking them to the market and offering them business management training. She founded the business in 2019 and to date has offered support to over two hundred women through training, mentorship and helping them to create business linkages. Over the past two years, she has received several start-up entrepreneurship awards, both nationally and internationally, and was inducted into the Namibia Business Hall of Fame as an Emerging Entrepreneur in 2020. In addition to these achievements, Victoria is a published author and has published her first book, the highly sought after Women’s Persistence (2019). This was followed by her current book, published in September 2019, titled ‘’The Journey To and From Wealth’’ in which she combined fiction with an element of entrepreneurship and wealth, and the pros and cons that come with it.
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by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
“Historically, no known human society has created shared prosperity purely through redistribution. Prosperity comes from creating jobs that pay decent wages. And it is good jobs, not redistribution, that provide people with purpose and meaning in life.” So wrote Daron Acemoglu (here), Professor of Economics at MIT, and co-author of ‘Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity and Poverty’ (here). Purpose and meaning in life, now there is a deep subject that cannot be answered in a single article, but certainly if we limit it to how we can look to create this environment for our employees and our businesses, then perhaps that would be a start.
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by Isa Cumba
There are no perfect parents! Even those who managed to turn their children into functional and successful adults, certainly left a few scars their children need to heal from, because well...these parents are humans, thus they’re flawed. And that’s ok. Parenting really is the toughest job there is and that’s not really up for debate (Sorry!) So, I decided to share with my fellow mothers a few questions that I’ve been asking myself, as a mother and a daughter, hoping they will hopefully help us raise our future Elons.
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by Nicolene Schoeman-Louw
Often when clients find themselves in a dispute, we are asked as attorneys to comment on the prospects of success, which is sometimes a challenging question to answer effectively. In South Africa, we follow an approach that all matters are based on a balance of probabilities (concerning civil cases). In simple terms, this means that the version the judge or magistrate is most persuaded to be most probable will succeed. But, of course, the legal requirements also play a role and should not be overlooked.
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by Felicity Cowie, author of Exposure
In my earlier blog for LoA, What Exactly is Media Relations, I said there are at least eight mega benefits of media relations for any business to consider:
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