the pride of Africa's women entrepreneurs
Tessa O’ Halloran, founder, plasticity (South Africa)
Lioness Launch
The need to find sustainable solutions to transforming discarded plastic waste into useful products has never been greater. Discarded plastic waste is a problem for the planet and for humankind as a whole. South African ecopreneur Tessa O’ Halloran, founder of plasticity, is playing her part in finding those solutions and has launched a new range of upcycled products in the form of brandable key tags and fridge magnets!
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Blandine Umuziranenge, founder and ceo, Kosmotive (Rwanda)
Startup Story
Blandine Umuziranenge is the founder and ceo of Kosmotive, a social enterprise founded in 2014 to improve Reproductive, Maternal and Child Health in Rwanda and throughout Africa. Early in her career she worked at Rwanda Broadcasting Agency and Contact FM radio. She holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Social Innovation Management, a bachelor’s degree in business information and communication technology and an Advanced Diploma in Information Technology. Her twelve years of experience combine Information Technology, Social Entrepreneurship and Circular Business Modelling. Blandine is a multi-award-winner including the Youth Connekt Africa 2019 Girls in Innovation Award and the Invest2Impact Africa 2019 Women's Empowerment Award. Blandine's ambition is paving menstrual freedom for girls and women in Africa.
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Marilize Jacobs, founder, Pigs Can Fly Interiors & VocalCord Reputation Management (South Africa)
Startup Story
Marilize Jacobs is the founder of two businesses, Pigs Can Fly Interiors & VocalCord Reputation Management in South Africa. She is a reputation strategist with a BCom Marketing Management (UP) and a career spanning interior design, marketing, and PR. Clients, especially in the Financial Services, Legal, Pharmaceutical, Hospitality and Retail industries which revere her strategic skills, thoroughness and tenacity when it comes to building and maintaining reputations. On the personal front, she is a boat skipper and avid cyclist, and also has a pro bono involvement with The Star Academy, an international institution for children with Autism.
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Matina Razafimahefa
Lioness Weekender Cover Story
SAYNA, a business revolutionizing access to the job market and democratizing education in new technologies in Africa
Matina Razafimahefa is a pioneering entrepreneur on a mission to bridging the gap in Digital Education in Africa. She co-founded SAYNA in 2017, fulfilling a childhood dream she had shared with her mother, Nirina Rahoeliaribahy. SAYNA is the first Franco-African Edtech & crowdsourcing platform. The platform aims to connect organized IT projects, divided into micro-tasks, with a community of pre-trained developers. The business currently employs 15 people. Facing financial constraints in its early days, Matina launched a crowdfunding campaign in 2018 to accelerate the project and facilitate some acquisitions. Her efforts were recognized when she was awarded the title of "Best Social Entrepreneur" at just 20 years old, in a competition organized by the International Organization of the Francophonie, in partnership with Incubons. Matina's ambition extends beyond the success of her startup. She aims to provide millions of Africans with access to quality digital education and global job opportunities, without letting a CV become a barrier. Her second ambition is to create profitable businesses that can revolutionize the lives of millions and generate employment opportunities.
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Andrea Liebross
Book Review
In her book, She Thinks Big: The Entrepreneurial Woman's Guide to Moving Past the Messy Middle and Into the Extraordinary, author and business/life coach Andrea Liebross has discovered that the secret to getting unstuck is what you think, not what you do. She says it’s time to stop playing small and start Thinking Big.
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by Thembe Khumalo
“We need to get more like-minded people together. Lets put together a group of other people like ourselves, and we can really make an impact.” Unfortunately the last time I had a conversation like this will not be the last time I will have this conversation; and the problem is, I have a problem with this kind of thinking.
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by Margaret Hirsch
Collaboration is the name of the game! The old African saying “If you want to go fast go alone. If you want to go far go together,” it is so true, in business as well. I see so many startups who go really fast and then fail.
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by Sonya Skipp
iFacts, a leading employee screening and vetting organisation, has published its annual employee screening trends report. With these insights, iFacts offers an overview of the current trends in employee screening and vetting.
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by Marilize Jacobs
Being a single mom of twins is a full-time job. So is running my own business. This is what I do for a living and for the last couple of years I have been on a quest to feel truly at peace with my daily actions. I wanted to derive happiness from the fact that I was my own boss and had the freedom to live my life accordingly. In a nutshell: I wanted to be happy at work. Really happy.
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by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
It was mathematician and meteorologist Edward Norton Lorenz who noted when studying and modelling the creation of Tornados that minute changes in initial conditions created significantly different outcomes in storms many miles if not countries and continents away. He likened these minute changes to a seagull flapping its wings and this vibration change in the surrounding air being the tiny difference that set either the Tornado off, or changed its direction. Luckily for our poetic sensibilities, he was persuaded to ditch the Seagull and write about a Butterfly fluttering its wings instead, and so in a lecture he gave in December 1972 he used the expression: “a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil can produce a tornado in Texas.”, and the rest (as they say) became history.
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Pascalle Grotenhuis, Directeur Generaal Internationale Samenwerking, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Netherlands
In Conversation
In Conversation with Pascalle Grotenhuis, Directeur Generaal Internationale Samenwerking, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Netherlands
One of the key goals of Start-Up Night Africa is to discuss the critical role of investment and the power of partnerships to address the gender finance gap for women entrepreneurs in Africa. We speak to Pascalle Grotenhuis, Director General Internationale Samenwerking, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Netherlands, who has spent many years on the continent in her role as an Ambassador and gender key champion, to get her insights on finding effective solutions to this and other challenges to creating a more inclusive business environment for women on the continent.
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Melanie Hawken, founder & ceo, Lionesses of Africa
Talk to Africa’s high-growth potential women entrepreneurs about the ‘missing middle’ funding gap and they will tell you that it’s a reality - and a real barrier to growth. It’s a much talked about challenge that is in need of tangible action to find effective, impact-driven solutions. That’s why at Start-Up Night Africa in The Hague on 11 July 2023, I was privileged to host a panel discussion on this important topic with representatives from the finance community, government, and importantly, women entrepreneurs in growth mode from across the African continent.
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Stélia Dgedge, founder, Khuwana Water Filters Lda (Mozambique)
Startup Story
Stélia Dgedge is the founder of Khuwana Water Filters Lda, a Mozambican company dedicated to the production and sale of ceramic-based water purifying filters. She has a degree in Financial and Insurance Management from ISCTEM. Since very early on, she has always been interested in topics related to preservation, sustainability, and the environment. About five years ago Stélia was invited to be part of the Finance Department of a startup that operates in the Renewable Energy sector. It was a unique opportunity for her to demonstrate once again the knowledge obtained at the associated University and her professional experience, as she came from a company with over twenty years in the market and was well positioned in it. She discovered her purpose - a mixture of three words, “Entrepreneurship, Impact, and Sustainability”.
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Betty David, founder, Spot Africa Media (Kenya)
Startup Story
Spot Africa Media, a production house founded by media entrepreneur, Betty David, based in Nairobi-Kenya and a business which has been in operation since 2016. This highly reputable video production company has a track record and a great desire to tell remarkable stories. Betty and her team pride themselves in every shot, edit, and decision that is executed with a lot of care. Founder Betty David’s own journey is exemplified by her unyielding passion to serve humanity and to impact lives positively.
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Omoh Alokwe
Lioness Weekender Cover Story
Street Waste Company Limited, a community recycling enterprise empowering women and youth in the urban slums of Lagos
Omoh Alokwe is the co-founder at Street Waste Company Limited in Nigeria. She is an Environmental Sustainability professional certified as an ISO 14001:2015 Lead Auditor. She has a master’s degree in environmental management from the University of Lagos, Nigeria. She has over six years’ experience in environmental sustainability and waste management. As the co-founder and chief technical officer at Street Waste Company, Omoh ensures the company attain its goals and objectives. The business started its operations in 2019 and today employs 15 people. Through her leadership, over 150 women and youth in underserved communities have been empowered, diverted over 2000,000kg of recyclables from getting to the landfill, and educated over 1000 individuals on waste recycling.
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Toni Harris Taylor
Book Review
Toni Harris Taylor is the author of the new book Purpose People Profits: How Everyday Entrepreneurs Create Drastic Results! In the book, Toni shares why it’s important to define your purpose, why you need to find the people who can help you to get to your purpose, and then, what you need to do in the way of marketing and sales to make sure that your business is profitable. You will hear from Toni’s clients who’ve all been drastic in growing their businesses. She says they are part of a loving, supportive community that is committed to helping each other to grow by holding us accountable to our purpose. These entrepreneurs open doors for one another and introduce them to people, places, and things so that they can be profitable.
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by Lionesses of Africa Operations Department
It was without doubt one of our finest moments, persuading Melanie to give us the time off, and on behalf of the greater Lioness community we headed off into southern Italy for a road trip. Stopping off in many restaurants (all in the name of research, of course) we drove around the beautiful countryside allowing us a deep look into a part of Italy often missed by the tourist books. Covered as it is in breathtaking views, steeped in culture and of course, amazing produce from the land, it is an area of the world well worth a visit. What we also noticed sadly was the slow death of hilltop towns as the youth vote with their feet, and head to the big cities in the North to search for the roads ‘paved with gold’ and of course meaningful jobs.
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by Thembe Khumalo
In the world of entrepreneurship, there is no place to hide. Where the corporate world might have allowed you the cover of a jacket and tie, a shiny pair of shoes, and an impressive title, entrepreneurship strips you naked, and leaves you with nothing but yourself and your wits — or whatever it is that you bring to the table.
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by Margaret Hirsch
As traditional offices evolve into virtual workspaces, the impact of working from home on individuals is undeniable. We were forced into this during Covid and suddenly Zoom became a household word and we were able to continue working from home which felt really strange initially - but it was so super to be able to go to the loo without walking across a busy shop and to make a cup of tea when you felt like it and not wait for the “tea lady” to bring it to you at 10am and 3 pm!
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by Lori Milner
If you ask someone if they like surprises, they'll say of course. That's because they are picturing the surprises they would like to receive. You only like the surprises you want, but we know life also gives us the surprises you don't want. These come wrapped in challenges, setbacks or even loss. When these surprises arrive unannounced, they can knock us off our feet, leaving us feeling helpless to participate in the solution.
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