C. BIBBY/FINANCIAL TIMES-REA
Strive Masiyiwa: resurgent and raring to go
TELECOMS
Striving and thriving Zimbabwe’s Econet is betting on Africa’s digital future with its huge fibre-optic network and new data centres. Yet another example of CEO Strive Masiyiwa bouncing back By OLIVIER MARBOT
Botswana to Lesotho, from Rwanda to Nigeria and Burundi, and to other continents. Masiyiwa continued to believe in the idea of not sticking to one specialisation, of being one step ahead. The group launched itself into satellite, terrestrial and submarine cables, subscription television (Kwese TV – its biggest failure to date) and, more recently, data centres, which it describes as “a revolution that will mark a new era for the technology sector”.
Zimbabwean telecoms billionaire Strive Masiyiwa has not yet run out of ideas. He recently helped to raise more than $1bn to ensure the growth of his group, Econet. Masiyiwa, who celebrated his 60th birthday on 29 January and is well-known as a philanthropist, is also a member of the task force set up by the African Union to fight Covid-19 . No thanks from the motherland Masiyiwa is the only billionaire from Zimbabwe. Masiyiwa’s journey has not been without mistakes, and For more than 30 years, he has been one of the main that is what makes it exciting. He won his entrepreneurs leading the continent’s digital transformation. Famous for ending the state legal battle with the Zimbabwean authorities monopoly in Zimbabwe’s telecoms sector in over opening up telecommunications to competition, but he paid a high price for it as he the 1980s, the now London-based engineering graduate has, since his early days in business, had to leave the country, where his relations Africa Data Centres in with the political authorities remain tense. shown an uncommon capacity to bounce back. six countries will be In 2019, the Harare authorities’ decision to Masiyiwa quickly built an ecosystem around open by 2025, with a his Econet Group that extended beyond ban the use of foreign currencies on their combined power of Zimbabwe’s borders and invested massively soil and to authorise only the Zimbabwean 54MW and 24,000m2 of white space in South Africa. Subsidiaries spread from dollar almost brought him to his knees.
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THEAFRICAREPORT / N° 116 / JULY-AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2021
