It’s the list that most African’s dream to be on. The Young African Millionaires to watch, a list created by Forbes which boasts Jason Njoku, the maverick Nigerian internet entrepreneur and Ashish Thakkar, the 29 year old Ugandan whose business grosses annual revenues of approximately $100 million. Buried in-between the testosterone filled list are two women who can definitely hold their own. Magatte Wade CEO of Tiossan and Yolanda Cuba Executive Director at South African Breweries. Let’s meet them…
Magatte Wade
Tiossan’s website describes their Senegalese founder and CEO, Magatte Wade, as a serial-entrepreneur and formidable advocate of positive change in business, gender roles, and Africa. It describes her larger than life personality as the key driver of her entrepreneurial success. Magatte is also named among the “20 Youngest Power Women in Africa” by Forbes Magazines, a list which also includes Chimamamdna Adiche and Funmi Iyanda. She is a TED Global Africa Fellow and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader and a mentor for the MIT Legatum Center for Entrepreneurship and Development.
Reading through Magatte’s bio and interview transcripts, I couldn’t help but feel moved to tears. Magatte is deeply passionate about Africa. A woman with a true sense of self who founded Tiossan on the principle that we should always be the best versions of ourselves to drive change. Change, she believes Africa desperately needs. On her blog she describes herself as someone who refuses to settle for the conventional “You can’t reach the stars if you settle for Earth”, she says. Honest about her life’s journey she proclaims that regardless of the hurts, losses, doubts, fears her “job is to show up, everyday relentlessly”. But perhaps what encapsulates Magatte, aside from her laudable achievements is her response to a fan which is posted on her blog. The fan writes her frustrations to Magatte on the need for change and the difficulties in pursuing this change, to which she replied, “you must remember that you are not alone in this. Somewhere else, 10 feet away from you, or 10,000 miles away from you, someone else is fighting your fight. Your job is to find them and together create little islands of excellence in everything you do and the way you do it”
Yolanda Cuba
There’s much to be said about a 29 year old woman who is appointed CEO of a company listed on the South African Stock exchange. Just like Magatte, Yolanda is also listed on the Forbes 20 Youngest Power Women in Africa list and a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader. Yolanda is also a recipient of the Youth Excellence Award, serves on a number of boards including Barclays Africa Group Limited and Vodacom Group Limited and is a Chattered accountant.
Yolanda’s meteoric rise to the top is definitely founded on HARD WORK! In an interview with Moneyweb, she says “everything that I did, success, whether I failed or not is a by-product of the effort that I put into my work and I know what I know, I know what I don’t know and I know where to get help when I need it”. Clearly a believer in excellence, she maintains that “when one produces work of such superior quality your race, age or gender can never be used to criticise you”.
Two things to definitely learn from these women is the need for hard work and excellence no matter where we find ourselves. Just like Magatte says, our job is to show up! Even deeper in that is the need to forge partnerships which create pockets of excellence. If these women can…so can we! How have these women inspired you?
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