Strive Masiyiwa

Strive Masiyiwa is the founder and executive chairman of Econet Group which comprises Econet Wireless (telecoms) and Cassava Technologies (digital services and infrastructure including 100,000km+ fibre broadband network across Africa; carrier and cloud-neutral data centres; solar renewable energy; cloud and cybersecurity solutions; fintech; and on-demand digital platforms).

Masiyiwa currently serves on the boards of Unilever plc, Netflix, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the National Geographic Society, and on several Global Advisory boards including Bank of America, US Council on Foreign Relations and the Bloomberg New Economy Forum. He is the only African member of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Committee on Conscience.

A board member of the Rockefeller Foundation for 15 years, Masiyiwa is a co-founder of an initiative to help 400m African smallholder farmers, known as the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). He then became its second chairman after Kofi Annan, and since stepping down has continued to serve as Chairman Emeritus. He was honoured for this work with the Norman Borlaug Medallion.