<p>Just about every self-help movement from spirituality to leadership to parenting extols the virtue of being more present. We’re told to cultivate being introspective, still, and to pay attention to what we’re doing at the time we’re doing it. If we focus on the person or task in front of us, we give them, and ourselves, a gift. I wholeheartedly believe this is a good and positive thing.</p>
<p>But man, do I struggle with it.</p>
<p>I am a master multitasker. I’m a business owner, a mother of two school-age kids, and involved in a bunch of outside activities. I feel like my days are often a race against time, with dates and details bouncing in and out of my head like super important ping pong balls. That’s not even talking about the electronic devices, social media, and emails I keep up with. (I am admittedly a news and good TV junkie. Here’s looking at you Breaking Bad.) Uh oh, I digressed.</p>
<p>Yes, I want to be more present. I want to tune out work when I’m home, and be more often in the moment. I’m regularly trying new ideas that push me along in that direction — and I’ve made some decent progress (with focus and effort.)</p>
<p>For all you sworn multitaskers, take heart. That efficiency you’ve cultivated can be coupled with an intent to be present with lots of positive benefits. Not only will being more present help you feel less stressed and promote better relationships, studies show that mindfulness can also benefit your physical health and even increase your lifespan.</p>
<p>Here are some ideas for how to go from distracted to mindfully present:</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>1) Turn off electronics and email</h4>
<p>No surprise that this one tops the list; it’s my own Achilles heel. The Energy Project’s Tony Schwartzhas found that 80% of us are rarely, if ever, disconnected from our email. There are many advantages to being constantly reachable, but in the long term, in addition to causing stress and unnecessary distraction, it can also alter the way we think and behave.</p>
<p>As Schwartz says, “it isn’t overload we’re battling anymore, it’s addiction — to action, and information, and connection, but above all to instant gratification.” We no longer know how to wait, and our activities are tainted by listening for that ping that tells us we have a message.  If you want to be more present, turn off your electronics and stop checking your email when you’re having a conversation with someone, working on a project that requires concentration, or even when you just want to enjoy the moment.</p>
<p>Schwartz, for example, is a major proponent of an electronics-free lunch break. Leaving your smartphone in the car until after dinner or checking it at the door are other options. I’ve learned that if my phone is in front of me, I’ll check it. Better to put it away.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>2) Center before a conversation</h4>
<p>Centering is a key skill that coaches learn before meeting with a client. To be a good coach, you need to be fully present and actively listening — which requires tuning out any static or energy from whatever came beforehand. The process is simple. Before you begin a conversation or meeting, take a moment and get intentional about how you want to show up. I also take a few deep breaths and remove distractions. If I’m at my desk, I move so I’m away from my workspace.</p>
<p>This allows me to come into a coaching session calm, open and present. Consider the opposite. We all know what it feels like to have someone enter a room stressed, distracted, and still reeling from their last meeting.</p>
<p>When you practice active listening, it’s far easier to stay in the moment as well.  Active listening is what it sounds like: not only do you listen to someone, but you actively ask questions and engage in the conversation.  In a helpful article, psychologist John M. Grohol lays out some basic active listening tips and techniques. These include restating what you’ve just heard to be sure you understand it clearly (“So you think office policy about PTO needs to change?”) and sharing your observations about what the person has said (“You seem frustrated.”)</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>3) Break from the madness</h4>
<p>As I’ve mentioned before, studies have shown that taking a short break between tasks helps the mind recharge and refocus. Zen teacher, CEO, and author Marc Lesser has this advice for how to integrate breaks to reduce stress and a speeding mind. The first is to “rest mentally and physically in between or outside of your usual activities, perhaps instituting a regular practice of meditation, retreats, breaks, and reflection. In the midst of a busy life, a full work day, go for a walk, do yoga, read some poetry.”</p>
<p>If yoga or poetry isn’t your bag, Lesser suggests taking a few moments to breathe deeply and reflect. Anyone can do this without leaving their desk.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>4) Schedule important</h4>
<p>discussions without a hard stop</p>
<p>When we’re in back-to-back meetings, it’s difficult to be present because we’re also thinking of what happened before and what’s next. For important discussions, leave room for the conversation. Make sure to structure a situation where you can both focus on what the other has to say, perhaps even out of the office. This also means not having a hard stop or starting a conversation at the end of the day.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>5) Consider (and verbalize)</h4>
<p>what you’re saying no to</p>
<p>For everything we say yes to, we’re saying no to something else. When you reflect on that and verbalize it, the decision is much easier. i.e. “I’m saying no to my kids so I can respond to a non-urgent email” or “I’m saying no to planning this pivotal project so I can say yes to surfing Twitter.” When you put it out there, the distinction often makes the real choice laughable. What’s taking away our full and focused presence doesn’t deserve it at all.</p>


The  Multitaskers’

<p>Some race reductionists have argued that black people cannot be racist. According to this argument, black people are so dominated by whites in every sphere that they could not possibly be racist, even if they tried.</p>
<p>To be racist, goes their argument, a group must possess state or economic power to collectively subjugate those of a different group, those who do not look like them.</p>
<p>At best, blacks can despise whites for all the pain they have caused since their ancestors first left Europe in search of new lands and resources some 500 years ago.</p>
<p>As you might imagine, such an argument has the ability to raise passions, regardless of which side of the debate one chooses. It is also, of course, a nonsensical premise. Blacks are human, and from time immemorial, human beings have had prejudices based on all sorts of things, from which side of the river one hails to the color of their hair.</p>
<p>There is an equally flawed theory, based on more or less the same sentiments, held by the ‘blacks cannot be racist’ brigade. This time, it is led by women, who think that by merely being women, they possess the magical skills to manage people.</p>
<p>Women bosses are allegedly more compassionate, consensus-orientated and, unlike their male counterparts, not overly competitive.</p>
<p>Really?</p>
<p>Before we get ahead of ourselves, let me hasten to add that I have no doubt that there are women leaders out there like that. By the same token, however, there are women leaders who are everything but.</p>
<p>To assume, therefore, that for no other reason than they are blessed with</p>
<p>more X chromosomes, that they bring to boardrooms, the shop floor and wherever else they manage people, a divinely ordained insight into how to get human beings to be more productive, get on with each other and go home to be excellent partners and parents, is ridiculous.</p>
<p>It is no better than the delusion that blacks are incapable of racism simply because they are black. It may make women feel better, but it is bigoted, for it attributes to women, characteristics that they acquired by mere membership of a group they had no say in joining and therefore cannot escape.</p>
<p>Anyone who believes that the biological factors they possess – the color of their skin, eyes or the dominant hand they use – give them special powers and advantages over other human beings, is on the road to nowhere.</p>
<p>One would think that people with some experience in the workplace and the boardroom have seen that both great and lousy leaders come in all shapes, sizes and genders.</p>
<p>Political correctness demands that we believe women bring a ‘softness’ and more ‘heart’ to the boardroom, as if women in business are recruited from the convent rather than the coalface where business leaders are made. We are told that their maternal instincts (and goodness knows what else) gives them the abilities that their peers around the boardroom table do not share.</p>
<p>As is the case with black people, by now women should refuse to be treated as if they are monolithic judged on the performance of those who look like them. They should not only refuse this association when it is negative, but should reject it altogether when told they are the better species for no other reason than they are women.</p>
<p>To accept, as some women have, that their gender gives them some advantage is to deny their own humanness and the effort and skill it takes to climb the corporate ladder.</p>
<p>The ‘I am a great boss because I am a woman’ brigade denies the role of training, mentoring and old-fashioned hard work that makes excellent bosses excellent. It tells men that kindness and empathy are feminine traits and they should therefore play them down, lest their masculinity be questioned.</p>
<p>It is up to women to correct this ever-growing misconception that it is something to do with gender and not abilities and skills that makes them excellent leaders.</p>
<p>If the women’s movement has learnt anything from centuries of patriarchy it should be that sooner rather than later, those who imagine themselves to be virtuous because of who they are rather than what they do, are eventually caught out and put in their place.</p>
<p>It is women who must call the likes of Margaret Thatcher to order for saying: ‘if you want something said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman’. It may be a great quote, but it brings with it seeds of counterarguments and examples of how the opposite is true.</p>
<p>Nature and nurture have provided men and women with different ways of seeing the world. That, however, is no excuse for allowing how we have been socialized to determine what it takes to be an excellent business leader.</p>


Women are not inherently good

<p>When South Africa marks 20 years of democracy next year, it will not be alone in celebrating. Wiphold, Women Investment Portfolio Holdings, will also mark 20 years of existence as the country’s first women-owned investment company.</p>
<p>In the early 1990s, after winning the political battle to ensure all South Africans had equal rights, the country’s leaders had to deal with an important challenge: how to include black South Africans meaningfully in the economy.</p>
<p>Louisa Mojela, Wendy Luhabe, Nomhle Canca and myself founded Wiphold to make sure that the women of South Africa were not excluded from this life-changing conversation.</p>
<p>Our women political leaders had done their best to ensure that gender rights featured in the Constitution. However, as a worldwide phenomenon, big business does not seem to be comfortable including women in executive discussions.</p>
<p>When we founded Wiphold, my colleagues and I were well aware of the challenges involved in including women in the mainstream economy.</p>
<p>Using our rare, privileged position, championed by the South African government’s policies, we deliberately tried to rearrange boardroom conversations all over the world.</p>
<p>Over the past two decades, I think it is fair to say that Wiphold has met its ambition of being a force to be reckoned with. The company is fully entrenched in its chosen industries: financial services (Old Mutual and Nedbank); coal mining (Sasol) and infrastructure (the construction of a cement plant). Wiphold has also left its mark on consumer goods and services, and on tourism and leisure. While there were many highlights during this 20-year journey, some experiences stand out as particularly memorable.</p>
<p>When we started out, we needed seed capital of $50,000. For young professionals from not-so-rich backgrounds, this was a lot of money, and family and friends came on board to help us. I remember that my young brother-in-law, Lazzy, who had just started his law articles, delayed buying himself a car in order to loan me $500.</p>
<p>Early on, when the South African government introduced Black Economic Empowerment (BEE) legislation to include black South Africans in the white-dominated economy, Wiphold approached a gold company. We offered ourselves as a unique BEE partner, trading on the fact that women are known consumers of gold. The CEO was impressed with our presentation and kindly offered us a rose garden project, which the company had undertaken as a corporate social initiative. We have never forgiven him.</p>
<p>Another BEE company was so impressed with Wiphold, that it offered us a merger. This was very flattering, except that the company had an Net Asset Value of almost $500 million, while Wiphold’s was a mere $3.5 million in comparison. It would seem that we were a nuisance that needed to be removed from the BEE playing field.</p>
<p>Perhaps the highest point in my career is when Wiphold listed on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in 1999. It was the first women-owned company to do so; further proof that we were pushing the boundaries.</p>
<p>Another high point was Wiphold’s decision to build a cement plant. Construction is traditionally a man’s domain – it is no rose garden – and I am proud that our company is comfortable enough to enter the sector.</p>
<p>Over the years, there have also been disappointments. A continuous frustration is what I see as women’s lackluster efforts to carve out a space, to coexist alongside men, in the world of business. I see it happen time and again here in South Africa and elsewhere in the world. We are not getting the traction we believe we deserve – and there are plenty of reasons why not.</p>
<p>It is not enough to complain that our male counterparts are not taking us seriously. In the end, this is a fight for survival, for women’s economic and financial independence. When it is successful, it translates into more harmonious relationships with men, free of financial dependency.</p>
<p>In the South African context, women have battled long and hard for emancipation – some have even given their lives in the fight for equal rights. The next phase is economic emancipation – and it is impossible to argue that there are no opportunities or a lack of economic platforms on which to do so.</p>
<p>As a pioneer in South Africa, Wiphold did not have the luxury of failing. The burden of the next generation of women entrepreneurs was on our shoulders. Success and excellence were not optional, but necessary.</p>


How Gloria cracked the

PRECIOUS GOES GLOBAL

<p>Our annual snapshot of the 100 women with the most impact are top politicians and CEOs, activist billionaires and celebrities who matter. In roughly equal measure you’ll find next gen entrepreneurs and media mavens, technologists and leaders in philanthropy – all ranked by dollars, media momentum and impact.</p>
<p>We’ve selected women that go beyond the traditional taxonomy of the power elite (political and economic might). These change-agents are actually shifting our very idea of clout and authority and, in the process, transforming the world in fresh and exhilarating ways.</p>
<p>This year the list features nine heads of state who run nations with a combined GDP of $11.8 trillion –including the No. 1 Power Woman, German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The 24 corporate CEOs control $893 billion in annual revenues, and 16 of the women here founded their own companies, including two of the three new billionaires to the list, Tory Burch and Spanx’s Sara Blakely. Speaking of, this year’s class has 14 billionaires valued in excess of $82 billion.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-5693" src="/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/FWA-2013-Oct-012-019-MOU-Top-100-006-197x300.jpg" alt="" width="197" height="300" /></p>
<h4>Here, a quick peek at Power Women 2013:</h4>
<p>Newcomers: Among the 15 newcomers on this year’s list are South Korean President Park Geun-hye (No. 11); Lockheed Martin LMT +0.52% CEO Marillyn Hewson (No. 34); CEO Tory Burch (No. 69);  Spanx founder Sara Blakely (No. 90) and Baidu BIDU -1.28% CFO Jennifer Li (No. 98).</p>
<p>Old friends: At this 10th edition, attention must be paid to the 15 who appeared on the inaugural list in 2004 and are still here today:  Oprah Winfrey(No. 13), of course. Ditto for Hillary Clinton (No. 5). But there’s also  Christine Lagarde (No. 7),  Sonia Gandhi (No. 9), Indra Nooyi (No. 10), Helen Clark(No. 21), Nancy Pelosi (No. 22), Anne Sweeney (No. 24), Amy Pascal (No. 36), Queen Elizabeth II (No. 40), Abigail Johnson (No. 60),  Ho Ching (No. 64),Diane Sawyer (No. 73), J.K. Rowling (No. 93) andGreta Van Susteren (No. 97).</p>
<p>She’s No. 1: Chancellor Merkel has made the list eight times out of the past 10 years – seven times as No. 1.</p>
<p>She’s the first: Forty percent  of the women on the list are “female firsts,” such as African head of state (Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf), billionaire to sign The Giving Pledge (Sara Blakeley), and CEO at IBM (Ginni Rometty). Even more impressive are a the women who are multiple “firsts”, such as Judith Rodin, first president of an Ivy League and of the Rockefeller Foundation  and Hillary Clinton.</p>
<p>Hillary stays on: Clinton’s CV is chock full of firsts: The only first lady to become a U.S. senator turned viable presidential candidate turned secretary of state. Now a private citizen, she continues to be one of the most watched and listened-to women on the planet. All bets on that she will be the 2016 Democratic presidential candidate and the free world’s presumptive next leader. She’s done little to quiet the chatter, including hitting the speaking circuit last month at an estimated $200,000 fee per event and inking a reported $14 million book deal.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-5696" src="/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/FWA-2013-Oct-012-019-MOU-Top-100-008-202x300.jpg" alt="" width="202" height="300" /></p>
<p>Tech takes a second turn as a category on the Power Women list. Five tech women made the top 25 this year, including Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg (No. 6), Rometty (No. 12) and HP’s Meg Whitman (No. 15). There are 16 tech women in total, including also Susan Wojcicki, SVP of ads at Google (No. 30) and Sun Yafang, chair of Huawei Technologies (No. 77).</p>
<p>in South Africa. Joining the efforts of the U.N. are Angelina Jolie (No. 37), Shakira (No. 52), and Gisele Bundchen (No. 95). Beyonce (No. 17) rules the House of Dereon and Sofia Vergara (No. 38) co-owns LatinWE.</p>
<p>Businesswomen are booming in Asia: The whole region makes a strong showing, from China and Singapore to New Zealand and Thailand. Entrepreneurship is on the rise: see Zhang Xin (No. 50), The rising tide of female entrepreneurs:</p>
<p>A remarkable number of women are founders or owners of their own enterprises, not a few of whose eponymous companies are synonymous with high fashion. Consider Miuccia Prada (No. 58), Zara founder Rosalia Mera (No. 66), Tory Burch (No. 69) andDiane von Furstenberg (No. 74). Other self-made self-starters include Oprah Winfrey (No. 13), Arianna Huffington (No. 56), Chinese real estate tycoonZhang Xin (No. 50), and Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, India’s first biotech entrepreneur (No. 85).</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-5697" src="/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/FWA-2013-Oct-012-019-MOU-Top-100-012-300x210.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="210" /></p>
<p>The new celebrity role models: Sure, they’re famous but they deserve special attention for their outside work, be it ambassadors for meaningful causes or as business owners.</p>
<p>Oprah founded both Harpo Productions and The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls Sun Yafang (No. 77) and Solina Chau (No. 80). And Asian region women are showing their political might, from newcomer Park Geun-hye, the South Korean president (No. 11) and Burmese dissident and parliamentarian Aung San Suu Kyi (No. 29) to Australian PM Julia Gillard (No. 28) and Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra (No. 31).</p>
<p>Healing, feeding and educating the world: If they’re not topping corporations or state, the women on our list are heads of major nonprofits and NGOs and they wield as large budgets and impact millions, from Melinda Gates (No. 3) and IMF chief Christine Lagarde (No. 7) to Director-General of World Health Organization Margaret Chan (No. 33), World Food ProgrammeExecutive Director Ertharin Cousin (No. 49) and Harvard University’s Drew Gilpin Faust (No. 43).</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-5698" src="/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/FWA-2013-Oct-012-019-MOU-Top-100-003-217x300.jpg" alt="" width="217" height="300" /></p>
<h4>Joyce Banda</h4>
<p>Malawi’s first female president (and second on the African continent) spent her initial year in office pushing for rapprochement with the international donor community while grappling with spiraling inflation and an angry populace at home. With foreign aid accounting for nearly 40% of Malawi’s revenue, Banda urged global financial institutions to restore the dollars and Euros frozen during the autocratic regime of her predecessor. But her decision to devalue Malawi’s currency by 50% – to meet IMF conditions – has resulted in soaring costs for food and fuel and widespread protests. Her first 12 months were also marked by progress in decriminalizing homosexuality and major public health initiatives such as the $15 billion Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB and Malaria.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-5691" src="/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/FWA-2013-Oct-012-019-MOU-Top-100-004-203x300.jpg" alt="" width="203" height="300" /></p>
<h4>Sri Mulyani Indrawati</h4>
<p>When Sri Mulyani Indrawati addressed the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in April, the Indonesian economist shared a curious insight: while high-income countries continue to suffer in the wake of the financial crisis, developing countries have come out relatively unscathed. The World Bank projects average global GDP growth of just 2.5% in 2013. Indrawati has served as managing director and the most senior woman at the World Bank since May 2010; as managing director, she oversees the World Bank’s operations in Asia and Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. After a series of deadly accidents in Bangladesh, the World Bank and the International Labor Organization have put pressure on the country to overhaul its labor laws.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-5692" src="/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/FWA-2013-Oct-012-019-MOU-Top-100-005-221x300.jpg" alt="" width="221" height="300" /></p>
<h4>Liyuan Peng</h4>
<p>China&#8217;s most public first lady since Madame Mao, Peng is the stylish second wife of new leader Xi Jinping. She toured with her husband during Xi&#8217;s first presidential trip abroad to Russia and Africa in March and was credited with putting a human face on the Communist regime; not for nothing, Peng is a member of the Public Diplomacy Association, an organized tasked to make China more appealing abroad. The former superstar folk singer is often joked about for being more famous than her husband: &#8220;Who is Xi Jinping? He is Peng Liyuan&#8217;s husband.&#8221; Fashion editors watch her for her (mostly) made-in-China style, but she&#8217;s also a U.N. ambassador for health and a Goodwill Ambassador for the World Health Organization focusing on TB and HIV/AIDS.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala</h4>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-5689" src="/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/FWA-2013-Oct-012-019-MOU-Top-100-001-221x300.jpg" alt="" width="221" height="300" /></p>
<p>One year in office after a failed bid to for the World Bank presidency, Nigeria&#8217;s Harvard-educated finance minister produced a 6.5% increase in GDP from 2011 to 2012. Nigeria is the third largest economy in Africa with nearly $50 billion in foreign reserves.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf</h4>
<p>Johnson-Sirleaf is an African icon. She is the  continent&#8217;s first female head of state, a 2011 Nobel Prize winner for her work  n the global women&#8217;s empowerment circuit.</p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="size-medium wp-image-5690" src="/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/FWA-2013-Oct-012-019-MOU-Top-100-002-208x300.jpg" alt="" width="208" height="300" /></p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>


The world’s 100 most powerful women

<p>I go into everything with a huge ego,” DailyWorth founder Amanda Steinberg told more than 100 entrepreneurs this July. What she conceded could be seen as a huge personal defect in the social world turned out to be her biggest strength in raising well over $4 million for her powerhouse personal finance site that’s among the best of the web for women.</p>
<div id="attachment_5676" style="width: 239px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-5676" class="size-medium wp-image-5676" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/iStock_000003551208Large-229x300.jpg" alt="" width="229" height="300" /><p id="caption-attachment-5676" class="wp-caption-text">Plant vigorously sprouting from a pile of golden coins &#8211; concept for good investments</p></div>
<p>Steinberg picked up the mic last month to talk to female entrepreneurs – in the room, on a conference call and streamed through Google GOOG +0.02% hangout (watch the whole thing, it’s totally worth it) – about the complex process of raising capital for young companies. “I’m going to keep it real,” she said as she regaled the audience with tales from the nine months it took her to raise the first $850,000 for DailyWorth in 2011. She was running on fumes, parenting two small children solo and going through a divorce. Real talk: it got ugly.</p>
<p>But Steinberg’s been-there-done-that advice was frank and refreshing and inspired me to tap other female founders in my network – from YC-alums fresh out of seed rounds to trailblazers with millions in the bank – to find more no BS counsel for entrepreneurs looking to impress investors and fill their own startup coffers.</p>
<p>Steinberg breaks down her top-level fundraising advice into four must-have items, and because her insight is on display on YouTube, we’ll keep it basic (but oh-so-helpful) in this space.</p>
<p>No. 1, a mentor (“Everybody and every website says you need one, but it’s true. You really do. There’s just so much you don’t know”), No. 2, the obvious: your deck (slides on core value proposition, the size of your market, who the customer is, competition, exit strategy, etc.). No. 3, your financial model (map out revenue and expenses with growth rate: “It really shows why you need capital – it’s the justification of what that cash is going to do). No. 4, an executive summary (think the most kick-ass cover letter ever, as in “Here’s why I’m awesome, here’s why it’s going to succeed, here’s why you should talk to me).</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<h4>Katia Beauchamp, cofounder and co-CEO, Birchbox</h4>
<p>Beauchamp and cofounder/co-CEO Hayley Barna have raised more than $11 million for Birchbox, the company that set the subscription commerce trend in motion and has seen continued success since its 2010 launch. What they’ve learned from the process of fundraising while simultaneously scaling a business is the importance of time management – or more specifically learning what’s just a waste of time.</p>
<p>Their advice? Finding investors whose area of interest – or market of choice – is the most aligned with your business. You’re e-commerce and they invest in health tech? You might want to skip it – no matter how many mutual acquaintances you have. “Taking the time to find the right investors is a huge, huge part of the way to spend your time fundraising the most wisely,” Beauchamp told me in early August. “When you talk to VCs they should be someone in your wheelhouse – or for us someone who at least likes the idea of e-commerce.”</p>
<p>This helped in two ways. One, the Birchbox founders didn’t waste their breath on uninterested parties, but more importantly they didn’t spend hours explaining a female-focused business model to male investors who couldn’t – or wouldn’t – understand the consumer. “Pitching is a complex process,” she says, “But pitching to someone whose interests are so far from yours that you have to reeducate them adds a whole new layer.” Lesson learned: choose wisely.</p>
<h4>Michelle Crosby,</h4>
<h4>founder and CEO, Wevorce</h4>
<p>As far as Crosby is concerned, the key to raising capital – whether via angels or venture capitalists – is as much managing your own expectations as it is wowing investors with a flashy business plan. The former attorney applied her disciplined approach in the courtroom to build a structure that she used in every investor meeting. “It’s helped me to manage my own mindset,” she says. “And keep worry – and overwhelming eagerness – at bay as much as possible.” She laughs. “Well those things come anyway, but creating structure helps.”</p>
<p>So what is it? It starts, like any first date, with a bit of flattery. “I call it the bromance section of the meeting and it always comes first,” Crosby says. “I like to lead with a question—usually something I’ve researched before-hand, some nugget of uniqueness about this person –because neuroscience tells us that when someone feels listened to the same part of their brain lights up as when they feel loved.”</p>
<p>Once the meeting is formally underway and decks are on display, Crosby, whose business focuses on divorcing families, turns to cross-checking intention. “I’m focused on recognizing whether their intentions as an investor align with my intentions for the business. We intend to do well by doing good. So I’m looking for people who know that and believe in it from the moment we meet. And I do that by asking what they like the most about the company. If it’s ‘I want a healthy return,’ then cool – but they’re maybe not for us.”</p>
<p>The third prong is (by my own estimation) one of the savviest pieces of advice I’ve heard on the process. Ask this question: How do you see yourself being involved with the company? If the response is a blank stare, it’s a strong sign they’re not interested and, as Crosby puts it, you might as well know that right away. But the ones with clear ideas will stand out – and give you the opening for a strong close on your own terms.</p>
<p>“I always end by asking them about next steps,” she says. “Can I put you down for the round and for how much? If you’re going to think about it, I’ll say I’m holding your spot for X number of days and then release it.” That way you’re killing two birds: one, you’re giving investors and easy out with no hard feelings and two, managing those pesky expectations again. Waiting by the phone is the worst way to spend your time.</p>
<p>Crosby’s fellow YC-alum Deyle, whose Lollipuff auctions second-hand designer goods with the promise of authenticity, actually stopped fundraising mid-process earlier this year. “We received commitments from angels and also a few VCs,” she explains, “But ultimately felt that after putting so much effort into fundraising it was better as an already profitable company to keep our focus on the product.” She may have been right: after doubling users since June, Deyle says investors are starting to pursue them.</p>
<p>Despite that, Deyle and her two cofounders put a method in place that’s a useful piece of advice for all founding teams – provided they’ve got the manpower. “We decided up-front that it was important for one of us to stay back and focus solely on product,” she says. “Not just to keep the lights on, but to keep a real distance from the fundraising process.”</p>
<p>“It’s an emotionally exhausting time,” she says. “Because every time you receive a no – or even a maybe which is really a no – it’s almost as if someone’s telling you your baby is ugly. So ugly they don’t even want to look at it!” Having a cofounder who’s not poisoned by “nos” Deyle says, helped the team as a whole to stay grounded, and to appreciate what they’d built. In other words, to remind them that their baby wasn’t ugly – no matter what they’d heard in a bad meeting.</p>


Female founders speak up:

<p>Perched on a stool with a spotlight sculpting her fine face with light and shadow, Nneka strums her guitar and melancholically sings lyrics with both religious and political undertones.</p>
<p>“Your phrases are highly majestic, I am amazed by your great linguistics, yet your words are placed together, to sell dubious manifestoes,” says Nneka.</p>
<p>The audience sits in silence as the stars shine in the dark sky spanning above the auditorium in the Ghanaian capital of Accra.</p>
<p>Tonight, Nneka casts a fragile form—her signature sprawling afro is pulled back, her diminutive figure is shrouded in layers of grey, and she is awkwardly reticent throughout the performance. But if Nneka’s music has a central theme it is that appearances can often be deceptive. The German-Nigerian singer’s delicate beauty and soft voice belie the anger, the confusion and sense of injustice threaded throughout the lyrics of her songs.</p>
<p>For the past two years Nneka has been touring Europe, East Africa and her motherland to promote her third album Soul is Heavy, which was released last year . Written and recorded over three years in her home city of Lagos, the album is both thematically and stylistically eclectic with reggae, hip-hop, soul and afrobeat influences. Her songs address corruption, neo-colonialism and oppression, as well as more introspective matters of the heart and soul.</p>
<p>Nneka has made her way from being a little-known singer-songwriter to an internationally acclaimed artist who has toured with the likes of American singer Lenny Kravitz and New York rapper Nas. But gaining recognition in her homeland was difficult, at least until her big break in 2010 when she performed her hit single “Heartbeat” on the David Letterman Show and later appeared on CNN.</p>
<p>“Before Letterman, before CNN nobody wanted to hear my stuff in Nigeria. It was quite difficult for people to relate to my music because the topics are quite heavy: I talk about corruption, I talk about hypocrisy and things that I deal with on a daily basis that we Africans and Nigerians deal with on a daily basis. Many people are very scared of facing those issues they would rather you entertain them,” she tells me during an interview at a restaurant in Accra.</p>
<p>Nneka says the popularity she gained in Nigeria, due to her overseas success, was an example of the “colonial mentality”, which is still pervasive throughout Africa.</p>
<p>“It’s an inferiority complex that we are not very aware of. We are really not proud of ourselves.”</p>
<p>But the singer says that while Nigerians are often drawn to the shiny and superficial; “political” music is becoming increasingly popular in Nigeria, as shown during the Occupy Nigeria protest movement last year, which was sparked by the removal of fuel subsidies and inspired by the Arab Spring.</p>
<p>“There are lots of musicians and artists who are becoming more conscious about their surroundings and courageous in speaking out their minds, when it comes to speaking out about our state and our condition and the system,” says Nneka.</p>
<p>While the singer describes her homeland as divided and corrupt, she says the Occupy Movement, at which she performed, gave her hope that things in Nigeria can change.</p>
<p>“A demonstration like that hasn’t been done in my lifetime. It was a peaceful demonstration—people of different tribes gathered, Christians and Muslims were praying together. Seeing so many people in one place having the courage to speak their minds helped connect us amongst ourselves.”</p>
<p>The artist was inspired by the pain and injustices she saw in Warri in the Niger Delta, a city where economic division and ethnic conflict are rife.</p>
<p>“When you grow up in that area, you either become a militant or maybe a musician. There is so much grief and tribal war and so much conflict,” she says.</p>
<p>But Nneka says Nigerians continue to hold on to the hope that their country can change and that some kind of revolution will take place in the future.</p>
<p>“We need proper leadership, selfless politicians who are not in power looking to profit, we need government to be more concerned about the youth and we need more rich people that are concerned about the poor.”</p>
<p>On what inspires her creatively, Nneka is endearingly bumbling and inarticulate. She cites spiritual figures such as Gandhi, Jesus and Saint John the Baptist and iconic African leaders like Thomas Sankara, Kwame Nkrumah and Patrice Lumumba, as figures who have informed her ideas and lyrics. Like these great men, Nneka sees herself as a spokesperson of the poor and the oppressed.</p>
<p>“Seeing the many people who are sick in the Delta due to the pollution, and the deaths… being from that area alone has made me into who I am. I feel it is my responsibility to be the voice for those who don’t have the courage,” says Nneka.</p>


Nigeria’s Nightingale

<p>After several years of steady growth in Africa, some sectors of the economy hit a wall. Lower prices for oil and other commodities led to a smaller number of African billionaires than a year ago on Forbes’ new list of Africa’s 50 Richest – 23 billionaires this year, down from 28.</p>
<p>As a group, the continent’s wealthiest 50 are worth $95.6 billion, a decline of $15 billion from a year ago.  Aliko Dangote of Nigeria retains his spot as number one richest African for the fifth year in a row, but his $16.7 billion net worth is nearly $5 billion lower than a year ago, a result of a drop in the stock price at his Dangote Cement and a weaker Nigerian currency.</p>
<p>Number two on the list is Nicky Oppenheimer, whose estimated $6.6 billion fortune stems from the stake he inherited in diamond miner and marketer De Beers. In 2012, Oppenheimer sold the De Beers stake to mining giant Anglo American for $5.1 billion in cash. He moves up the ranks from the number three spot in 2014.</p>
<p>South Africans made the best showing on the Africa’s richest list this year, occupying 16 spots, up from 11 last year. Nigerians had a smaller representation, with 10 members of the list, down from 13. Eight members hail from Morocco, 7 from Egypt, 3 from Tanzania and 3 from Kenya. There was one each from Algeria, Angola and Uganda.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<ol>
<li>
<h3>Aliko Dangote</h3>
</li>
</ol>
<h3>$16.4 billion</h3>
<h3> Nigeria</h3>
<p>Despite a weaker Nigerian currency and strife in the northern part of Nigeria, Aliko Dangote is still Africa’s richest man by far, even after a net worth decline of nearly $5 billion in the past year. In 2015 his Dangote Cement, Africa’s largest cement producer, launched new cement plants in Cameroon, Ethiopia, Zambia and Tanzania. In total, Dangote Cement produces more than 30 million metric tons annually, with a plan to double capacity by 2018. Dangote owns nearly 91% of publicly-traded Dangote Cement through a holding company; this percentage exceeds the 80% ownership ceiling set by the Nigerian Stock Exchange. A note in Dangote Cement’s 2014 annual report states that “controlling shareholder Dangote Industries Limited has continued to reduce its holding in Dangote Cement towards the NSE-required level of 80% or less” but Dangote doesn’t appear to have sold many shares this year. Other companies in the Dangote Group – which is active in 15 African countries – include publicly-traded salt, sugar and flour manufacturing companies.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<ol start="2">
<li>
<h3>Nicky Oppenheimer &amp; family</h3>
</li>
</ol>
<h3>$6.5 billion</h3>
<h3> South Africa</h3>
<p>Nicky Oppenheimer, who inherited his family’s stake in diamond giant De Beers, exited the business in 2012 and has kept a relatively low profile since then. For 85 years, the Oppenheimer family occupied a controlling spot in the world’s diamond trade; in 2012 Nicky sold his 40% stake in De Beers to mining conglomerate Anglo American for $5.1 billion in cash. Anglo American, which Nicky’s grandfather founded, controls 85% of De Beers; the government of Botswana owns the remaining 15%. Nicky Oppenheimer served on Anglo American’s board for 37 years through 2011, and retains an estimated 1.8% stake in the company. His E. Oppenheimer &amp; Son entity controls investment arms Stockdale Street Capital and Tana Africa Capital, a joint venture with Singapore government-owned investment firm Temasek. Tana Africa Capital holds minority interests in African food manufacturers Promasidor and Regina. In 2002 at the World Summit on Sustainable Development, Nicky Oppenheimer, who was then chairman of De Beers, helped launch the Diamond Route. The initiative set aside 250,000 hectares of land surrounding diamond mines, including property owned by De Beers and Oppenheimer, for tourism and conservation. But in October 2015, three years after he sold his family’s stake in De Beers, Oppenheimer announced at a Diamond Route research conference that he was uncoupling Oppenheimer land from the diamond route.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<ol start="3">
<li>
<h3>King Mohammed VI</h3>
</li>
</ol>
<h3>$5.8 billion</h3>
<h3> Morocco</h3>
<p>From his late father King Hassan, King Mohammed VI of Morocco inherited a 35% stake in Societe NationaWle d’Investissement (SNI), a holding company that has stakes in several publicly traded companies, including the country’s largest bank, Attijariwafa; mining company Managem Group; sugar producer Cosumar; and dairy firm Centrale Danone. Forbes’ estimate of the king’s net worth is up significantly from a year ago due to new information about the value of SNI’s assets.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<ol start="4">
<li>
<h3>Christoffel Wiese</h3>
</li>
</ol>
<h3>$5.7 billion</h3>
<h3> South Africa</h3>
<p>In a year when many moguls in Africa saw their fortunes shrink, South African retailing tycoon Christoffel Wiese is flourishing. His net worth has risen by more than $1 billion in the past 12 months. In February 2015, two companies in which he held stakes – Pepkor and Steinhoff – struck an agreement whereby Steinhoff, a furniture and home goods retailer, agreed to purchase Pepkor, a clothing and footwear seller, for $5.7 billion in cash and stock. Wiese’s resulting 17% stake in Steinhoff is now his largest asset, worth $3.7 billion as of mid-November 2015. His other investments include 15% of publicly-traded Shoprite Holdings, which controls supermarkets, furniture stores and fast food outlets in 15 countries across Africa and the Indian Ocean Islands; and stakes in private equity firm Brait, industrial products company Invicta Holdings and mining-sector investor Pallinghurst. Wiese has had his eye on the U.K. In Spring 2015, he acquired British fashion retailer New Look for $1.23 billion and gym chain Virgin Active for $1 billion.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<ol start="5">
<li>
<h3>Johann Rupert &amp; family</h3>
</li>
</ol>
<h3>$5.4 billion</h3>
<h3> South Africa</h3>
<p>Johann Rupert chairs listed Swiss luxury goods firm Compagnie Financiere Richemont, best known for the brands Cartier and Montblanc. He created the company in 1988 after spinning off international assets owned by Rembrandt Group Limited (now Remgro Limited), a South African company his father Anton founded in the 1940s as a tobacco manufacturer. Rupert owns a 7% stake in Remgro, which he chairs, as well as 25% of Reinet, an investment holding company based in Luxembourg that has a stake in British American Tobacco. He also owns part of the Saracens English rugby team and Anthonij Rupert Wines, named after his deceased brother. In recent years, Rupert has been a vocal opponent of plans to allow fracking in the Karoo, a region of South Africa where he owns land. At a luxury conference in Monaco in June 2015, Rupert said income inequality – exacerbated by the rise of tech and automation – was one of the biggest concerns for the luxury industry, because it makes luxury goods customers afraid to publicly display their wealth through the fancy goods they purchase.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<ol start="6">
<li>
<h3>Nassef Sawiris</h3>
</li>
</ol>
<h3>$4.2 billion</h3>
<h3> Egypt</h3>
<p>Egypt’s richest businessman, Nassef Sawiris, is pressing ahead with investments in his country. In November 2014 he partnered with Abu Dhabi’s International Petroleum Investment Co. to develop a coal-based power plant in Egypt. His company OCI, which decamped from the Egyptian stock market during Mohamed Morsi’s Islamist regime in 2013, formally split in February 2015. Its construction arm, Orascom Construction, now trades on Egypt’s exchange and Nasdaq Dubai; while OCI, the fertilizer and chemicals business, trades on Euronext Amsterdam. Sawiris also owns nearly 5% of LafargeHolcim, making him one of the largest shareholders. The two cement giants merged in July 2015. In October, he emerged as the biggest individual shareholder in Adidas with a 6% stake worth more than $1 billion. A University of Chicago graduate, Sawiris donated $20 million to the school in March 2015 to establish a scholarship program named after his father Onsi, also a billionaire. The funds will benefit Egyptian students.</p>
<h3></h3>
<ol start="7">
<li>
<h3>Isabel dos Santos</h3>
</li>
</ol>
<h3>$3.5 billion</h3>
<h3> Angola</h3>
<p>Isabel dos Santos is the oldest daughter of Angola’s longtime president and, by virtue of her investments in Portugal and Angola, is Africa’s richest woman. Though her representatives deny that her holdings have any connection with her father, Forbes research found that her father, President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, transferred stakes in several Angolan companies to her. Her assets in Angola include 25% of Unitel, the country’s largest mobile phone network, and a stake in a bank, Banco BIC. In Portugal she owns a nearly 7% chunk of oil and gas firm Galp Energia (alongside Portuguese billionaire Americo Amorim), and nearly 19% of Banco BPI, the country’s fourth-largest bank. She is also a controlling shareholder of Portuguese cable TV and telecom firm Nos SGPS (formerly called Zon). In June 2015, media reported that she spent slightly more than $200 million to buy a stake in Portuguese equipment firm Efacec Power Solutions. In October 2015, four members of the European Parliament publicly called for an investigation into Isabel dos Santos’ investments in Portugal, questioning the legality of the purchase, saying that the method of payment – a transfer of funds by the Angolan government – “raises the possibility the Angolan State is indirectly and illegally financing private investments of his daughter Isabel dos Santos.” A spokesperson for Dos Santos did not respond to an email requesting comment on the allegations.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<ol start="8">
<li>
<h3>Issad Rebrab &amp; family</h3>
</li>
</ol>
<h3>$3.1 billion</h3>
<h3> Algeria</h3>
<p>Issad Rebrab founded Algeria’s biggest privately held conglomerate, Cevital. It owns one of the largest sugar refineries in the world, with an annual output of 1.5 million tons; it also produces vegetable oil and margarine. Rebrab has been diversifying by buying European companies in distress. In 2014, he acquired (for an undisclosed amount) Groupe Brandt, a large French-based maker of appliances which had filed for bankruptcy protection. Cevital has invested more than $200 million to build a Brandt plant in Algeria which will employ 7,500 people. Rebrab is betting that his country can compete with China for cheap labor. “We have huge potential; we can make up for lost time very quickly,” he said at a conference in Algeria in February 2015. Rebrab, whose five children work at the company, is the son of militants who fought for Algeria’s independence from France.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<ol start="9">
<li>
<h3>Naguib Sawiris</h3>
</li>
</ol>
<h3>$3 billion</h3>
<h3> Egypt</h3>
<p>Naguib Sawiris captured world headlines in September 2015, when he offered to buy an island from Greece or Italy to settle refugees fleeing the war in Syria. A picture of the lifeless body of a Syrian boy on an Turkish beach prompted the gesture. “I am serious with my intentions,” he told FORBES. However, so far he has not purchased an island. Sawiris, who built his fortune in telecom, runs Orascom Telecom Media &amp; Technology (OTMT), a publicly traded company in Cairo. It has investments in mobile phone, media and technology companies in Egypt, Lebanon and Pakistan, but earlier this year exited the cell phone business in Egypt when it sold its stake in Mobinil to Orange, a multinational telecom firm formerly known as France Telecom. In North Korea, OTMT operates Koryolink, the country’s only 3G mobile telecom firm. Sawiris, who owns liberal TV station ONTV in Egypt, added to his media holdings by recently buying a majority stake in France’s news channel Euronews.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<ol start="10">
<li>
<h3>Mike Adenuga</h3>
</li>
</ol>
<h3>$2.9 billion</h3>
<h3> Nigeria</h3>
<p>Mike Adenuga, Nigeria’s second richest man, built his fortune in telecom and oil production. His mobile phone company Globacom is now the second largest operator in Nigeria with more than 30 million subscribers and operations in Ghana and the Republic of Benin. In May 2016, Globacom made a $600 million bid for Ivorian mobile telecom operator Comium Cote d’Ivoire, which has been grappling with debt and cash flow problems; the outcome of the purchase offer is still pending. His exploration outfit, Conoil Producing, operates six oil blocks in the Niger Delta; weaker oil prices have led to a lower value for the private company. Adenuga studied in the United States in the 1980s, getting an MBA at Pace University in New York, where he worked as a taxi driver to support himself. He returned to Nigeria and made his first fortune trading lace and Coca-Cola. Along the way he made friends with Nigerian military bigwigs who awarded him lucrative state contracts, those formed the foundation of his fortune.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>


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