It was a winter’s day in 2007. Ludwick Marishane was sunbathing outside one of his high school friend’s home in Limpopo, near the border with Zimbabwe. Here, even in winter, it’s hot. One of his friends was reluctant to bathe.  Marishane and others nagged him to go and shower. The grimy companion shot back with the question: “Why doesn’t someone invent something you can just put on your skin and avoid the need to bathe?”
With that question ringing in his ears, Marishane went home and began research. He found nothing, but a huge gap in the market. He found that there were 2.5 billion people in the world, of whom, 450 million were in Africa, without running water. Marishane was just 17 with few resources and a love for science. The statistics spurred him on. A few months later, Marishane scribbled the formula into the new product that was to make his fortune. He applied for a patent and launched his start-up, called Headboy Industries Inc.
Three years later, while studying at the University of Cape Town (UCT), Marishane crafted this formula into DryBath, the world’s first bath-substituting skin gel that cleans without water.
“Growing up in the township, where you poured water in a bowl, is not fun, especially in winter. I don’t like this, and I find it quite undignifying, having to kneel and wash myself with water spilling everywhere. You’re using too much soap and you’re not even rinsing yourself properly,” says Marishane. With DryBath, one can avoid this tedious process.
“You put it on, rub it off and wipe with a cloth and you’re done. You’re clean. And you could have done it anywhere,” says Marishane.
It has the same effect as an anti-bacterial cleanser, but it is odorless as it cleanses and moisturizes.
“It’s actually unhealthy for people to be bathing twice a day, especially if you’re not gyming. That’s why the different lotions are always trying to repair the damage done to the skin,” says Marishane.
All good, so far, then there was the question of money.
With the patent for DryBath in the bag, Marishane sought funding from about 80 investors. In vain.
“You’re too young and this product is too expensive,” they said.
As a last resort, Marishane entered competitions in a bid to fund his business with prize money. It worked.
“To date we’ve never had to raise debt or get outside investment. That’s how we’ve been able to own the company and everything included,” he says.
DryBath is sold to airlines and armies. Headboy Industries Inc. is currently designing a 500ml bottle and tube to replace sachets, which are expensive to make.
“So we decided now to put it in bottles, that would provide enough baths for a whole month. And we are going to sell that for about $4, which is essentially the price you’d pay for four or five sachets,” he says.
As we talk in his Cape Town apartment on another winter’s day, six years after his invention, the 23-year-old UCT graduate was proud to say he had not bathed for three days.
Marishane has sold more than 258,000 sachets of his product which is produced and packaged in Somerset West, just outside Cape Town.
He had been running Headbody Industries Inc. as sole proprietor for the past five years until he found a partner this year. He acknowledges working alone was his biggest weakness. The ‘silent partner’ who merely goes by the name Lungile, walks in, drops off a few packages and quickly leaves. The partner wants to remain in the background.
“I didn’t have the advantages of having a team, someone to bounce ideas off and get things done really quickly. It’s really rare to actually find somebody like him. Too many people agree with me. Too many people get intimidated by me,” says Marishane.
It’s difficult to handle success, he says.
“Because you can find tons and tons of books that will tell you to work until 1AM in the morning, have the passion, push, drive etc. But there aren’t too many books that teach you how to handle it when the dream starts coming true,” he says.
There have been failures along the way. Earlier this year they launched the “NoBathing campaign” online, where they hoped to raise funds for the company and for charity. They asked people to pledge not to bath and donate funds that would sponsor DryBath sachets for people who needed them. The campaign failed and raised a mere $2,096, well short of the $500,000 target.
“I would say we are not social media guys, and we’ve never gone public with the product. We don’t sell retail. Our inexperience with the identity we’ve given the product is what made us have a mixed message with the campaign,” he admits.
But he won’t give up that easily and will re-introduce the programme again when the time is right.
And the future?
“Our plan is not to become the “DryBath” company for the next five to 10 years. The plan is to get the product out, get people using it and sell the brand off to one of the bigger players who have the distribution, who have the man-power to push behind it, allowing it to achieve its maximum social and profitability impact,” he says.
Headboy Industries Inc. also has three other projects in the pipeline that they are hoping will get off to a good start. In the next six months they will be piloting a development entrepreneurship platform for university students with Coronation, a fund management company.
For now, Marishane and his incognito partner are changing the way tens of thousands of people bath, without a drop of water in sight.

Wallowing In Money

They call it the sport of kings, but one young lady begs to differ. At 25 years old, Uneku Atawodi has played professional polo in more than 14 countries. She has represented her country at the Federation of International Polo, which makes her the first black, female, professional polo player to compete at international level.
The Nigerian youth began her journey into professional polo at the age of 16. In Kaduna, in north-central Nigeria, where she grew up, polo was almost a weekly ritual in her family. After having played casually for two years, she was ready to make a career of it. Her parents tried to talk her out of it and stopped paying for the upkeep of her horses. Atawodi enrolled for a qualification in Equestrian Sports Science at the University of Brighton, in England. It was then that she began to work at horse stables to gain more experience and received a stage 4 riding accreditation from the British Horse Society.
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“I was quite fascinated by the sport from the first time I watched it and had always wanted to play polo, but my uncles would discourage me by saying: ‘No, you’re a girl, you should try other sports instead’ or ‘A woman’s place, is not on a horse, you won’t get married’. I had also tried out hunting, in England, but there was something about the horses. I was in love and fascinated with them right from the onset. I was passionate about polo,” says Atawodi.
Her passion kept her undeterred; each game gave her a bigger thrill, but Atawodi soon realized that she needed to finance her expensive passion. The costs of playing polo are high: a thoroughbred or thoroughbred cross Argentinian horse ranges from $15,000 to $20,000 or more, and they need to be well looked after and trained if they are to excel. Players’ kits are also pricey, polo riding boots range from $600 to $800 a pair.
More determined than ever, she was ready to swing the mallet for money.
“I believe that if you truly want something, regardless of how wealthy your family might be, it is your responsibility to work for your dream, not expect others to fund your plans. I think my parents’ stern decision bred a strong will in me. It encouraged a strong work ethic and a vibrant belief that every aim is eventually achievable if you work hard for it.”
With this in mind, Atawodi knew it was time to make a change. She returned to Nigeria and began to work at the Federal Capital Territory Administration, in Abuja, as a special duties officer. At that time, she also pursued a business venture in the hospitality sector.
Her love of polo and bid to change perceptions of it being an elitist sport, led Atawodi to establish an NGO called Ride to Shine. It is here, at this non-profit organization in Abuja, that a few orphans are raised to be future polo stars.
“I wanted to open these doors for the children because through my polo handicap, I’ve been able to see the world. This is what I love to do and what better way to share with the children than to give them this gift?”
She is also building a resort in Abuja, the capital city, that will facilitate polo tournaments for children. All proceeds will go to the Ride to Shine trust fund.
“I want them to be ambassadors for Nigeria through polo,” she says.
With a handicap of zero, Atawodi had bigger plans.
“Owning my own team is what I ultimately wanted,’’ she says.
This became a reality as she owns 17 horses and runs a team called Bamboo.
“[It] is a rather new team, we have played in a few Nigerian tournaments and we are now aiming to have the team play around the world.”
One of the tournaments the team has participated in is Polo For A Cause, Atlanta. This event is hosted in partnership with equestrian brand, La Martina, to raise money for orphans in Africa. The tournament will continue to be hosted in various states across the United States to raise awareness and benefit charities.
The team recently played at the Miami beach tournament, where she was a role model.
“It was amazing to have so many little girls inspired by my participation. As the only girl in the tournament, it was a lot of fun,” she says.
Atawodi represented Nigeria in her role as a ‘global shaper’ at this year’s World Economic Forum. She is also writing a book about polo; it will see her traveling the world and learning about the history of polo in many countries.
With more points to score both on and off the polo field, Atawodi is keeping her eyes squarely on the ball.

Taking A Swing  At The Boys Club

This month I pay tribute to the role women have played in shaping world football.
For it is undeniable that they play a major role, not just in the playing of the sport, but also in the administration and growth of the game.
Let me start with the playing of the game—more and more women are taking to the field than ever before. This is against the financial tide. Corporates are only too happy to give millions to men’s leagues, but remain reluctant to do so for women.
The reasons for this are: the men’s game has a greater reach among the public; is generally more competitive and attracts television. It is an easy sell.
But let me tell you something, gentlemen, women are catching up. At the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Germany, the match between the host nation and Canada sold out and drew a domestic audience of 18 million television viewers, or nearly a quarter of the country’s population. To put that in perspective, that is 10% higher than the viewership for the match between the men’s teams of Germany and Serbia at the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. This shows that women’s football can capture the imagination of fans.
The 2011 tournament in Germany was screened in 181 countries, with an estimated audience of almost 408 million. The average viewership per match was more than 13 million, up almost 20% from four years earlier.
The World Cup for women has only been around since 1991; the competition is carving out a niche. That first event, staged in China, featured 12 nations, but the 2015 finals in Canada will see 24 teams compete, just shy of the 32 that appear in the men’s tournament.
What is clear is that there is a fast growing demand for women’s football. It is a part of the global game that can no longer be ignored and this is something FIFA understands very well. The organization is a strong proponent of the women’s game because they see it is vital for the future of the sport.
But it is not just on the pitch where women are making a huge contribution to the advancement of the sport.
Recently, Burundi Football Association president Lydia Nsekera became the first women to be voted onto FIFA’s executive committee, followed shortly by Moya Dodd from Australia and Sonia Bien-Aime from the Turks and Caicos Islands. The latter two are co-opted members for one year, but it shows that women are starting to make their mark at the highest level of decision-making. Anybody who believes that these appointments are mere window dressing, should think again.
First of all, these candidates won via a vote among hundreds of delegates. They have arguably had to work harder, show more ingenuity and face greater challenges than any of the men to earn these jobs.
With the first few appointments having been made, it will surely not be too long before the ratio of men to women on the FIFA executive narrows. The elevation of women into key positions in the sport is not just a FIFA phenomenon, it is happening around the world.
In South Africa, the future of the game is being plotted by the highly-respected Fran Hilton-Smith, who is acting technical director of the South African Football Association.
This is the first time that a member association has placed a woman into the technical director’s role that looks after both the men’s and women’s game in a country.
And closer to home, there is a woman on the Football Association of Zambia executive committee that I head. Lenny Nkhuwa has proven to be an excellent administrator. With her in charge of women’s football, Zambia enjoyed success with the U-20 national team beating South Africa 1-0 in the final, to win the Africa Zone Six Women Football Championship in November. In Zambia, over the past three years we have insisted that the Women’s senior, U-20 and U-17 teams, be in the hands of women. We must be one of the few countries in Africa with an all-female technical bench.
There are numerous women club owners and CEOs and within companies that supply services to the football industry. Where this previously may have been rare, it is now commonplace.
The question often asked is whether a woman might one day coach a top professional men’s team. I think it is probably inevitable, though how long it is going to take, I cannot say. It is likely that we are talking years rather than decades.
There is the notable case of Bolivian Nelfi Ibanez. The homemaker, who studied numerous coaching courses, took charge of a professional men’s team in Peru, albeit in the second tier. It has started to happen in other sports too; in basketball women have become assistant coaches of professional teams.
Certainly, in terms of knowledge and the skillset needed to coach, I cannot see why any woman would not be able to acquire these in the same way that men do. The language of football can be spoken beautifully by either gender.

Sisters Speak Volumes  In New Chapter For The Beautiful Game

S’Manga Khumalo must have been walking on air, after he dismounted to the cheers of the crowd at the Durban July, as the first black jockey to win South Africa’s premier horse racing event.
That win, on the five-year-old bay gelding, Heavy Metal, meant that 28-year-old Khumalo had won three of the country’s major racing events in eight months. Heavy Metal gave owner Chris van Niekerk and trainer Sean Tarry back-to-back July wins, following Pomodoro’s victory in 2012.
It was a close finish. Heavy Metal—priced at 16-1—surged ahead with 350 meters to go; Run For It and Do You Remember were still in contention. It took power and perfect timing for Khumalo to steer Heavy Metal to win by a head.
“Those good decisions stem from great confidence. Ultimately it is the confidence and the sound decision-making that separate the champion men from the boys… In racing, it is a vital factor: the horse and rider get on very well,” says Tarry.
Khumalo said that Tarry never put pressure on him before the race and he was relaxed going into the starting pens.
“That is the way I like to be at all times,” he says.
Khumalo got the nickname ‘Bling’ after he dyed his hair blond in 2011.
“The only similarity between S’Manga and Piere Strydom is that they both have blond hair,” quipped van Niekerk after the historic win.
Seriously, van Niekerk thinks Khumalo could emulate the legendary three-time Durban July winner Strydom, who won his third title on Pomodoro. Tarry agrees, he says Khumalo was in a different class and had ridden a brilliant race.
“During the past three months, he won three major races. He always had talent. S’Manga needed to mature mentally, which he has done. His ability to win more Durban Julys depends on whether he is lucky enough to get the right horses. He needs to keep his standards high and get good rides… S’Manga must stay mentally alert and sharp, and retain the ability to make good decisions,” he says.
Van Niekerk agrees: “There is a good connection between S’Manga and Heavy Metal.”
That chemistry was mentioned by Laura Hillenbrand in her best-selling book Seabiscuit: An American Legend: “When a horse and a jockey flew over the track together, there were moments in which the man’s mind wedded itself to the animal’s body to form something greater than the sum of both parts. It’s easy to talk to a horse if you understand his language. Horses stay the same from the day they are born until the day they die. They are only changed by the way people treat them.”
Khumalo says building a relationship with the horse is vital.
“You must have a calming influence on the horse and know how to get the best out of him. You also have to know how he runs and what he prefers to do,” he says.
It seems to be working. When he piloted Wagner to the first of his so-called big three wins at Turffontein, in Johannesburg, Khumalo led from the start.
“I knew instinctively that Wagner didn’t like to have a horse in front of him. He loves to be a frontrunner, and that’s why I took the lead early on,” he says.
Fellow jockey Strydom has applauded Khumalo’s athleticism and power, saying it requires strength for a rider of 52 kilograms to guide a horse to victory. He also said the low riding style of Khumalo has contributed to his success.
On a day when Greyville racecourse paid tribute to Nelson Mandela during the Durban July, Khumalo acknowledged the great man.
“I don’t know where I would have been if it was not for Madiba, but I definitely would not have been here,” he says.
There is a chance that Khumalo may not have been there were it not for a chance meeting with sixty-four-year old Paul Sibisi, a racing fanatic who spent two years scouting the schools of Durban, on behalf of the South African Jockey Academy, looking for youngsters with a size two shoe.
Sibisi spotted the then 14-year-old Khumalo at Mzuvele High School in KwaMashu.
“He was the most disciplined young man I selected,” says Sibisi.
Selection for a jockey is a rigorous process and a small frame is essential. Would-be jockeys are measured from the foot to the knee to gauge how big they are likely to grow—even the size of their parents is taken into account. Many are called, few are chosen and the stakes are high—a good jockey can earn up to $6,000 a month.
“I vividly remembered the interview to join the academy in January 2000. I don’t think I would have achieved anything without the South African Jockey Academy riding masters, like Vincent Curtis,” says Khumalo.
“In terms of mentors, I always looked up to riders like Piere Strydom and Anthony Delpech, and the riding master Robert Moore.”
Khumalo has been among the top twenty riders since 2005, rode 52 winners in 2011, before a knee injury curtailed his progress.
He had a stint in Australia and rode at the Mudgee Cup before homesickness led to a return and the build-up to the purple patch of 2013. In April, Heavy Metal sprung a surprise in the R2-million Premier’s Champions Challenge.
The 40-1 chance put in a spurt 300 meters out. He charged past Shogunnar and defied Knock On Wood to claim the win.
“My improvement in the past few months stemmed from improving my judgment of pace. I have learned to make my move at the precise moment, perhaps at 200 to 300 meters. Earlier, I led the charge and the eventual champion would just sit and wait for the opportune moment, lobbying at the back. That’s no longer the case,” says Khumalo.
Good form continued with an emphatic win in a Pinnacle Stakes run over a mile at Turffontein. Again, timing was everything and in the run to the line he slipped, through a slender gap, past Gavin Lerena and charged clear to win by 1.25 lengths.
Yet, Khumalo was seen as a nearly man until his win at the Champions Challenge in the run-up to the Durban July.
On the day of the big win in Durban, Sibisi says many people were skeptical about a black African winning the July, but others bet their month’s wages on Khumalo. He watched it in a packed and raucous betting shop in West Street, Durban.
“People were shouting. It was so loud you could not hear the TV. When he won, everyone was jumping around and punching the air. One woman had put a thousand rand on a week before, at 16-1. You can imagine the joy,” says Sibisi.
The only man in the betting shop that day who did not have money on Khumalo—you guessed it—was Sibisi.
“Even now, when I walk around Umlazi people call across the street saying: ‘Your boy made me a lot of money,’” laughs Sibisi.
The first black African to win the Durban July is likely to make a lot of money for punters for years to come.

Racing Into History

It is one of the great stories of African mining—a small nation scrapping, against the odds, for its place at the table. Mozambique is forging ahead with its nascent coal mining industry, yet it is haunted by problems. It needs patience, nerve, a mountain of foreign investment and more railways.
Experts say Mozambique could mine up to 100 million tons (mt) of coal in the next five years—enough to make it a serious player in the world market.
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The heart of this fledgling coal industry is the Moatize basin—in a remote north western pocket of the country, bordered by Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malawi—one of Africa’s last great untapped coal reserves with tens of billions of tons of coal. It holds export quality coal and some of the finest coking coal in Africa.
Moatize is far from the nearest port; the only way to export coal efficiently is via the rickety 600km Sena line to Beira—a line that flooded in February rains and was threatened by armed Renamo rebels in June. Otherwise, coal has to move on trucks along crumbling and congested roads. This has hobbled Mozambique’s coal exports.
The good news is that Vale, the Brazilian resources giant, says a new railway to the deep water port of Nacala, on the north coast, will be complete by 2015. The line will run through Malawi and speed coal on its way to the power stations of China, Korea and Japan.
Ricardo Saad, the CEO of Vale Mozambique, said the joint venture—owned 60% by Vale and 40% by Mozambique’s freight company, CFM—will transport 9.7mt in its first year, ramping up to 16.9mt in 2016 and 22mt in 2017. For coal exporters, it will be manna from heaven and could help the fledgling coal industry in Malawi.
“I believe we have overcome the main concerns locally and it is encouraging because the government is supporting the implementation we have here in Mozambique… The country can become a major player in the African coal business,” says Saad.
Not so encouraging is that a large Chinese investment appears to be passing Mozambique by. When I was in Maputo, in July, I heard from a source close to the government that the Chinese had abandoned a $12 billion investment in ports rails and roads, promised in 2010, despite President Armando Guebuza’s attempts to revive the deal during his seven day visit to China in May. In return, Mozambique was to supply coal and help set up a Chinese-run processing plant. To get an idea of the scale of this investment, the World Economic Forum believes it’ll cost around $93 billion per year until 2020, to fix the entire continent’s infrastructure problems.
“One reason is, there is an oversupply of coal at the moment so China doesn’t have to worry about securing supply from Mozambique, we just got the impression that the deal was not for now,” says the source.
There’s better news for Africa’s fifth largest coal exporter next door. It appears India is likely to buy more steam coal from South Africa this year as it attempts to prop up its flagging national grid. The coal-fired power stations that line its coast are designed to cope with the low quality coal mined in South Africa’s northern Mpumalanga coalfields. India burns more than 530mt of coal a year and yet, according to government figures, falls 9% short of peak electricity demand.
The High Commissioner for India to South Africa, Virendra Gupta, said at a press briefing in Johannesburg, in June, that he expected his country to import between 20 and 25mt from South Africa in 2013. He said the imports from South Africa fell slightly last year, but uncertainty over supply from Indonesia means they are almost certain to rise.
Gupta believes that companies from his country will be looking to secure supply for its hungry power stations. In 2011, India set up a branch of the state mining company, MMTC, in Johannesburg.
“The companies in India will be in a scramble over the next two to three years to buy into South African mines, but you have to remember that after agreements have been signed it takes four to five years before you see regular deliveries of coal,” says Gupta.
The next few years could be very interesting and lucrative for the coal producers of Africa.

Where There Is An Export Dollar There Is A Way

August, in South Africa, will long be remembered as that fateful month when platinum stocks tumbled, dragging the Johannesburg Stock Exchange down. This was the month the police shot 34 miners near Lonmin’s Marikana mine, in Rustenburg. It will also be remembered as the first time Credit Rating Agencies downgraded South Africa since democracy in 1994.
When a country loses its rating or is downgraded, it can hurt the country’s ability to borrow money on the markets.
Credit rating agencies (CRAs) are benchmarks for the regulation of financial markets and provide investors and debtors with information about the creditworthiness of an individual, corporation, or sovereign government. CRAs were established to help measure the quantitative and qualitative risks. They also allow investors to make wiser decisions by taking into account professional risk assessment.
But over the years, CRAs have lost their credibility and have been widely criticized for having too much clout in jittery markets. They’ve even been accused of contributing to the 2008/2009 global financial crisis on the grounds that they did not do a thorough job of rating some financial instruments. They are often attacked for failing to warn of the risks posed by certain securities.
Following the events at Marikana on August 16, 2012, the top three agencies—Standard &amp; Poor’s (S&amp;P), Fitch and Moody’s Investor Services—cut South Africa’s ratings and changed the outlook to negative or stable, citing instability in the mining sector and blaming government. They were concerned by a slowing economy and rising spending pressures.
A year on, the country had a glimpse of confidence from Moody’s. It affirmed South Africa’s investment grade credit rating of Baa1 and maintained the negative credit outlook. However, it says the government’s commitment to fiscal discipline, by ensuring that debt-to-gross domestic product stabilized below 45%, moves to reduce labor unrest and plans to boost growth.
The Baa1 rating is the third lowest investment grade level and places South Africa at the same level as Mexico, Brazil, Spain and Russia. S&amp;P last upgraded South Africa in August 2005 and changed the credit outlook to negative in November 2008 following the global financial crisis.
The national treasury said that Moody’s decision is a sign of confidence in the country’s macroeconomic policy strategies, particularly given the current global economic climate. Treasury said government took proactive measures to address all the key concerns raised by Moody’s and remained committed to implementing such measures.
“Government is confident that the various measures that are being implemented will in time contribute to improved ratings for South Africa. These measures include the comprehensive reviews of both government expenditure and tax policy announced in February this year,” says treasury.
Andrew Canter, chief investment officer at Futuregrowth Asset Management, believes that credit rating agencies seem to wield a lot of power over investment decisions and that the industry’s regulator, the Financial Services Board, should have a firmer hand. He says it is important to regulate credit rating agencies to protect users and the integrity of capital markets. Canter hopes the Credit Rating Services Act, implemented in January, will enable CRAs to recapture their position of trust and credibility.
“By removing the requirement for instruments invested in to be rated, it puts accountability for investment decisions squarely on investors, instead of the false comfort of CRAs. If CRAs don’t do their jobs with diligence, care and independence they can now be held accountable for financial damages,” says Canter.
“The role of CRAs is inherently conflicted, and the new regulations reduce the role of the CRAs in markets and impose high standards on CRAs.”
However, South Africa’s political and socio-economic conditions have deteriorated in the past couple of years and risk is still on the downside. We can’t only place the blame on the global financial market crisis, but also on uncertainty surrounding critical policy decisions.
With all that said, until 1995, South Africa was the only country in Sub-Saharan Africa with a credit rating. By 2012, 17 years later, 20 countries had ratings from the three major CRAs. Foreign direct investment into Africa has increased over the last two decades. How much of this is down to their credit ratings?

The Rating Game

Luis Nhaca is as much a diplomat as a doorman. His is the first face you see as you arrive at the collonaded entrance to the Polana Hotel in Mozambique. For three decades, he has marshaled the guests, and their luggage, through the portals of one of Africa’s most famous hotels. Many of those who passed through gave a badge as a memento. Nhaca has 396 of them on his coat to show for years of diplomatic service on the door. His favorite is from his beloved football club in Portugal, Benfica—handed to him by club chairman Luís Felipe Vieira. Benfica has always kept close links with a country that produced many of its legends including: Mário Coluna; Eusébio and Vicente. All three Africans, from Mozambique, played in the 1966 World Cup in one of the greatest ever Portuguese teams.
Their careers were over, but not forgotten by Nhaca, when he started work at the Polana in 1979, aged 12, in the laundry room. Nhaca learned the ropes from his father, Simeão, who had worked at the hotel for decades, on his way to becoming the face of the Polana.
Down the years, Nhaca has greeted them all: Jimmy Carter; Bill Clinton; Thabo Mbeki; Kenneth Kaunda and Robert Mugabe. His favorite guest was Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the former president of Brazil.
“Not only was he always very friendly to me, when he used to dispatch his ministers to Mozambique, he used to instruct them to greet me on his behalf,” says Nhaca speaking in Portuguese through a translator, on the busy steps of the Polana.
By far, the visitor Nhaca misses most is the late Samora Machel, the charismatic first president of independent Mozambique; a man-of-the-people, if ever there was one.
“When he died, it left us with a scar,” says Nhaca.
Legend has it, Machel used to stroll between the marble pillars and under the sparkling chandeliers, in his green cap and army fatigues, greeting everyone from the cleaners to the concierge. Nhaca says Machel always insisted the hotel workers ate when he did at state banquets.
“Machel used to love Mozambican music. He used to sponsor a choir at the Polana and when he came here for dinner, he would ask them to sing for him by the pool. He would get very emotional and would get up and start dancing—his security men would surround him to shield him for fear he would hurt himself or fall in the pool!” says Nhaca with a smile.
The Polana may have been full of good cheer in the Machel years, but the business wasn’t. Independence, in 1975, saw the hotel run by the staff and used as a hostel for foreign workers. Supplies and spare parts were scarce and often staff would strip hardware from one floor to patch up a room on another.
The manager of the Polana, Miguel Afonso dos Santos, who left a five-star hotel in Lisbon to take up the job in Maputo, says in the lean days there were squares of newspaper, instead of toilet paper, in the bathrooms.
“The hotel had its ups and downs, but never stopped operating. When I said I was taking the job almost everyone I spoke to in Lisbon had a good memory to share with me. They would tell me that their grandparents were married in the hotel or their parents spent their honeymoon here,” says dos Santos.
The reality of running 142 rooms on a 10-acre site, so vast that it needs to employ 18 security guards as well as 400 workers, is not so romantic. When the Polana needs food or fittings, it has to import from South Africa, by road; shampoo or linen comes from Portugal by ship, taking up to five months.
“It is a problem because these days people want things now. We always have to keep one step ahead&#8230; I want to buy everything from Mozambique because it would take less time and make more sense. It is much better than it used to be, you can get a lot of things now from the local market, but I don’t know when the day will be when we can buy everything here. I have no idea,” says dos Santos.
Overall, dos Santos appears proud of a hotel that, despite being far from cheap, appears to have given the recession the slip. He says, this year, it is running at a capacity of 75% with plans to build 14 villas, in the expanse at the back that overlooks the sea, for long-stay guests. More than one in five of the guests are businesspeople from Portugal and South Africa. The hotel attracts its fair share of rich pop stars and playboys, but most come for business in a country riding a resource boom. On any given day, you can see the big deals being done in the restaurant overlooking the Indian Ocean.
A $25 million facelift, completed in 2011, shows the proprietors, an arm of the Nairobi-based, Serena Hotels, owned by the Aga Khan, are looking to the future for a building steeped in the past. It modernized the classic architectural lines drawn up by the Polana’s creator, Herbert Baker, nearly a century ago. The English architect also designed the Union Buildings and Pretoria Station, in South Africa.
“This is a demanding job, this is not just another hotel. I am responsible for a big brand. We host people like Ban Ki-moon—it is our responsibly to keep the mirror of the nation shining. When people come here from nations around the world they want to talk to me about what is happening in this country. I am almost a diplomat,” says dos Santos.
The man on the door agrees.

Millionaires’ Playground In A Palace By The Sea

August is not the only space dominated by woman. Internationally, experts concur that social media and its expansion is driven by women. In fact, had social media been around in 1956, the August 9 nation-wide women’s march against the apartheid passbook laws would most probably have been organized and gained momentum from Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
According to Hootsuite, more women use social media than men in North America, and with online dominance comes influence. In the ‘Top 20 Women Social Media Influencers’ list published by Forbes in the second quarter of 2013,
@AnnTran tops the list with 100,000 tweets. She blogs and tweets about travel and leisure, providing advice to her 326,000 plus Twitter followers.
It’s this strong social media dominance that gives women power to influence online opinion and also sees them driving online shopping.
As women tend to be the more social than men, they naturally gravitate towards platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, which allows for engagement that could lead to business.
Pinterest—a social media platform that baffles most male minds—is dominated by female users, who make up over 90%. They pin anything from holiday plans, party ideas, wedding inspirations to the latest fashion accessories and even plan their events on this archive of virtual pinboards.
Mommy Blogs have become quite the online phenomenon, with 14% of American mom’s blogging according to US tax preparation company H&amp;R Block. Mothers-to-be, who are on maternity leave, or stay-at-home mothers have taken to the likes of Blogger and WordPress to share their experiences, tips and insights into being a mother. According to
Babble.com, Rebecca Wolf—a mother of four whose blog is called ‘Girls Gone Child’—tops the list of roughly 500 Mommy Blogs that have considerable power and reach.
As in the offline life, all is not roses and puppies. Because of their widespread online presence, women also suffer from the darker side of social media. It consists of girlfriend-spa-trip-envy, Twitter update jealousy and Instagram vanity. Age-old social pressures—now distributed across global social media platforms—may send some female users into a spiral of envy and depression, after they see a friends’ relationship status change to ‘engaged’ or ‘married’ while they are single; after looking at gym-carved bodies or becoming victims of spiteful Facebook postings.
Author Julie Spira coined the term Social Media Anxiety Disorder (SMAD). This unofficial, non-medical condition describes those who feel aggravated after not receiving an immediate Twitter @reply. They may become depressed each time someone unfollows or unfriends them. And may continuously refresh their social media tabs awaiting an update. They cannot live without their smartphones and surprisingly become annoyed when others text or check their social media updates during meetings or social gatherings.
Where does this leave men? Where the online world has always kept them: entertained for hours in front of YouTube, watching sports re-runs and funny commercials.

Women Media-ing It Up

You’re standing on stage, sweat dripping and your handshakes as it grips the mic. The spotlight blinds. The booing crowd throws popcorn. A man, who sounds like Mufasa from The Lion King, yells “Get off!” You look for sympathy from a young woman in the front row, but she looks away. Desperate for a laugh, you try one last joke. As you reach the punch line an apple core hits your head. Then, Tumi Morake wakes up.
“I never want to be the protagonist in that story,” she says.
It can be worse.
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Now for a real story: A few days after one of her night club gigs, Morake went to perform at a school. One of the teachers in the audience had seen her at a previous gig, when she recalled the things Morake had said, she kicked her out of the school.
“I was marched off the property because she said that she would not have me in that place because she knows exactly what I have to say and she’s not interested.”
Morake was quite insulted. In a way it reflects the conservative views about what an African woman can and cannot say.
“I’m not an idiot, there is no way I would repeat what I [had said] in a club full of drunk people to a room full of parents and children,” she says.
She might be Tumi Morake on stage but at home she’s Tumi Osei-Tutu.
“I paid cows for that,” laughs Morake’s husband, Mpho Osei-Tutu.
At the beginning of her career as a comic, Osei-Tutu knew Morake would push the envelope and potentially offend someone. During each show, he sat with sweaty hands and brows furrowed as he waited for what she would say next.
“It wasn’t easy dating somebody who speaks so openly about personal things… I was a little bit like ‘Woah! Do you need to swear so much and does that joke need to be so dirty?’”
As Osei-Tutu begins to explain one of the jokes, Morake raises her hands in protest and jokingly cuts him off.
“Okay, okay. We get it,” she interrupts as Osei-Tutu nervously laughs.
He is an established actor, writer and producer who was born in Paris to a Ghanaian father and mother from Lesotho. He met Morake at the University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, where they were both studying drama.
Interestingly enough, it was Osei-Tutu who got Morake her first show in 2004. Back then Osei-Tutu ran a comedy show for different charities, which were supported by Rotaract. He was well connected in the industry and put together a comedy night with some of the biggest names in comedy. The line-up included:  Joey Rasdien, Riaad Moosa, Tshepo Mogale and David Kau. When Osei-Tutu told Morake that she would be the opening act, he got an unexpected response.
“Are you mad? You have celebrity comics and I must go on that stage? No, thank you!”
It didn’t take much to convince her. She went up, did her five minutes and killed it. But it would be another two years before she stepped back on stage. Morake struggled to find acting jobs and soon realized that the life of a script writer was not sustainable.
“With writing work the money only comes when the scripts are approved. So in the meantime I started doing stand-up comedy in clubs.”
Morake’s transformation over the years has gone from trying to find the funniest thing to say and just saying it in the moment, to intentionally saying things to shock the audience. As a black woman, when she became a wife and mother, she felt as though there were rules about what she was allowed to say.
“When I get on stage, screw those expectations and rules. That’s my world, when I’m on stage that’s my hood. That’s why when I’ve been on stage and I’ve said something I will never apologize for it, ever. I don’t care how offended you are, you should not come to a comedy club if you get offended. We don’t take offence applications.”
She went from opening acts to corporate gigs and as she became better so did the money. Once someone asked her who her manager was and when they heard her response, they quickly pointed her in the right direction.
“I don’t have one… I’m not a comic I just talk rubbish,” laughs Morake.
That “rubbish” has turned her into one of the most successful female comics in South Africa. If you disagree with her, hard luck.

When I’m on Stage, Screw You

It was a warm, autumn evening; most of Windhoek had gone to bed early, as usual. On this night of socialites and fashionistas, fashion designers came together with musicians for an evening of wow.
Eyambukepo—meaning uprising in Oshiambo—was just that, standing tall for Africa.
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“I believe that it’s events like these that show the world what we, the youth, are about,” says Richard ‘KingRich’ Namwandi, owner of record label Bay Area Music, whose team founded the show  with Shewta Wahi, a Dubai-based designer.
This night of color and dash was a sign of changing times in the once sleepy Windhoek. Everywhere you look in the burgeoning capital city—with a population of 320,000—are construction sites and signs of growth.
“With Namibia being a relatively young country—independent for 23 years—it’s understandable why we are still in the process of breaking into international industries and markets on many fronts. However, entertainment doesn’t seem to be one of those anymore. The Namibian music scene has become very vibrant […] The fashion industry is growing at a similarly impressive pace. Last year, we had our first ever Namibian Fashion Show, which saw designers from all over Africa showcasing their designs alongside four Namibian designers,” says KingRich.
The line-up included the latest in musical talent and catwalk creations.
Hafeni ‘Happy’ Fransalso presented black and white evening wear with paisley details to applause. The College of the Arts Namibia graduate majored in fashion and design, visual arts and crafts. His collection of mens and womenswear included burnt orange and yellow fabric with geometric designs and fashionably oversized accessories. Happy, as he is known, is currently creating a line of accessories made from recycled materials.
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The greatest challenge to Namibia’s fashion industry, he feels, is the lack of home-grown fashion magazines.
“These challenges can be overcome when people realize and see the potential in fashion, not only as an industry to make money and look good but as an art,” he says.
That evening the catwalk was also home to Namibia’s rising singers, rappers, kwaito and R&amp;B performers, from Blossom and Beast to KevyGuy and Brain The Tool.
The most popular was Ruusa Ndapewa Munalye, known as Blossom. This soulful singer was nominated in 12 categories at the Namibian Annual Music Awards (NAMAs) and was named Namibia’s Best Female Artist of 2013. She scooped three other awards including: Best Kizomba; Best Newcomer and Best Shambo.
“My music reflects what is most close to my heart—messages of my roots, love, hope, and freedom,” she says.
The award-winning guitarist has performed in the United States and is touring Europe.
“The fashion show was great as it brings growth and exposure to the Namibian fashion industry. The mix of music and fashion strengthens the display of these great creations,” she says.
There is synergy between the two art forms.
“I believe as an artist, personally, that your style has to be top every time you come out. If you want to maintain an image, if you want people to respect you for your certain image, you have to be fashionable at all times. I believe they are one and the same at the end of the day,” says KingRich, who performed that night.
The sub-Saharan African country has been host to other large-scale fashion shows, as the tough-to-crack industry grows.
“The Namibian market in fashion only really started in the last two or three years, where you can actually do fashion shows like this, showcase your creativity and see how far you can push the barrier […]” says Tsatago Garoëb.
The 30-year-old happened upon his flair for fashion in high school, when he designed his sister’s graduation dress. Garoëb studied fashion and textile design at the University of Namibia. Today, he owns a fashion label—House of Tsatago, also known as H.O.T—which has dressed numerous Namibian celebrities.
His adventurous style lives through his eccentric dresses; after all, he was an assistant to David Tlale—an award-winning South African designer—during last year’s Namibian Fashion Show. Garoëb tests the boundaries because that is what fashion is about.
“I wanted to play with fabric. I wanted it to be fun, which is why I used chiffon, because it is free moving. And I wanted to incorporate fabrics like lace because it’s quite transparent and very dangerous but this accentuates a woman’s beauty. I wanted whoever is wearing my garments to feel free, beautiful and sexy, hence why I called this collection ‘hot, hot, hot’ because all of my garments were pretty hot,” he says.
The final collection, with an African feel to it, came from Shweta Wahi. It drew a standing ovation.
While other 10-year-old girls were playing with dolls, Wahi was sewing.
“For every birthday I would ask for a sewing machine or a mannequin or something to do with stitching or fabrics,” she says.
The self-taught 22-year-old—who has an eponymous fashion label—had featured in as many fashion shows as her years. This was the first of many more to come in Africa for the Indian-born designer, who was raised in Dubai and studied in Canada.
Wahi was the youngest designer at Ottawa Fashion Week in 2012 and has also showcased on the Toronto and Dubai fashion circuits.
“When you show up and people see that you are a young girl, they feel that you might be working for the person who is supposed to show up. They find it a little difficult to take you seriously, until they see your work coming down the catwalk,” she says.
Wahi interned for the winner of the first season of Project Runway Canada, Evan Biddell, who is also self-taught. She completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts in visual arts at York University and qualified as an image consultant at George Brown College.
“When I start cutting the fabric, I don’t use technical patterns, because I never studied fashion at school. There is a dialogue between me and the fabric, and I drape it around a mannequin and just nip and tuck where I feel it fits […] If something goes wrong, there is always a way to fix it, you make it look like a beautiful mistake,” she says.
Her advice to aspiring fashion designers?
“I definitely think marketing has a lot to do with it and it depends on how you market your label because you have so many talented artists out there. I’ve seen so many people who are amazingly passionate and they can’t get their label out there; they can’t get the exposure they deserve. If they brush up on their business skills and maybe find a business partner and collaborate on marketing they can definitely have a sustainable business.”
But it’s not just about profit, Wahi has used her talents to raise over C$50,000 ($48,000) for charitable organizations such as the Canadian Red Cross and Haiti Relief Fund, to name a few.
This is only the beginning for Eyambukepo, it will return to a different country in Africa each year, and hopes to grace the catwalks of the world’s fashion capitals.

Tonight Windhoek,  Tomorrow the World

With great rainforest comes great water. Rivers, lagoons, streams, rivulets. Lakes, ponds. Estuaries.
Venturing to Gabon’s interior, I saw more Giant Kingfishers in an hour than I had seen in my 64-year-old life. Africa’s biggest rainforest is awesome, getting there is worth the considerable effort, as you discover so much about the country, its people, its potential.
The birdlife is prolific: on the estuary in Loango National Park hundreds of Darters flew with our small boat, on the mighty Ongoue River, deep into Gabon’s famed forest.
It takes six hours by small speedboat from Port Gentil, a small harbor town 45 minutes by air from Libreville, to get to the tiny five-hut camp of Akaka. Here you are alone in the middle of the rainforest. Although the only guest in the park, I was provided with three helpers: a chef/fire maker, a boatman/bird guide and a house/bar maid. But I run ahead.
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This was my first visit to Gabon. The country is green, humid, has a musty smell, is very French and fascinating.
New and expensive cars, in slow traffic along a lengthy boulevard next to the sea, take you from the small airport to beachfront hotels in Libreville. The country looks rich but when you leave the city you become aware of the chasm between the haves and have-nots. You discover that the fancy SUVs are owned by the rich, but mainly by NGOs, oil companies and government employees.
With 1.5 million people, a lot of oil and the biggest rainforest in Africa, Gabon has great potential. Tourism. Technology. Transport. Telecoms. All need work.
I woke up on my first morning to a grey and greasy ocean: the eastern Atlantic. A lukewarm humid wind was blowing across the beachfront.
People are warm and cheerful, yet seem reluctant to do anything. Trying to organize a tour to the fabled reserves in the rainforest was trying, to say the least. Tour companies are thin on the ground.
Prices can be high, at $415 a night in Loango and $130 for dinner, bed and breakfast at the only hotel in Olako, a small town where most residents live in shacks. The hotel would struggle to earn three stars. But you can bargain everything in Gabon, from the price of accommodation to the price of a cold drink.
That said, the rainforest is certainly that overused word: awesome. It inspires awe and defies description—talk about one huge, tall, straight tree and it is immediately out of its jungle context. You can’t describe the wood for the trees. The extent, too, is vast.
In 2002, President Ali Bongo declared 11% of the oil-rich country a protected area, a decision with enormous consequences.
A decade later the decision is creating work for many, from bureaucrats to conservationists, forest police to scientists. All agree that Gabon is not yet ready for ‘real’ tourism, but it does have a detailed plan, which is to be ready by 2015.
It includes addressing the lack of qualified personnel in all hospitality sectors; providing tour packages in languages other than English; improving marketing and the establishment of accredited tourism companies. Patience, money, effort and professionalism are absent. The chain of command is weak; economic viability is precarious and service needs improvement. Gabon needs close links between government, community, industry and scientific and conservation partners.
Heading up Gabon’s parks is Professor Lee White—a strong supporter of the president and a realist about the state of the country. White says Gabon is not set up for tourism&#8230; yet.
“There is a big vision for industrial Gabon to help the economy, but we need to take account that Gabon is also 88% rainforest, and 20% protected areas. Other countries create parks in their cities, we have created cities in a park. Our challenge is to plan to expand Libreville with an emerald necklace around it of those gems of protected areas. I’m lucky, I probably work for the greenest president on the planet. Some of our neighbors are less green so we do have cross border problems.”
Getting to my first park was certainly an experience. To give readers an idea of what it means to travel in this water world of rainforest: I left the hotel in Libreville at 5:30AM in a taxi to the airport, took a 40 minute flight to Port Gentil, then a taxi to the fish market, waited for an hour or two, took a speedboat for three hours, changed to a long boat, traveled by car for two hours, only to arrive at 3:30PM—10 hours later. And then you are only at the park’s entrance. And I was lucky, as I had run into a concession owner at the fish market, who happened to be going to the park.
The 9AM boat up the river to Omboué left 90 minutes late at 10:30AM.
Both my Gabonese fellow travelers inquired politely, and independently, before we embarked whether I knew that Jesus was my savior. I considered myself fortunate to know the answer.
Wide-eyed at my first look at the forest, I vocally enjoyed the boat trip, which was merely a commute for them. Everyone travels on water in that area, roads are few and far between.
The next morning my carefully arranged 7AM boat was only ready at 9:30AM, to take me from the outskirts of the rainforest to its heart of Akaka. There is no electricity at Akaka, it is wild, a tiny camp built facing one of the innumerable rivers, estuaries, lagoons. The tented huts are sparse and clean, each with a shower and toilet.
It took another three-hour boat ride to get there, it was a fascinating boat trip on a lagoon, into floodplains and flanked on all sides by massive trees, papyrus, palms and undergrowth. Deep in the rainforest, wild animals emerge and the birdlife becomes more prolific.
Two forest elephants lifted their trunks to sniff us as we arrived. And I ticked a Hartlaub’s Duck, then a beautiful Shining Blue Kingfisher, and a Slender-snouted crocodile, looking very unthreatening with his long, thin jaw.
My three-person team cooked French food that was superb, rather anachronistically given the jungle setting. A communal kitchen-cum-dining room overlooks the water.
En route to Akaka common birds on the river included scores of Palm-nut Vultures, Green-backed Herons, Hamerkops, as well as Pied, Giant and Shining Blue Kingfishers. We counted 76 Jacanas in an hour, and over two days saw eight African Finfoots, a bird rarely seen in South Africa; it looks like a duck, swims like a duck but it ain’t a duck.
By night, in the dark of the forest I tried to tell frogs’ calls from birds, or were those weird sounds perhaps insects, monkeys or bush babies?
Wonderful and exciting. Truly, Africa’s Eden.
The forest elephants of Loango, unlike many African parks, are solitary or in twos. No herds. It was curious to see one, great long tusks colored brown, struggle through the muddy bank, each foot audibly sucked by mud as it was withdrawn with difficulty, before the beast plunged ever onward, through even more mud.
A buffalo also tried running from us, quite comically, its legs in mud up to its tummy.
As you drift quietly along the estuary, dense forest keeps opening up to large plains, still with water everywhere and brilliant green ground cover. In one single view at such an opening I saw a flock of 31 Pelicans, a pair of elephants, Great and Cattle Egrets, a hovering Pied Kingfisher, three African Darters, a flock of about 40 White-faced Whistling ducks, and a Nile Crocodile who was observing it all from the bank, while two buffaloes struggled through the mud.
We stopped floating down the estuary soon after, tied up the boat and took a walk through the forest for an hour, believing mistakenly that we were going “to the sea” whereas we were just going “to see”. English is a problem in Gabon; the president is committed to changing the national language from French to English. Good luck!
We saw three different kinds of monkeys and two species of buck, a duiker and the Sitatunga, a large and striking antelope rather like a Kudu.
Some very special Hornbills haunt the trees, including the big Black-casqued Wattled Hornbill and the Piping Hornbill—“Peeping Hornbill”, my guide kept chanting—we saw a huge Great Blue Turaco, and around 40 African Skimmers on a sandbank with a dozen Royal Terns plus a few White-Fronted Plovers.
Near Loango Lodge two hippos in the lagoon eyed us warily, around 200 meters from where they surf in the sea.
But it’s not just about the birds or the trees, elephants, crocodiles, buffaloes or the like. It is the whole magnificent rainforest that inspires wonder.
Ecotourism will always be a tough battle but at least Gabon has a plan and a very good place to start. President Bongo and the good professor White deserve the conservation world’s support in their admirable endeavors.

Africa’s Eden  By Boat

Only 21 of the Fortune 500 companies are led by women. One woman who wants to be included on that list is Rita Kavashe. She is Africa’s first female managing director (MD) of American automobile giant General Motors (GM). Kavashe leads the African operations of the number two global automobile seller as of 2012. Globally, GM sold 9.3 million units last year compared to Toyota’s 9.75 million.
The motor industry has been dominated by men; it is only now that, 105-year-old, GM has appointed 51-year-old Mary Barra as its first female senior vice president, global product development. In April, another woman, Veronica Johns, made headlines when she was appointed CEO of Fiat Chrysler Australia.
“I don’t believe there is anything like a glass ceiling. As long as there are opportunities to grow in an organization, there is no excuse regardless of whether you are a man or a woman,” says Kavashe.
Kavashe is the only female managing director in Kenya’s male-dominated motor industry. She took over the reins of GM East Africa in 2011 after an 18-year stint, which began as a sales representative. After three years she was promoted to general manager of national sales and was responsible for seven dealers in Kenya. In 2005, she was made the commercial director and five years later, she was given a short-term assignment in GM South Africa to set up their export operations.
When she returned from South Africa, she was appointed MD for GM East Africa and export director for GM Sub-Saharan Africa, where she oversees more than 40 Sub-Saharan Africa countries. In 2012, GM sold 180,000 vehicles in Africa and controlled 10% of market share.
Kenya’s motor industry is largely dominated by multinationals: Toyota, Simba Colt, Cooper Motor Corporation, DT Dobie and Indian conglomerate Tata. All of them have male directors. According to statistics from the Kenya Motor Industry (KMI), in 2012 GM lost the number one spot in terms of car sales to Japanese car maker Toyota. Kavashe is determined to regain the number one slot.
“We recently opened a new factory for buses, it can assemble three buses per day,” she says.
In Kenya, GM controls 26% of the market, while its closest rival Toyota enjoys 24.8%.
According to Business Monitor International report, domestic production is one of the ways Kenya attracts investment especially from Chinese companies. Commercial vehicle manufacturer Beiqi Foton Motor launched its first domestically-produced trucks in June 2011, after establishing a local subsidiary in the country in late 2010. As part of a growing focus on Africa by Chinese automobile companies, there are growing investments in automobile assembly plants.
While established dealers such as Toyota and imported second-hand vehicles—mainly from Japan and the United Arab Emirates, that account for around 70% of the market—give her sleepless nights; her experience of almost two decades is an advantage she has used to build local networks and contacts. Isuzu buses are one of the leading brands in Kenya because of the growing public transport and education sector, which are its largest clients.
Being at the top, especially as a woman, comes with its challenges. Grant Thornton International research shows that women hold less than a quarter of senior management positions in privately-held businesses globally. Only 24% of senior management positions are held by women. Women tend to fizzle out as they rise through the ranks because of the societal pressures that weigh heavily on them.
According to Bringing the other half to the boardroom: Case study of state corporations and listed companies in Kenya; a study by the Kenya Institute of Management, many women fear failure, which affects their confidence. There are also cultural issues that come into play. Most men are uncomfortable having a female boss and would likely do things to sabotage their leadership.
Kavashe’s management team is 80% male and although she has not encountered major challenges managing men, she says that it is important for you, as a leader, to ensure the team rallies behind you so as to achieve set organizational objectives.
As a trained teacher, with a degree in education, she applies many of the skills she acquired during her teaching career to her job in the motor industry.
“I learnt human psychology, understanding and interacting with people and planning, which I use to set and monitor my objectives.”
Her role involves making strategic decisions regarding investments, expansion and distribution in both the public and private sectors. To sit at the helm, she dedicated much time to study the competition and overcome the gender stereotypes that often discourage women from getting to the top. Women are judged harshly beginning with their looks.
She admits that sometimes she sacrificed family time and wished that she could have spent more time with her children.
“You have to manage many balls in the air because of the demands on your time. You can have your cake and eat it as long as you learn to balance,” says the mother of two.
This balancing act has forced Kavashe to make certain conscious decisions—she stopped traveling during weekends to spend time with her family.
“Before, I was busy working, then I realized that one part of my life was not moving. If there is a weekend event, I go with my children. It is very lonely at the top, you need your family to be with you!” she says.
It has not all been smooth sailing for Kavashe. One of her most challenging moments came during a review of GM’s distribution footprint; the change was not taken well by dealers. She admits that it was a frustrating moment, but after consulting with stakeholders, she went back and made slight amendments.
“As a CEO you are not always right. It was a tough moment for me because my best dealer was not happy and it created a lot of anxiety.”
For now, Kavashe is focused on motivating 350 employees at GM East Africa and ensuring that the company remains profitable. She has set her eyes on the road ahead and plans to be global CEO at the GM headquarters in Detroit. Who knows, she may just be the first African GM CEO.

Top Job In A Man’s World

My passion is Africa. My focus is to impact Africa, positively, through sustainable infrastructure, skills development, technology transfer, the empowerment of women and education.
I was raised in post-independence Africa, shattered by coups and dictators, by a single mother—a strong, independent, optimistic, selfless and loving African woman. She made many sacrifices to ensure that my brother and I received the best education and exposure to the world so as to grow into leaders. My mother pushed me to be the best I could be, helped build my confidence, nurtured my sense of purpose and grounded me in spirituality, which allows me not to fear failure. This historical time and my upbringing nurtured in me a strong consciousness of the role I must play in Africa. My motto is: “Dream big and execute bigger!”
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For many years, and to this day, I worked 15-18 hour days—nothing great is achieved without hard work and 200% commitment. I am realistic and know that success doesn’t fall from the sky.
In 2010, I wanted to build a company. My skeptics thought I was crazy to leave a successful corporate career but it was a natural evolution of my career, and personal aspirations. However, setting up a company with limited means would be a different ballgame. I gave myself 18 months to make the transition from the corporate to the entrepreneurial world. During that time, I completed an executive MBA.
I did my homework, held focus groups, traveled for research, met with potential suppliers and created a 200-page business plan for Yswara, a luxurious tea brand. Then, I worked my butt off to make things happen.
As an African female entrepreneur, you face three challenges: namely challenges every entrepreneur faces regardless of gender and geography; challenges you face as an African entrepreneur and challenges you face as a female entrepreneur. Some of my greatest challenges were: not being taken seriously, access to finance, encountering the lack of skills and proper infrastructure, as well as balancing business and family.
At first, people did not take Yswara seriously; it was viewed as a hobby. The lack of potential investors’ confidence made it difficult to access finance, and the lack of seed financing and angel networks is an issue in Africa, but it is even more challenging for women. I had savings and the support of family and friends, who invested $280,000 in the project. This was just enough to get the business off the ground. Now that there is a global market for our product, we are raising money to finance our ambitious expansion plan. It’s not easy: there are too many female-owned businesses that have not grown beyond their potential because of lack of capital.
Balancing business and family remains a challenge for women; pregnancy, childbirth and infant care affect women in ways they don’t affect men. Running a household and caring for a family are time-consuming and demand a great deal. Often, female entrepreneurs are torn between commitment to the family and their business.
Despite all these setbacks, women need to persevere, and change societal perceptions that both can’t be done well. They should turn these challenges into sources of strength.
Fortune 500 estimates that only 1% of CEOs at the world’s top 500 companies are women. In Africa, this percentage is probably halved. Women should pursue leadership roles to challenge the status quo. I wish to empower Africans, especially women, to believe in themselves and understand that there are no limits to what can be achieved by applying the mind and working smart.
Women tend to be prisoners of their fears, spend too much time on the past or merely dreaming about the future, they forget to make the most of the present. Women must create a compelling vision for their life; own it; define the roadmap to execution; and drive the energies, talents and values necessary for success. As an entrepreneur, you must develop the ability to execute plans, solve problems and energize teams. Building a venture from scratch is not for the faint hearted, you need to be courageous, tenacious, perseverant and resilient. Never take no for an answer and always be solution-oriented.

How To steep A FEMALE ENTREPRENEUR

She sits at the helm of a multinational cable and satellite company and is one of the most powerful women in African media, but for Abiola Alabi, this is a long way from the character in the initial script.
As a determined young college entrant, Alabi’s interests were elsewhere. From an academic Nigerian home, her future as a doctor had been scripted. She enrolled as a pre-med at the University of Cincinnati, Ohio, in the United States. It wasn’t long before Alabi’s interest turned to pharmacy.
<img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-2031" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Biola-Alabi-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />
“After one summer as an intern pharmacist however, I realized that these careers, were not the best match for my personality,” she says.
An interest in Africa led to a new path. Alabi, who had become very active on campus, became affiliated with groups and organizations that nurtured her new interests. She became a member of international student groups and president of the African Student Organization on campus.
Identifying ways in which her new experiences could affect her interests in the continent, Alabi made the decision to major in public health with a marketing minor.
“I knew that if I majored in public health, I could still end up making a contribution to the continent, in one way or the other,” she says.
After college, an opportunity saw her move to South Korea to work for an international student organization that promotes international exchange programs.
“I was able to start seeing different parts of the world that I had never experienced before,” she says.
“I moved to Seoul for two years and was completely fascinated by the type of development happening there. I thought, ‘this place is on the precipice of something really big.’ There was a huge investment in education in Asia and I was mind-blown, by the unbelievable work ethic. It was also cultural and felt very intense but the development was just as intense,” says Alabi.
After two years in Seoul, the Asian affair was far from over, as Alabi secured a role with Korean car company Daewoo, where she worked to launch a new product in the United States.
After this, Alabi put her marketing knowledge to use in a new e-commerce venture with a focus on youth marketing and destination sites development for students where everything from course books to dormitory furniture was sold.
“The company didn’t survive long but this was an important phase for me as it really helped me develop as a professional by understanding the upside and downside of taking risks when it comes to businesses. It was also such an exciting time and a great learning curve to understand how technology was going to change people’s lives tremendously with e-commerce. It was clear that we were in the digital phase and everything would change with it,” she says.
After working in traditional marketing jobs in the automotive and e-commerce industries, Alabi decided to take a leap as she explored a new career path in broadcasting and production.
“This was an interesting experience. I started off doing sponsorships and marketing for Sesame Street in New York, which was a production viewed in over 120 countries.”
Alabi’s international portfolio created an avenue to visit Africa more often.
“I was exploring partnerships and opportunities in different African countries and through that, I started to have meetings with M-Net. On one occasion, I was on my way back to the United States when they called me up and proposed a partnership with me,” she says.
As this was in perfect synergy with her desire to be involved in the development of the continent, this was an opportunity Alabi had to embrace. In 2008, she joined M-Net Africa, a multinational satellite television company, as managing director. With this fresh start, much lay ahead for Alabi and her team. She had one question: how to expand, build and elevate the brand from where it was to a greater level.
“That was my challenge,” she says.
Expanding M-Net’s African content portfolio was her biggest task. With only one Africa Magic channel at the time, Alabi’s team needed to create a home for African programing. The plan was to create a diverse portfolio of content. Relevance became vital as they produced and bought content tailored for the continent. They were on a mission to build a strong African brand that viewers could identify with and call their own.
“It’s not just about telling externals how you’d like to be projected. It’s also about how you want to project yourself to yourself. Our images are like mirrors and we were very particular about improving the quality of our programs,” says Alabi.
The need to create an array of choices as well as a home for African content for their viewers saw the development of additional channels to the Africa Magic platform. M-Net launched local language channels, starting with the Yoruba, Hausa and Kiswahili language channels. This increased the amount of content being produced in local languages and created a distribution outlet for independent African producers. Five Africa magic channels were rolled out as part of M-Net’s stable.
Content had to be moved from the existing M-Net international platform to a premium channel, Africa Magic Entertainment, earlier in the year. This saw a complete overhaul of the Africa Magic platform.
In spite of the infrastructural challenges that affect doing business in Africa, Alabi attributes the success of the brand to the dedication of her team and the can-do attitude of Africans at large.
“This really is the ingenuity of it all, for me. Yes, there are challenges but finding ways to deal with them, is the only way forward,” she says.
Despite her dedication to the brand she manages, there is room for Alabi to do more.
“I believe we all have a role to play, no matter how small and I love engaging with organizations that have a purpose of making a difference,” she says.
She recently joined the Pan African Civil Society Organization, Africa 2.0; she’s also a member of the Africa Leadership Network (ALN) and was named a 2012 Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. Alabi has kept to her ambitious track record as she also served as a member of the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Future of Entertainment in 2010.
When she isn’t working, Alabi enjoys spending time with her family and travelling with her husband.
From pre-med days to M-Net Africa, Alabi might have come full circle but also believes there are never enough circles to draw.  <img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-2031" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/Biola-Alabi-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />

From American Medicine  To African Television

Vision. That is how it started.
At the dawn of Namibia’s independence from South Africa in 1990, David Namwandi, a teacher, and his wife, Virginia, noticed a skills gap. They knew that education was Namibia’s future.
“IUM [International University of Management] was founded on a one-on-one basis: one student, one lecturer, one employee, one lecture room, one blackboard and a few hundred Namibian dollars,” says Namwandi.
“My husband was the first lecturer and I was the administrator, registrar, everything.”
This was in 1994, at their rented house on 12 Sauer Street, in Windhoek. Soon, the Namwandis had four students, which later grew to 10—so many that they could no longer be taught at their home. This led to the establishment of the first private university in Namibia.
“The gap was much larger than we had even imagined. People were so hungry for what we had to offer. It became increasingly obvious that we needed to give a qualification to the programs we were offering,” she says.
The driven duo gained accreditation and offered programs from numerous international academic institutions. Twelve years later, in 2002, the founding president of Namibia, Sam Nujoma, unveiled IUM at the Safari Hotel, in Windhoek.
“We receive good support from the Namibian government… without them we would not be where we are today,” says Namwandi.
Namibians didn’t think that a private university was necessary, since there was a public university and the polytechnic.
“At the beginning there was a lot of discouragement, especially when we had financial issues, which is common to any growing institution when you are starting. People discouraged us and said: ‘Just give it up, it will never work, it can’t work, not here,’” she says.
Criticism taught her that “you can do anything. If you set your mind to do something, you can achieve it”.
“When I look at myself, where I was 10 to 15 years ago, if you had told me that I would be doing what I am doing now, I would have not believed you. But the truth, is sometimes in life, we underestimate what we can do. So, it’s only when you are thrown into the deep end that you realize what you are capable of doing,” she says.
For the only private university in Namibia, this was unchartered territory.
“It has not been easy to access the funding. Public institutions are subsidized by government, so they are able to offer good remuneration, have the infrastructure and government, from time to time, will be able to come to their aid. But for ourselves, we have to fund ourselves,” she says.
In 2010, David, by then a PhD candidate, stepped aside as the university’s first vice-chancellor, after he was appointed the deputy minister of education. Earlier this year he was appointed the minister. It was only natural that his wife, who had shared his vision, would assume the role of vice-chancellor.
Thousands of graduation caps and five campuses across the country are a testament.
“When we moved to our present location in Dorado [Windhoek], the current president, his excellency [Hifikepunye] Pohamba, inaugurated the building. President [Sam] Nujoma was also present. It was an honor to have both the current and founding presidents there in 2010,” says Namwandi.
Nujoma also celebrated alongside the couple at the university’s 10th anniversary last year.
The newly-appointed minister is known for his stern stance against corruption and mismanagement, yet after 23 years of independence, the Namibian education sector still struggles.
“At the beginning of every year, it’s the same cry, the institutions cannot accommodate a lot of the students.”
IUM will expand to the southern and eastern parts of the country next year. These campuses will focus on non-degree programs such as tourism, hospitality and events management. The country’s landscape makes it a prime destination for international tourists. Namibia welcomes 1.2 million visitors each year—which is around half of Namibia’s population—and tourism contributes N$16.6 million ($1.6 million) to the GDP, just over 20%.
The university has four faculties: business information systems; tourism and hospitality; defense management; and a one-of-a-kind faculty of HIV/AIDS management.
“We felt the time had come for us to offer programs that were relevant to Namibians,” she says.
The students studying at the HIV/AIDS management faculty come from Namibia and the South African Development Community (SADC) region, specifically Botswana. Its graduates work at the United Nations, NGOs and faith-based organizations.
“The lady who is in charge of the HIV/AIDS program in the defense force is our alumni,” says Namwandi, with pride.
She continues to fight Namibia’s skills shortage with lecture rooms that create employment.
“We are still heavily economically dependent on South Africa and others. It’s a situation that I would like to see change. It’s important that as much as Namibia took the reins, in terms of its political independence, this should be the time that we focus on making ourselves economically independent.”
This, she believes, is possible through empowerment by means of education.
“Education is the key; it will be one of the main enablers to reach 2030, which is the national vision for the country. I have hope, I see some of the decisions that are being made currently, that are going to enable that to make it happen,” she says.
Namwandi is open-minded—she looks beyond conventional qualifications and the university offers non-degree qualifications too.
“When you need a bulb changed or a plumber, you don’t need to go to someone with a degree. We need to also upgrade the concept of vocational training because for the longest time people looked at it as a lower qualification but the idea is to give it that place, to lift the status that will equip us well for the future.”
IUM is building hostels to cater for international students, who hail from 14 countries.
“They are all my children, in fact I always say that the most emotional experiences for me is a graduation ceremony… I love being around young people. They keep one young and youthful,” says Namwandi.
The academic staff are also an international mix.
“We have an IT lecturer from Cuba. We have an IT lecturer from India. We have [many lecturers] from the SADC region, especially Zimbabwe, and at management level we have someone from Sri Lanka, our registrar is Scottish.”
Her mantra for entrepreneurial success is: “Don’t sweat the small stuff.”
“We need to step out of the box; we’ve been boxed and it’s time to get out of these boxes and say: ‘No I can do it, if this person can do it, so can I.’ There is a big change in Namibia now because if you look at women soon after independence and now, women are coming out and filling those top positions and its good for us.”
So speaks the only female vice-chancellor in Namibia.

Tag: August 2013

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From American Medicine To African Television

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