Four of the six towers planned on the former Ground Zero site are now open and nearly fully leased, including the centerpiece One World Trade Center. Lower Manhattan has come a long way from its darkest day—but will it continue to thrive when the threat is microbes, not militants?



<abbr>O</abbr>



n the morning of September 11, 2001, the Brooklyn-born real estate developer Larry Silverstein was getting dressed to go to work at the World Trade Center when his wife, Klara, reminded him he had an appointment with his dermatologist. Now, two decades later, he credits that moment with saving his life.



“If it hadn’t been for Klara’s everyday concern for my well-being, I wouldn’t be here today,” the 90-year-old Silverstein told&nbsp;Forbes&nbsp;in early September.



Just six weeks earlier, Silverstein and a group of minority investors had won a 99-year lease on the twin towers from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for $3.2 billion. Ten days after the attacks that leveled the World Trade Center towers and took the lives of 2,753 people in New York City, the lifelong New Yorker held a press conference to declare his intention to rebuild. Rejecting suggestions by then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani (and later, Mayor Michael Bloomberg) to turn the entire site into a memorial or a residential neighborhood, he decided that the only way forward was to try to restore the area into a thriving business district.



“After 9/11, there was a great debate over what should be built at the World Trade Center. It was quintessential New York: passionate, loud and fractious,” says Silverstein. “But one thing was clear. The new World Trade Center needed to be much more than what it had been before.”



It would take 99 days for the fires to stop burning at Ground Zero and more than a year until ground broke on the first of the new towers, 7 World Trade Center, in November 2003. Twenty years and $20 billion of public and private investments later, lower Manhattan has come a long way from one of the darkest days in New York City’s history.



What might have seemed impossible in the aftermath of the attacks—to recreate a bustling commercial district at the heart of lower Manhattan—has not only become a reality, it’s also been a relative financial success. Forbes estimates the combined value of the completed office buildings that currently house more than 40 tenants—One, 3, 4 and 7 World Trade Center—to be more than $11 billion. Silverstein, his partners and the Port Authority owe about $3.3 billion of debt, held in the form of tax-exempt Liberty Bonds due in 2100, on the properties.



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img decoding="async" loading="lazy" src="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/GettyImages-119746722-1024x683.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-52484" width="630" height="420" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/GettyImages-119746722-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/GettyImages-119746722-300x200.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/GettyImages-119746722-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/GettyImages-119746722-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/GettyImages-119746722.jpg 2048w" sizes="(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px" /><figcaption> This 11 September, 2001 file photo shows smoke billowing up after the first of the two towers of the World Trade Center collapses in New York City. Two planes were crashed into the twin towers of the center, collapsing both towers. Another plane was crashed into the Pentagon in Washington, DC and a fourth was crashed into a field in Pennylvania. 11 September, 2004 marks the third anniversary of the terrorist attacks responsible for the deaths of nearly three thousand people. AFP PHOTO/FILES/ Henny Ray ABRAMS (Photo credit should read HENNY RAY ABRAMS/AFP via Getty Images)</figcaption></figure></div>



That’s far higher than the $3.2 billion Silverstein <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/chloesorvino/2016/09/10/billionaire-world-trade-center-911-rebuild-developer-healing/?sh=9e207fd405a1">paid</a> in June 2001 ($4.9 billion adjusted for inflation today) and the $4.6 billion he received from the insurance payouts following the disaster. Still, it’s quite a bit short of the $20 billion plowed into the project by public and private investors since 2001. That sum includes $4 billion that the Port Authority and the Federal Transit Administration spent on the Oculus transportation hub and $1 billion spent on the Memorial Plaza and Memorial Museum. Another $3 billion went to underground infrastructure, streets, utilities and open spaces. According to Lynne Sagalyn, a Columbia Business School professor who authored a <a href="https://alumni.columbia.edu/content/power-ground-zero-politics-money-and-remaking-lower-manhattan" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">book</a> on the redevelopment effort, the total costs will rise to $26.2 billion as construction moves forward on 2 World Trade Center, an office tower where Silverstein is still looking for an anchor tenant, and 5 World Trade Center, <a href="https://www.costar.com/article/7518167/silverstein-brookfield-chosen-for-5-world-trade-center-tower" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">slated</a> to become a residential building in a joint venture between Silverstein and Brookfield Properties. Once it’s all complete—people familiar with the project estimate it will take another five years—the combined square footage of office space will be more than 12 million, nearing the 13 million square feet in the old complex.



One World Trade Center, which tops out at a symbolic height of 1,776 feet (the year the Declaration of Independence was signed), instantly became an icon of New York’s skyline when it opened in 2014. The Durst Organization, owned by the billionaire&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/durst/?sh=5fdf62273773">Durst family</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/erincarlyle/2014/07/08/sky-scrappers-for-savvy-durst-family-world-trade-center-deal-is-a-pinnacle/?sh=621b14b24dad">bought</a>&nbsp;a 10% stake in the project in 2010 from the Port Authority for $100 million, which owns the rest; Silverstein gave up the rights to develop the tower in 2006 in a deal that secured public debt financing for the rest of the development. Controversial at first, the tower is now 90% leased, and 8,000 employees of tenants such as publishing giant Condé Nast and credit rater Moody’s have moved in.



&#8220;Some people thought that the building shouldn&#8217;t be built and that it should be a memorial to the people who perished on 9/11, some people thought [it] was a boondoggle,&#8221; says the Durst Organization&#8217;s vice president of public affairs Jordan Barowitz, who helped put together the project for the tower. &#8220;It&#8217;s really been gratifying to see the site become part of the city again. Re-establishing downtown as a creative office district has been intrinsic to the city&#8217;s success over the last two decades.”



Besides One WTC, three of the five towers first designed in 2003—3, 4 and 7—are also open and nearly fully leased, with tenants ranging from Spotify and Uber to Moët Hennessy and Morningstar. Silverstein Properties owns all of tower 7 and has significant stakes in the 3 and 4 World Trade Center buildings, alongside minority investors including America’s richest real estate family, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/goldman-family/?sh=6e0f8f402e4c">Goldmans</a>.



Lower Manhattan today is more than just an office district: Nearly 18 million people have&nbsp;<a href="https://www.911memorial.org/connect/blog/marking-7th-anniversary-911-memorial-museum-dedication" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">visited</a>&nbsp;the 9/11 Memorial Museum since it was opened in 2014. The Oculus—the shopping mall and transit center designed by Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava—opened in time for the 15th anniversary of the attacks in 2016. Replete with 3,000 tons of imported Italian marble quarried in the Alps, its skeletal structure stands in stark contrast to the glass-paneled skyscrapers towering nearby and the slabs of granite from Zimbabwe and Sardinia that line the walls and floors of its next door&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/samanthasharf/2018/06/21/real-estate-titan-larry-silverstein-on-the-opening-of-3-world-trade/?sh=4542cf50130f">neighbor</a>, 3 World Trade Center. Before the Covid-19 pandemic pumped the brakes on office commutes, at least 250,000 people passed through the station every day—more than three times the 70,000 people who commuted to the original World Trade Center towers prior to 9/11.



“At the end of the day, our vision was to create a better version of New York,” says Silverstein. “That vision is now a reality. Today the new World Trade Center has come alive as a dynamic public space with timeless architecture.”



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The first proposal for a World Trade Center at the southern tip of Manhattan came in 1946, barely a year after the end of World War II. Harry Truman was still president when the New York state legislature established the World Trade Corporation to explore the construction of a World Trade Center; it would take another 12 years, until 1958, to hire an architectural firm to develop a plan for the new complex. David Rockefeller, the president of Chase Bank and a scion of the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.forbes.com/profile/rockefeller/?sh=2700fdda430e">Rockefeller family</a>, established the Downtown Lower Manhattan Association that year to guide his vision for a project that would remake lower Manhattan.



In 1960, the Downtown Lower Manhattan Association put forth a plan for a 5 million square foot office development by the East River that would cost $250 million to build ($2.3 billion in 2021 dollars). By 1962, when the Port Authority moved the proposed development to its eventual site bordered by West, Church, Liberty and Vesey streets, the estimated price tag had grown to $280 million—$2.5 billion today—a sum so large that Minoru Yamasaki, the architect tapped to design the buildings,&nbsp;<a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=OTh8b2cyGBcC&amp;pg=PA546&amp;lpg=PA546&amp;dq=world+trade+center+1962+%22$280%22+million&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=0BVCkVbZ7C&amp;sig=ACfU3U2WCxOg-C0G9eP9uSMno-JLR7H0wQ&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=2ahUKEwj329S05-_yAhVMGFkFHQwfBHMQ6AF6BAgnEAM#v=onepage&amp;q=900&amp;f=false" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">thought</a>&nbsp;it was a typo when he first saw it.



Thirteen city blocks of low-rise buildings were demolished to make way for the new World Trade Center starting in 1966, and construction began on the north tower in 1968. When the towers finally opened in 1973 as the tallest buildings in the world—beating out their crosstown rival, the Empire State Building—the construction costs for the hulking steel structures had ballooned to $900 million, or $5.5 billion adjusted for inflation today.



Initially maligned as a vanity project pushed by Rockefeller and his brother Nelson, who was then the Republican governor of New York, the towers eventually became a beloved part of the city’s skyline. According to one&nbsp;<a href="https://www.voanews.com/arts-culture/new-yorks-twin-towers-appear-many-hollywood-films" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">estimate</a>, the towers made appearances in more than 1,000 movies, including&nbsp;King Kong,&nbsp;Home Alone 2&nbsp;and the first&nbsp;Superman&nbsp;film in 1978.



The World Trade Center’s tenants at the time of the attacks reflected New York’s status as the world’s financial capital: Bank of America and financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald had offices in the north tower; the New York Stock Exchange and Morgan Stanley had space in the south tower; and Credit Suisse First Boston, Salomon Smith Barney, the U.S. Department of Commerce and American Express were in the 5, 6, and 7 World Trade Centers, all of which were destroyed on 9/11.



Today, the rebuilt World Trade Center site reflects how New York’s economy has changed since 2001. Some of the tenants that anchored the former twin towers no longer exist or have been rendered irrelevant over the past two decades—from Lehman Brothers, which famously collapsed in the 2008 financial crisis, to Xerox, which saw its eponymous machines fall out of favor with the rise of the Internet. Taking their place in the new towers are a broader range of multinational firms and homegrown startups, running the gamut from wedding planning service Zola and mattress firm Casper to spirits giant Diageo and streaming service DAZN.



&#8220;Today [lower Manhattan] is a much more diverse economy, and the number of residents living there now is almost twice as many as before 9/11,&#8221; says Sagalyn of Columbia Business School. &#8220;Those trends were in place prior to 9/11. The amount of federal funds and local, city and state efforts put into lower Manhattan really did have the impact of accelerating those trends.&#8221;



The largest question mark hanging over lower Manhattan is the Covid-19 pandemic. Since the virus first swept through the city in March 2020,&nbsp;<a href="https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data-totals.page" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">taking</a>&nbsp;the lives of nearly 34,000 New Yorkers and confining millions of commuters to their homes, the area has not returned to its pre-pandemic normal. That has spelled trouble for the huge (and expensive) office spaces available in the World Trade Center towers: In November, Uber&nbsp;<a href="https://therealdeal.com/2020/11/06/uber-looks-to-sublet-25-of-its-3-world-trade-center-office/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reportedly</a>&nbsp;offered to sublease 25% of its office space at 3 World Trade Center. Condé Nast owner Advance Publications&nbsp;<a href="https://commercialobserver.com/2021/08/durst-organization-conde-nast-1-world-trade-center-rent-landmark/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">paid</a>&nbsp;some $10 million in back rent to the Durst Organization and the Port Authority in August, months after it started withholding rent in January, amid rumors the anchor tenant planned to decamp early and end its lease, which runs through 2039.



Still, the developers are convinced that recovery is on the way: One WTC is slated to reach 93% occupancy thanks to a flurry of recently signed leases, according to the Durst Organization’s Barowitz. &#8220;There will be a flight to quality, as there frequently is when there&#8217;s a downturn in the market,” he says, highlighting the advantages of the WTC buildings compared to older office towers in Midtown. “Not just because of the views and the prestige, but also the quality of the space from an efficiency and productivity and health perspective.&#8221;



For Silverstein and the Dursts, the success of the World Trade Center redevelopment is proof that it’s never a good idea to bet against New York City.



“This town always comes back,” says Silverstein. “Stronger than ever.”



By Giacomo Tognini, Forbes Staff

New York City Commemorates 20th Anniversary Of 9/11 Terror Attacks

20 Years And $20 Billion After 9/11, The World Trade Center Is Still A Work In Progress

An audit coordinator, Arora Akanksha is challenging the status quo, declaring herself as a candidate to be the next Secretary-General of the United Nations.







Arora Akanksha speaks to us from New York in a bright African print dress, one of the nine colorful outfits in her wardrobe that she brought back from her trip to the African continent in 2016.



Every time she wears one of these dresses to work, walking down the streets of Manhattan, she receives compliments, she says, with people alluding to her as “an African princess”.



Looking up from those streets in Manhattan, at the towering, 154-meter glistening slab of steel that is the United Nations (UN) Secretariat, her hopes and ambitions run as high, as she boldly attempts to foray into a slew of unprecedented firsts.



The Indian-Canadian, who prefixes her name with her family name, joined the UN in 2016 and is the audit coordinator at the United Nations Development Programme. Today, she is known to her friends and supporters – and the global media she has recently approached in her personal campaign – as the 34-year-old bidding for the top job at the UN.



In February this year, Akanksha announced her candidacy, challenging incumbent UN Secretary-General António Guterres in the UN elections to be held later this year.



Hired to serve on the UN’s financial reforms, Akanksha says, prior to that, she was a manager at accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in Toronto, Canada. She was also the youngest audit professor at the University of Toronto, at the age of 28, teaching audit at the master’s level. She graduated from Canada’s York University with a Bachelor in Administrative Studies and has a Master in Public Administration from Columbia University in New York.



Aiming for more firsts, Akanksha, who spent her formative years in Saudi Arabia and India, says she is “the first woman and first millennial candidate for the position of the UN Secretary-General and the first known candidate to challenge an incumbent”. If she wins, she will be the youngest-ever and first female Secretary-General of the UN in its 75-year history.



In early January, Guterres, a long-serving international diplomat and former UN High Commissioner for Refugees, presented himself as a candidate seeking a second five-year term. To succeed as Secretary-General, any candidate must finally win the approval of the five veto-wielding permanent members of the UN Security Council, namely, the United States, the United Kingdom, Russia, China and France.



When contacted by FORBES AFRICA for a comment on Akanksha’s candidacy and details on all the candidates who have presented for the position of Secretary-General, Brenden Varma, Director of Communications and Spokesperson for the President, Office of the President of the General Assembly, says: “As of now, there is only one candidate whose name has been jointly circulated to Member States by the Presidents of the General Assembly and Security Council – and that is António Guterres of Portugal.”



The UN notes on its website regarding the selection and appointment process: “The position of Secretary-General is one of great importance that requires a person with the highest standards of efficiency, competence and integrity, and a firm commitment to the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”



Given that Akanksha has only been with the institution for four years – and that currently she is in discussion with member states to support her candidacy – what are her chances, I ask, and how is she responding to the naysayers?



She is not daunted.



“My decision to run for this position is not influenced by some long-held ambition. I believe in the UN and I know it is capable of doing great work,” she begins. “My candidacy is to restore the UN’s trust, credibility and respect in the world and to bring it back to serving people in humanitarian crises, in development needs and in climate action.



“The naysayers will always be there, and for me, I love to engage with them where I am challenged that I don’t have the experience as the Secretary-Generals of the past. I always tell them I acknowledge that I don’t have the same profile as them, but I do bring a lot. I was an auditor for PwC. I have written guidelines for elections in Canada, and in seven years working in audit, I have excelled and proven myself to be a leader in Canada and internationally. What I bring is the perspective of taking a decision and implementing it. As millennials, we have moved mountains in every profession&#8230; And I bring the force of an entire generation. We are ready to take the baton and make the UN an organization that serves all of us.”



One of the critical issues Akanksha wants to bring to the fore is the refugee crisis, especially on the African continent that’s home to more than 33 million of the world’s displaced people. She says she has a personal affiliation for the cause, hailing from a family of refugees.



“All four of my grandparents moved from Pakistan to India after the partition [in 1947], so I know what it’s like to be in a position to have nothing and build life back for yourself.”



On Africa, she adds: “We need to depopulate the refugee camps through repatriation, local integration or resettlement… Local empowerment, government engagement and listening to the people directly are what is critical, so I am proposing a development approach that empowers people on the ground through universal education and internet access.”



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<blockquote class="wp-block-quote">“As millennials, we have moved mountains in every profession&#8230; And I bring the force of an entire generation. We are ready to take the baton and make the UN an organization that serves all of us.”</blockquote>



Akanksha says her candidacy and her pressing call for a new UN has not been a surprise for her colleagues.



“My candidacy has been received well by the employees of the UN… Within the UN universe, people are expecting that we might be able to change things. Everyone is aware of the shortcomings but no one has dared to challenge the system and status quo. &nbsp;



“We need to shape the new world order, and we need a new UN, and specifically for Africa&#8230; Africans have always presented themselves with dignity no matter their hardships and been able to forgive and get to work collectively to move things forward… The UN has to give more to Africa, to give them adequate humanitarian assistance to meet their basic needs.”



Akanksha’s daring candidacy has also found her positive endorsement as “the voice of young people”.



“Arora’s candidacy is important,” says Simone Filippini, a senior Dutch diplomat and President of the Leadership4SDGs Foundation in the Netherlands, when contacted for a comment by FORBES AFRICA. “She is a talented, smart young woman of the world. She has a clear view of what needs to happen to make the UN a more effective and inclusive organization in her perspective… We need disruption and Arora is a disruptor; she is courageous to challenge power and deserves admiration and support… I hope that she will be able to get the support of many, especially of the younger generation.”



Agrees Agustin Matteri, Senior Portfolio Manager, Climate Change Unit – Latin America &amp; Caribbean, UN Environment, about the need to spread the voice: “Her chances are high, but only if we make common people aware of the importance of the UN in their daily lives.”



At the moment, Akanksha is preparing to submit her vision statement and is on leave from the UN without pay until the conclusion of the election, but does she have a plan B if she does not win?



“I am in this to win,” she affirms. “I am so optimistic in the member states to realize that the world after Covid cannot go back to the old ways of doing things… I have no plan B other than serving those not served by the system.”

1Arora Akanksha for a new UN_01_16x9

The 34-Year-Old Aiming To Run The United Nations

As I walk through Brooklyn Bridge Park, gazing at the magnificent
Manhattan skyline on the East River, at first glance it looks as crowded as it
usually does. However, if you look closer, it’s not your typical mixture of
tourists with their cacophony of foreign languages, photographers with tripods,
or teenagers on skateboards. The park is filled with lone joggers, parents in
yoga pants pushing double strollers and carefully guarding kids on scooters. No
one plays volleyball in the sand by the river. No one picnics in the barbecue
area. Everyone keeps a friendly and polite distance, some people wear face
masks. And yet, it doesn’t really look like social distancing, or the lockdown
that it is&#8211;ordered by the mayor and the governor of New York in an effort to
contain the spread of the Coronavirus.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



That peaceful picture of joggers and children playing shouldn’t
fool anyone. The five boroughs of New York City – Brooklyn, Queens, Manhattan,
Staten Island and the Bronx&nbsp; &#8212; are hit hard by the rapidly spreading
Coronavirus. With the death toll rising – 678 patients had died in overcrowded
New York City hospitals by March 28, and the number of cases in New York state
has surpassed 53,000; the five boroughs of New York have become the epicenter
of the pandemic.&nbsp;



The healthcare system is overwhelmed. I spoke with four medical
professionals in the city and they all confirm the disturbing reality that is
in the news. The hospitals don’t have enough protective gear, single use masks
have been reused, hospitals do not have enough beds and ventilators. Medical
personnel intubate patients non-stop, assisting them with breathing. The city
hospitals have set up makeshift tents to triage COVID-19 patients as well as to
act as morgues. The government’s delayed response to the virus’s spread is
costing many, many lives.&nbsp;



One thing that is striking about New Yorkers – my home of
seventeen years – is how people come together and support each other. After the
terrorist attack on September 11, 2001; during the power outage in 2003, when
the entire city went dark for hours; and after the devastating hurricane Sandy
in 2012.&nbsp;



On the day when Donald Trump was elected president in 2016, New
Yorkers, predominantly liberal democrats, were especially sensitive with each
other, calmly sharing their sadness and expressing worry for the future of
their country. Today, when schools, non-essential stores, bars and restaurants
are closed, and many people are isolating and trying to follow social
distancing guidelines, members of communities come together to help each other:
buying food for older neighbors, helping with disinfecting door knobs and
elevator buttons. Mental health professionals volunteer their services to the
anxious and scared. At grocery stores and pharmacies only a few people are
allowed in at a time, people are waiting outside, standing about two meters
apart, and the doormen pour out hand sanitizer into people’s palms.&nbsp;



Besides solidarity and respect, there is also fear and anxiety.
Service and food industry workers are out of work, facing months of hardships.
According to the New York State Labor department, during the first days of the
lockdown, in some parts of the state, there was a 1,000% increase in
unemployment claims as 1.7 million people called to file for benefits. Well
over a million children from financially strained families relied on school
lunches, and those are now provided at meal sites. But that also means the
disparity in incomes in New York has been underscored by the Covid 19 impact,
and the inequality between the haves and have-nots will continue to be exposed.



Forbes headquarters in New Jersey has been working remotely since
the first week of March. We quickly re-organized: the entire company of 400
people has migrated into a virtual workplace, with a highly mobilized virtual
newsroom. Besides holding daily meetings and video calls, our teams get
together for virtual hangouts to keep each other’s spirits up.&nbsp;



The city authorities were slow to respond to the Covid-19 spread.
For weeks, when it was clear the crisis was imminent, eight million New Yorkers
commuted in crowded subways, went to crowded restaurants and bars, and also
traveled to and from crowded international airports, breathing in each other’s
air.&nbsp;



In the absence of the pandemic team, fired by Trump in 2018, the
federal government’s response was slow to respond to the disaster. The Trump
administration failed to prevent this crisis underestimating the danger of
Covid-19: “We have it totally under control,” he said in January, when the
virus was already spreading. “It’s one person coming in from China, and we have
it under control.” The government failed to test people in a timely manner. In
New York,&nbsp; Mayor Bill De Blasio and the governor Andew Cuomo stepped in
and tried to help the hospitals secure supplies and additional testing
stations. They are still trying.



Meanwhile, the city is contemplating closing parks and other public places. Maybe even prohibiting people from leaving their homes, or perhaps prohibiting them from leaving New York itself. For the next few weeks, the Big Apple will stay confined indoors. Stay home, don’t spread, save lives.



&#8211;Katya Soldak, Forbes Staff, Business

IMG_0317

New York On Lockdown

If I had a dollar for every time someone said they were moving overseas, I would be at the top of the FORBES list of 40 Richest Africans. If I had to give a dollar back for every time they returned, I probably wouldn’t lose much. This is a story of a girl, who after making her dreams come true in the United States (US), came back to Africa and brought her hair business with her.
Nyasha Zimucha walks into the room dressed in a blue dress, cream jacket and sky-high heels. Her accent could easily fool you into thinking that she is American, but as she talks of her Zimbabwean roots and South African upbringing it becomes clear that even accents can be deceiving.
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Zimucha was 13 when her family moved to Kansas, in the US. It was here where her interest in hair began. Every weekend, Zimucha and a friend would go to their local neighborhood to buy extensions and experiment with different styles. Later, it was her work that drew her closer.
“I started out in the entertainment industry as a dancer. I danced my whole life, from the time I was six until my twenties… I was an NFL cheerleader for the Patriots and so I had a lot of experience with wearing makeup and changing my hair for competitions and shows.”
After graduation, Zimucha moved to New York City with the Frank Sinatra song ringing in her ears. Referring to the Big Apple, Sinatra sings ‘If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere’.
“Fashion week was a turning point for me… I realized how hair influences fashion. Hair is the tiara of everyone’s fashion ensemble, whether you like it or not, your hair is your crown.”
With her laptop, the internet and only herself on the employee payroll, Zimucha started her business, Embrace Your Hair.
“The idea wasn’t about me wanting to get fake hair on women. It is a big misconception that hair is fake… the way I see it, hair is a fashion accessory,” she says.
She sourced the hair from a factory in India and started selling to a few people online. The business began to grow but she wanted more.
“I knocked on the door of every major fashion house in New York City and about 60% of them said ‘no’.”
Through a few connections, Zimucha got the opportunity to supply hair for celebrity designer, Zang Toi. The show was a success and suddenly Zimucha had celebrities such as rapper, Eve, calling for her hair.
“We went from having a small cubicle in Tribeca to a full size office on Seventh Avenue,” she says.
Business was booming and Zimucha was supplying hair to 30 stores across the US, but she wanted her business to make a difference in people’s lives. After both her aunt and friend’s mom beat breast cancer, she realized that hair was important. This was the inspiration for her charity, My Hair is Your Hair. A portion of the sales from Embrace Your Hair goes to My Hair is Your Hair, which donates wigs to those who have suffered from breast cancer.
“It wasn’t about making them cover their hair loss because they should be ashamed. It was about saying, ‘you’ve struggled enough, you’re going through the chemo, which can be physically painful on your body, and now I want to give you something to make you feel good about yourself. You don’t have to be ashamed; I want you to feel good.’”
Then came the move to South Africa.
“I wasn’t sure how strong the buying economy was and I wasn’t sure if hair was even big there… after doing a lot of research, I found there was definitely a market. I just needed to make sure that it would be financially lucrative and something that would make an impact nationally, instead of just launching a little store and hoping for the best.”
In 2012, Zimucha partnered with retailer, The Foschini Group, in an attempt to take advantage of their network across the continent.
“People still have misconceptions about hair and there is still a little bit of growing to do in terms of seeing that the black consumer and the white consumer can go to the same place and get the same thing.”
Besides the hair business, Zimucha has her hand in reality shows and music. So, how does the 27 year old manage to keep her head above water?
“Planning, preparation and performance are the three ‘P’s’ I live by. It is one thing to say something but to actually do it, implement it and go through with it is another thing.”
As for the notion of people leaving Africa for greener pastures overseas, Zimucha is proud to consider herself a global citizen.
“I believe that traveling is what makes you grow as an entrepreneur. If you think you are going to succeed without traveling, even within your community, you’re wrong. I think, as a world, part of the reason we are the way we are is because we all migrate all the time. If we didn’t, how would an American know what Chinese food was like?”
It could be the next trend: Africans leaving the so-called greener pastures to come back to the continent. If that is the case, a bet on them returning could put you on the top of FORBES’ rich list.

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