Episodes

Episode 235 with Houda Ghozzi, Founder and CEO of Open Startup, a pan African organisation focused on connecting African innovation with global opportunity through investment readiness, deep tech commercialisation, cross border partnerships and ecosystem development. Over the past decade, Open Startup has supported thousands of founders and startups across more than 20 African countries. Its latest focus is The Science Road, an initiative designed to help deep tech and research led ventures ...

Episode 234 with Madelaine Fourie, General Brand Manager at Sappi Verve, a business operating at the intersection of forestry, sustainable materials and global fashion value chains. Sappi Verve produces dissolving wood pulp from woodfibre, an essential raw material used to manufacture fibres such as viscose and lyocell that ultimately become the fabrics found in everyday clothing. From its forestry and manufacturing base in South Africa, Sappi forms part of a global textile supply chain that ...

Episode 231 with Amanda Etuk, Program Director at Cascador, an Africa focused platform supporting growth stage entrepreneurs with the leadership, networks, strategic partnerships and catalytic capital needed to build resilient, high impact businesses. Amanda works at the intersection of strategy and execution, helping founders navigate one of the most overlooked stages of African entrepreneurship. With experience spanning scaling startups, managing complex multimillion pound operations and b...

Episode 232 with Shain Shapiro, Founder and Executive Director of the Center for Music Ecosystems and one of the world's leading experts on music, public policy, and economic development. Through his work advising more than 130 cities and governments worldwide, Shain has helped reposition music from being viewed simply as entertainment to being recognised as a driver of investment, job creation, and long term economic growth. He is also one of the architects behind the Music Economy Developme...

Episode 231 with Daniel Yu, Founder of Africa Jobs Fund, a philanthropic venture builder focused on creating high productivity jobs across Sub Saharan Africa through export manufacturing and international labour mobility. Daniel is best known as the founder and former CEO of Wasoko, one of Africa's leading commerce and supply chain technology companies. After spending more than a decade building logistics infrastructure across multiple African markets, he has shifted his focus towards what h...

Episode 230 with Soledad Sanchez Canamares, Family Friendly Workplace Policy Specialist at UNICEF Eastern and Southern Africa, where she works with businesses, governments, and development partners to advance workplace policies that improve employee wellbeing, talent retention, workforce productivity, and long term business performance. As organisations across Africa and around the world face growing talent shortages, rising employee turnover, and changing workforce expectations, family frie...

Episode 229 with Esther Tumbare, Chief Executive Officer of Friendship Bench, a pioneering Zimbabwean organisation transforming access to mental healthcare through community based solutions that have reached hundreds of thousands of people and expanded across multiple countries. Esther leads Friendship Bench's efforts to scale one of Africa's most recognised healthcare innovations while working closely with governments, public health systems, and community health workers to make mental healt...

Episode 228 with Nena Sanderson, Chief Product Officer and Managing Director of Mobility at M-KOPA, a leading African fintech and asset financing company helping millions of people access productive assets, digital financial services, and clean mobility solutions through innovative pay as you go financing. Nena leads product strategy across M-KOPA's business while also overseeing its rapidly growing mobility division, placing her at the centre of one of Africa's most significant transport an...

Episode 227 with Mimi Kufuor, Global COO of KoinKoin, a digital assets exchange and financial infrastructure company focused on solving cross border liquidity and payment challenges across Africa and other emerging markets. Mimi oversees the company's global operations across multiple jurisdictions and works closely with regulators as digital asset frameworks continue to evolve. She also serves as a Strategic Advisor to the Chamber of Digital Assets and Blockchain Innovation in Ghana, contrib...