Strive Masiyiwa

Posted by Staff Writer on Friday, February 5, 2010 at 7:34pm.

Strive Masiyiwa is a Zimbabwean businessman, founder, Chairman and CEO of Econet Wireless – a diversified international telecommunications group based in South Africa with operations on three continents.

A devout Christian noted for his determination and social conscience, Masiyiwa was called a hero for helping millions of Africans gain access to the modern world through affordable cellular telephones.

Once picked by Time magazine as one of its 15 “global influentials” – he consorts with the likes of Nelson Mandela, Kofi Annan and Bill Gates through his philanthropic work.

Mr. Masiyiwa has lived in South Africa for the last 10 years with his wife and six children, where he commands his multinational business empire spanning seven countries, boasting more than 25 million customers and generating an estimated US $3 billion in annual revenue.

Strive Masiyiwa was born in 1961 in Zimbabwe(Southern Rhodesia at the time).   His parents were able to afford sending him to a High school in Scotland after which he studied Electrical Engineering at the University of Wales and graduated Cum Laude.

In 1994, after graduating from college he returned to a newly independent Zimbabwe, where he took a job with the state-owned telephone company (ZPTC).  He held a position as a senior engineer, then principal engineer before leaving in 1998 to start an electrical contracting firm named Retrofit Engineering.

Masiyiwa recognized the great potential for wireless telephones in sub-Saharan Africa because the region had only two fixed-line telephones for every hundred people in the 1990s.  He saw that wireless networks would be quicker and less expensive to build than land-based networks that required stringing miles of telephone lines across rough terrain.

Wireless telephone service would also be less vulnerable than traditional landlines to the theft of copper wire for resale.  Masiyiwa first approached ZPTC about forming a mobile telephone network in Zimbabwe.  The company wasn’t interested, however, saying that cell phones had no future in the country.

Masiyiwa then decided to create a cell phone network on his own. He sold Retrofit Engineering in 1994 and started to finance Econet Wireless through his family company, TS Masiyiwa Holdings (TSMH).

He met with fierce opposition, first from ZPTC, which told him it held a monopoly in telecommunications, and second from the Zimbabwean government, which swamped him with red tape and demands for bribes.   Masiyiwa was opposed to paying bribes and kickbacks to government officials.

He decided to pursue his case through the courts.  After a landmark four-year legal battle that went all the way to the nation’s Supreme Court, Econet finally won a license to provide cell phone service in Zimbabwe.

The court declared that the government monopoly on telecommunications had violated the constitution’s guarantee of free speech.  Econet’s first cell phone subscriber was connected to the new network in 1998.

While Masiyiwa waited to gain the government’s approval for operations in Zimbabwe, he was able to start a cell phone network in neighboring Botswana.  Econet Wireless Holdings then established a presence in over 15 countries, including other African nations, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. The company also diversified into satellite communications, fixed-line telephone services, and Internet service.

Masiyiwa further antagonized the Zimbabwe government when his holding company, TSMH bailed out the financially strapped opposition newspaper, the Daily News.  Masiyiwa eventually became a major shareholder in the newspaper’s parent company, Associated Newspapers of Zimbabwe, as well as the company’s Chairman.

The government responded by shutting down the newspaper in the fall of 2003.  The paper continued to publish sporadically, though, through early 2004, and maintained an online version from South Africa.

Masiyiwa sued for permission to restart the presses in Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwean government countered by starting criminal proceedings against four Daily News directors in June 2004 on charges of illegally publishing the paper without a license.  Government officials also threatened to revoke Econet’s license to operate in Zimbabwe at that time.

“Strive is driven by focus, determination and passion,” Norman Nyazema told the Financial Mail . “Failure is not an option, no matter how many obstacles are thrown in his way” (December 5, 2003). Nyazema, who was a professor of pharmacology at South Africa’s University of the North and chairman of Econet Wireless Zimbabwe (EWZ), had gone to school with Masiyiwa.

In the early months of 2004 Econet signed a 50/50 joint-venture agreement with Allied Technology (Altech), a South African information technology company. With Altech’s capital and Econet’s experience in telecommunications, the new company-dubbed Newco-announced its intention to pursue an aggressive expansion strategy in the developing countries of Africa and Asia.

Masiyiwa became a role model for other young African entrepreneurs through his vision and persistence. He’s won numerous national and international honors, including the youngest Businessman of the Year in 1990; Manager and Entrepreneur of the Year in 1998; One of the ten Most Outstanding Young Persons of the World from the Junior Chamber International (JCI), 1999 and as mentioned earlier Global Influentials, Time , 2002.

Masiyiwa continues to command a deep respect from Africans of all quarters.  Most recently, Cathy Buckle wrote on Money Web, “Strive Masiyiwa’s company , represented by Douglas Mboweni, is in my view the one thing that has most changed the lives of ordinary Zimbabweans in the last year. Everyone now has the ability to communicate, to expose the perpetrators of crimes that are still destroying our country and to take away their lies and leave them with no more hiding places.”