Strive Masiyiwa, Founder, Cassava Technologies - Zimbabwe

Sep 02, 2026

The foundation

Born in Zimbabwe in 1961, Strive Masiyiwa spent his early childhood navigating the realities of a rapidly changing region before moving to the United Kingdom to complete his secondary education and pursue a degree in Electrical and Electronic Engineering at the University of Wales. 

Guided by a disciplined work ethic and a firm belief that infrastructure is the foundation of societal development, he returned home in the 1980s determined to apply his technical expertise to the continent’s telecoms architecture. His initial years working as a senior engineer for the state-owned telephone company exposed him to the inefficiencies of monopolised telecommunications, sparking a realisation that would change African business forever: voice communication and connectivity were not luxury services but fundamental economic rights that needed to be democratised across every corner of the continent.

When Masiyiwa sought to launch Econet Wireless in the early 1990s, he was met with intense state opposition, bureaucratic resistance and an outright refusal to grant him a mobile operating licence. 

Rather than abandoning his vision, he embarked on a five-year legal battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe. The court’s landmark 1997 ruling abolished the state telecommunications monopoly, not only paving the way for Econet to launch in 1998 but also setting a legal precedent that opened mobile telecommunications markets across Africa. This historic victory stood as a testament to Masiyiwa’s grit, integrity, legal brilliance and refusal to surrender in the face of systemic barriers, proving to a generation of African entrepreneurs that institutional resistance could be dismantled through constitutional principle.

Engineering a digital infrastructure empire

Launching Econet Wireless was the first chapter in Masiyiwa’s broader plan to construct Africa’s digital backbone. Understanding that true sovereignty requires deep infrastructure, he expanded his vision into liquid infrastructure through Liquid Intelligent Technologies (formerly Liquid Telecom), building the continent's largest independent fibre-optic network spanning over 100,000 kilometres. He systematically addressed every layer of the digital value chain, deploying Africa Data Centres, expanding mobile financial services via EcoCash, and investing in renewable energy solutions through Distributed Power Africa to keep critical networks online. 

What began as a single mobile operator evolved under his stewardship into a diversified global technology commanding Pan-African connectivity, cloud computing and financial technology.

The masterclass in crisis leadership and philanthropy

Masiyiwa’s entrepreneurial philosophy has always been inextricably linked to social responsibility and crisis management. Through the Higherlife Foundation, co-founded with his wife, Tsitsi Masiyiwa, he has supported the education of over 250,000 orphaned and vulnerable children across Africa, while systematically funding healthcare interventions during public health crises, including the Ebola outbreak and the COVID-19 pandemic. During the height of global pandemic supply shortages, he was appointed Special Envoy by the African Union to head the African Vaccine Acquisition Task Team (AVATT), leveraging his corporate procurement expertise to secure hundreds of millions of vaccine doses for the continent. His leadership during times of emergency demonstrated that a true corporate leader’s highest calling is leveraging commercial capability to safeguard human life.

A legacy of continental sovereignty

Today, Strive Masiyiwa stands as a global business icon, serving on the boards of international organisations, global corporations and philanthropic institutions while continuing to mentor millions of young African entrepreneurs through his digital platforms. 

His journey, beginning in rural Zimbabwe and transforming to a determined young engineer fighting for a single telecom licence, culminates in a global billionaire industrialist, proving that African enterprise can build world-class, resilient infrastructure capable of competing on the global stage.

Masiyiwa’s legacy is a living blueprint for the modern founder. That when you combine technical mastery, courage, and an uncompromising commitment to human dignity, you do not just build a company, you transform the economic trajectory of an entire continent.