Strive Masiyiwa has become an expert at walking the fine line between business and politics. He had to. The man once picked by Time magazine as one of its 15 “global influentials” – he regularly rubs shoulders with Nelson Mandela and former UN secretary general Kofi Annan in his charity work, and was picked by the Rockefeller Foundation to join its board of trustees six years ago – started his working life in Zimbabwe after the civil war and still has thousands of employees there, despite not having returned to the troubled country for nine years.

As founder and chief executive of Econet Wireless he has pursued his ambition of creating a truly African multinational business, spinning a web that spans seven countries, more than 25 million customers and generates an estimated $3bn (£1.8bn) in annual revenues. He has fought his way through Africa’s often tangled legal jungle and had the security forces on his tail – more often than not sitting outside his house.

To read this report from The Guardian in full, see:
www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jul/30/strive-masiwiya-zimbabwe-telecoms