- You can’t reach good times and enjoy it until you survive bad times.
- Born in Zimbabwe. Family left when I was about 6. I returned in my 20s. I was a telecommunications engineer that was trained by England. I wanted to expand the telephone service. At the time 75% had never heard the telephone ring on the African continent. I filed in the constitutional court and said that it was a freedom of expression issue. Constitutional courts ruled 5 years later that I was correct and broke up the state’s monopoly.
- You had a 5 year battle over principle. You could have paid them off. That was the culture. You didn’t. That epitomizes what leadership is. You went against the current of the time.
- On the eve of launching this business, June 1994, is when I became a Christian. I was in the church. I had great men of God around me. The only two documents on my desk for five years were my Bible and the Constitution of our country. Every Friday, I’d tell my wife I’ll see you Monday, because they liked to keep me in prison over the weekend.
- The government tried to compromise. You can proceed but you have to have partners and we choose your partners. When I was able to proceed, I chose to take the company public.
- You had no money, all you had was vision.
- There was just deep faith. One of my favorite passages of Scripture is Mark 10:29.
- I went and started again in South Africa. This time I built for Africa.
- In America, we see colors instead of culture. Cultures matter. If you’re going to have a corporation that is going to grow beyond its own culture, it takes a multicultural approach.
- Most people who talk about Africa, we talk about it like it is a country and not a continent.
- My first task was always reaching out, embrace. My most senior executives makes sure that everyone feels they are a part. Values transcend culture. You can embrace and work with people across cultures, countries, etc.
- You can’t have a global reach if you don’t have a global brain. There has to be diversity in the board room.
- You have to always be learning, never assuming.
- When I arrive in a country where I have never been, I’m curious. You have never visited a country until you’ve been in a home in the country. That’s where innovation comes from as well.
- I seek to find what is common between us. There is so much that we have in common. You don’t have to spend as much time in marketing if your business solves a problem or a need.
- Today 75% of people in Africa have a phone. We have 300 million internet enabled phones in Africa. We’ll hit 500 million by 2020. If you want to be a success, identify a human need and reach out to solve it.
- Business is not just about profit; it’s about purpose.
- When I started out in business, my wife and I came across a major challenge: HIV/AIDS. We started to help orphans, try to keep them in school. Today we’ve been able to help out 240,000 kids. Education is ground zero but the education has to have a purpose. We call them history makers. They can go out and change the world.
- We select 100 of the brightest kids we can find and send them to 2 years of boot camp and then send them to the best schools we can find. This year we have 300+ in IVY League schools.
- Some call it philanthropy. I see it as an investment. It is an investment to invest in children, and in particular in their education. We are raising the people that will nourish us when we are old.
- We have to train and invest in the next generation. We must invest in education.
- The intellectual prowess of those we are raising at this time will take care of us when we are older. I learned that we are not raising our children to think for themselves. I am raising them to think for me.
- We cannot afford to become economically astute and intellectually bankrupt.
- People become what they see. A dream often dies when it is shared with people who have not seen it.
- The greatest challenge we have in the world today: we have all this technology and we do not know each other. We have to make sure technology does not divide us.
- We have lost the art of speech. Every major movement has come from someone who said something, not text something.
- You cannot change the culture unless you change the conversations.
- “From the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” – our words locate us.
- Salt & light – we are the reason the world is preserved. We are the preservative. We hold it together. As light, we show the way.
- Big deals always takes time. It always takes longer than you think.
- God did not wait until he was done with creation to applaud himself. Everyday he looked at his unfinished creation and said it was good.
- You can have great vision, but the timing… Great vision is only as good as your ability to deliver those short-term win. Consistency is the key to the short-term wins. I told my people that I wanted to connect all the countries of Africa. They looked at me and I thought I should never say it again. I said, “Let’s connect South Africa and Zimbabwe.” After that, we added Zambia. 15 years later, we connected to Cairo.
- At the end of the day, you have to affirm your team. Pick up the short term wins. You have to have signposts around the way.
- My children didn’t need a pastor as much as they needed a father and finding a pastor was easier than finding a father.
- You have all the roles. They each have lines. You have to understand how you interact in each role. Most importantly, respect the people that work for us. The best of our people are volunteers. They could be anywhere in the world, they came to us.
- I watch how you treat people you think you don’t need.
This is mind blowing and a paradigm shift for me. Truly… People become what they see. I think when an idea is shared and people don’t like it or laugh at you, I bet you, it won’t outlive you. I agree with the statement… ” A dream often dies when it is shared with people who have not seen it.
Like minds are the best people to share your ideas with.
It’s really helpful.