Entrepreneur of the Year

Strive Masiyiwa

Sponsored by The Royal Mint

Strive Masiyiwa might have been dubbed ‘Britain’s first black billionaire’ by The Sunday Times, but the telecoms entrepreneur prefers not to focus on labels.

Masiyiwa is founder and executive chairman of telecoms giant Econet and of Cassava Technologies, a pan-African tech company that aims to ‘transform the lives of individuals and businesses across the continent by enabling social mobility and economic prosperity’.

Masiyiwa was recognised as Spear’s Entrepreneur of the Year not just for his success in business, but for the wider impact he has made through Higherlife Foundation, the charity he founded with his wife Tsitsi in 1996, and by signing the Giving Pledge, through which the world’s wealthiest people commit to give the majority of their wealth away.