Strive Masiyiwa
Founder & Chairman | Econet Group
Strive Masiyiwa is a telecommunications and technology entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist. In nearly four decades as an entrepreneur, he has founded and invested in businesses globally, spanning Africa, Europe, India, Latin America, the Middle East, New Zealand, and the USA.
Some of his most prominent start-up companies and investments include Mascom Wireless Botswana, Econet Wireless Zimbabwe, Econet Wireless Nigeria (now Airtel Nigeria), Liquid Intelligent Technologies Group, Econet Wireless New Zealand (now 2degrees Mobile), Trilogy Capital Partners Canada (early investor), Cassava Technologies (including most recently, Cassava AI), Africa Data Centres, Sasai Fintech, and Telrad Group Israel. He continues to invest privately through his investment companies and family office.
Born in Zimbabwe in 1961, Mr Masiyiwa left the country as a child and returned after Independence in 1984, working briefly as a telecoms engineer before setting up his first business in 1986. He emigrated from Zimbabwe in 2000, living with his family in South Africa until 2010 when they moved to the UK. He now lives in Jersey from where he runs a global portfolio in more than 40 countries on four continents.
A graduate in Electrical and Electronic Engineering from Cardiff University, Masiyiwa holds honorary doctorates from Stellenbosch University, Yale University, Morehouse College, Nelson Mandela University, and his alma mater, Cardiff University (Fellow). His accolades include the World Food Prize Borlaug Medallion in 2019 for his role as Chair of the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (focused on strengthening food systems and supporting Africa's smallholder farmers); induction in 2023 as an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; and the W. E. B. Du Bois Medal awarded in 2024 by Harvard University's Hutchins Center for African & African American Research. In May 2025 he and his wife Tsitsi Masiyiwa received the David Rockefeller Bridging Leadership Award.
Through his family foundations, Higherlife Foundation and Delta Philanthropies, led by his wife Tsitsi and eldest daughter Elizabeth Tanya, he has supported over 350,000 scholarships for African youth and continues to invest in catalytic social impact initiatives in Africa, focusing primarily on education, health, women and children, youth mentorship, rural transformation, sustainable livelihoods, disaster relief and preparedness. Committed Christians, he and his wife have six adult children. They are signatories of the Giving Pledge.
