Building it for Success

Wanda Mhobo is the Founder & CEO of WM Physiotherapists, a home-based Physiotherapy practice in South Africa that focuses on treating patients in the comfort of their homes. In the last 12 years, Wanda has treated several patients including high profile leaders and business people. After his former employer rejected the home-based physiotherapy idea, and later some big investors turning his business idea down, Wanda decided he will not give up on an idea he believed in. Today, he runs a successful home-based physio practice in 4 provinces in South Africa - and growing into the rest of South Africa and abroad.

Simbarashe Mabasha is the Founder and CEO of Shava Group, an Agriculture commodity trading business. Simbarashe pursued a number of initiatives, from minerals trading to establishing a media company.  He shares his journey about how failing never stopped him as an entrepreneur and we also get to know about his key learnings over the years.

Simbarashe owned and managed an online based Fast Moving Consumable Goods (FMCG) and Minerals Trading company. He continued his entrepreneurial path to the Media industry culminating in the formation of Afrikan Dust Media Group (ADMG). ADMG was a vertically integrated Media Company focused on redesigning and re-shaping the African media landscape. He was the Co-Founder and Director at ADMG and the founding Chief Executive Officer (CEO) at Wabona, one of Africa’s first video streaming services focusing on African content.

Today, he is the Founder and CEO of Shava Group SA, a company focused on Agri-Business Consultancy and Commodity Trading in Sub-Saharan Africa. Shava Group SA is built on the founding premise that Africa is the future of food and thus must play a positive and constructive role in helping build the best farms, farmers and agri-businesses that can tackle the challenge ahead.

Some of his interests include being a writer/poet and has written for online blogs like South African news blog In The News. He is also a public speaker who speaks on a range of subjects including social issues, entrepreneurship and media. He has spoken at Sri Lanka Unites, Global Unites, Allan Gray Orbis Foundation and Africa Cast. In 2010 Simbarashe was invited to speak at the Sri Lanka Unites Conference about Racial Reconciliation.

Simbarashe graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Law in 2005 at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in South Africa. While at UCT, Simbarashe was Vice-President of the Law Students Council and Deputy-Speaker of the UCT Students Parliament in 2002.

Siba Mtongana is a multi award-winning celeb chef, mom, author, and founder of the The Siba Co. Through her global work, she earned the status of global food icon and has reached over 135 countries worldwide, and 60 million homes in the USA through the Cooking Channel alone.

With so much under her belt including being one of the most in-demand celebrity chefs on an array of local and international programmes, at food festivals the world over and not forgetting on glossy magazine covers, it is hard to sum up just how barricade-breaking this down-to-earth chef with her humble, Mdantsane, Eastern Cape roots has been. Some of her successes include:

Siba’s has such an inspiring story, showing us how one can transform their passion into a successful business.

Tânia Tomé is a multifaceted international award winner, economist, entrepreneur, TV personality, coach and author. As chairwoman of Ecokaya, she has become a sought-after international coach and motivational speaker who has developed her own inspirational method and concept called Succenergy to empower people, entrepreneurs and leaders. 

The method is used in various trainings, coaching, workshops, and lectures presented by her company to companies and public and private organizations in several countries, such as Uganda, Sao Tome and Principe, Cape Verde, Brazil, Portugal, Angola, Rwanda, USA, Swaziland and Mozambique, among others. To date, more than five million people have enjoyed the warmth, motivation and transformational influence of her business, personal development events, lectures, coaching sessions, television and radio programs and appearances, books and public events. 

She has more than 13 years experience in the bank industry and a degree in Economics and a Postgraduate degree in Management Control from Portuguese Catholic University, Certified in Entrepreneurship and Investment Projects by Certform in Portugal, Certified in Mining Projects Financial Evaluation by IETEC - Brazil, and Certified in Business and Entrepreneurship from Notre Dame University/Yali Program. 

Tomé is Academic Award Winner by Portugal-Africa Foundation, Chaired by Former Portugal President Mário Soares, she is also Merit Diploma by Mozambican Presidency and Young African Leader (Yali) by Barack Obama Initiative and Mandela Fellowship. She was honoured as one of the “100 Most Influential People of African Descent (MIPAD) Under 40 in the World”. 

Her work has been embraced by personalities, billionaires, millionaires, state presidents, ministries, ambassadors, and many celebrities and CEOs around the world. 

Connect with Tânia Tomé 

http://www.taniatome.com

Zamokuhle Thwala, is the Co-founder & CEO at AgriCool Finance. He owns start-up that helps smallholder farmers to access the market for their farm produce and also micro-financing opportunities to support crop production.

Through their business, they intend to eradicate exploitation of small holder farmers, improve food quality and empower farmers to improve their profit margins and household income.

Zamokuhle graduated with an Agriculture Engineering degree from the University of KwaZulu-Natal and because of his passion for entrepreneurship and also that he was a small holder farmer while studying, he immediately, after his studies, launched Agrikool as a business that solves some of the challenges that he himself encountered as a farmer. 

Zamokuhle believes in making farming cool and fashionable.

Visit http://agrikool.com or follow Zamokuhle on Linkedin linkedin.com/in/zamokuhle-thwala-021a30176 to learn more.

Waleed Abdou is the Co-Founder & CEO of Airgiftr, a business where an air traveller is matched with a person in Egypt who requires a product from abroad. The traveler is the airgiftr and gets to make some cash when he/she arrives in Egypt. As a traveller or airgiftr, it also just improves your overall travel experience into Egypt. Waleed transformed an idea into an actual viable business.  Visit https://airgiftr.com to learn more about Waleed's business.