The Zimbabwean telecoms tycoon, who lives in London, has become the first black billionaire to break into The Sunday Times Rich List with his wealth estimated to be £1.087 billion.
However, he may be too busy to notice his elevation into the ranks of Britain’s super-rich. He is currently trying to fix one of the planet’s most pressing problems: finding enough vaccines for Africa’s 1.3 billion-strong population.
Masiyiwa, 60, a father of six who also serves on the boards of Netflix and Unilever, is the African Union’s special envoy on the pandemic and recently signed a deal.
Make Strive Masiyiwa fled civil unrest in his homeland at the age of seven and later waged a five-year battle against Robert Mugabe’s regime to launch his business.
Masiyiwa returned to his native Zimbabwe in 1984 after a 17-year absence. After working briefly as a telecoms engineer for the state-owned telephone company, he quit his job and set up his own company with the equivalent of US$75.
Strive Masiyiwa overcame protracted government opposition to launch mobile phone network Econet Wireless Zimbabwe in his country of birth in 1998.
He now owns just over 50% of the publicly-traded Econet Wireless Zimbabwe, which is one part of his larger Econet Group.
The group’s subsidiaries include Econet Mobile Networks Group, Liquid Telecom, Cassava SmarTech, Distributed Power Africa, Vaya Africa and Technites Africa.
Econet Wireless has 2,304 employees and is ranked 5th among its top 10 competitors.
He owns just over 50% of the publicly-traded Econet Wireless Zimbabwe, which is one part of his larger Econet Group.
Masiyiwa also owns just over half of the private company Liquid Telecom, which provides fiber optic and satellite services to telecom firms across Africa.
He and his wife Tsitsi founded the Higherlife Foundation, which supports orphaned and poor children in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Burundi, and Lesotho.