Episode 129 - Cultivating a Faith Stronger Than Fear with Strive Masiyiwa
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If you joined us for the Faith Driven Entrepreneur conference, you’re in for a treat. This is the full interview with Strive Masiyiwa, Founder and Executive Chairman of the Econet, and one of Africa’s most respected business leaders. In this episode, Strive speaks about Africa’s role within the global marketplace. He also shares how faith has empowered him to operate in the world without fear and how other entrepreneurs can go bravely into the spheres God called them.
If you weren’t there for the live event, you can still access the conference recordings here. Check out more from Faith Driven Entrepreneur Africa at africa.faithdrivenentrepreneur.org.
All opinions expressed on this podcast, including the team and guests, are solely their opinions. Host and guests may maintain positions in the companies and securities discussed. This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as specific investment advice for any individual or organization.
Episode Transcript
Transcription is done by an AI software. While technology is an incredible tool to automate this process, there will be misspellings and typos that might accompany it. Please keep that in mind as you work through it.
Henry Kaestner: Welcome back to the Faith Driven Entrepreneur Africa podcast. I'm here, as always, with Ndidi. Ndidi, good morning.
Ndidi Nwuneli: Good morning. Great to be here.
Henry Kaestner: I am so fired up about today. We've got a really dynamic and very, very successful man of God who has an incredible story and you know it infinitely more than I. But tell us a little bit about why you're excited about our special guest today.
Ndidi Nwuneli: Well Strive Masiyiwa is recognized within Africa and around the world as one of our leaders in the business sector in Africa. He's Zimbabwean started as a young entrepreneurs built multiple businesses in telecoms, in financial services, in construction and is also recognized as a philanthropist. He's been the chair of many, many boards, including AGRA. He serves on the board of the Rockefeller Foundation, most recently joined the board of the Gates Foundation, this pioneer board. And he is just absolutely brilliant. He's also recognized philanthropist. His wife and him have started the Higher Life Foundation, which serves millions of young people across Africa, and he's recognized as a speaker. I mean, he has the biggest social media following. And I know Henry was a bit envious when we look at the number of people who follow him on Facebook, on Instagram, millions of young people who draw inspiration from his life and his walk with God. And he's so authentic when he shares his life stories on all of these platforms. So I'm really excited to hear what he has to share with us today about his walk with God, about his business, about his role as a father and his role as a philanthropist.
Henry Kaestner: Indeed, one of the things that I'm really excited about today is that we infrequently have so many from the world of telecom, and that's my background. It's how God has blessed me and I'm grateful for it. But telecom is not always the most interesting thing. But when you look at somebody like Strive, it becomes incredibly interesting. And yes, because of the size and scale of what he's done with Econet Wireless all across the continent, but also the way he's taken on just different power structures like even Mugabe and presidents. Right. You've seen a guy who's fearless on behalf of the marketplace and fairness, and what an inspiration. Strive. I'm so grateful that you spent the time to join us today, and I'm looking forward to our audience hearing from you. Before we get started, give us an overview, a bigger perspective, if you will, for Africa.
Strive Masiyiwa: Well, let me just give you something people don't often hear about Africa. Let me show you Africa as an entrepreneur, as I see Africa. Africa is a continent of 1.3 billion people. It has a GDP of $2.5 trillion. It is almost twice the size of the GDP of Russia. It is the same GDP size as India. It is a huge economy. We trade with the world at 500 billion a year. We receive less than 20 billion in aid, and most of that goes to less than a dozen countries. So Africa is a real place. It's a real economy. Okay. There are people building businesses in Africa, the continental businesses that are huge businesses. We have them. We have companies in Africa that make jet aircraft. We have nuclear power stations in South Africa. So, you know, today 60% of the world's young people are African. By the turn of the century, 40% of the world's population will be Africans. You know, so Africa is a fundamental part of the global economy. And what Africa needs today is people who think of it in terms of an economy, a vibrant place of entrepreneurs. Yes, we have our challenges of poverty and injustices. We have wars in some places. But hey, there's a war in Europe right now, and they've been trying to stop wars for a long time. Okay. But I can tell you that we've never had an African country invade an African country, even though we have a lot of challenges over borders. We've never, ever seen an African army cross the border to another African country. Not in my lifetime. Okay. We don't allow that. Do we like where our borders are? No, we don't. So there's an Africa. We want you to engage with the Africa of Africa's entrepreneurs. The Africa. We have more Christians than the population of the United States. Okay. We have more Christians than America. And we have bigger churches than America. So come. Come see that Africa.
Ndidi Nwuneli: Right. Thank you so much, sir. And I have followed you for many years. Met you a few times. And obviously I consider your wife, my friend and mentor. And I've met your amazing children. And when I think about your walk with God, there are a number of things that strike me. One is how you've been able to almost enter the lion's den in many countries with a fearless spirit motivated by your faith, but also by your vision and passion. And in sectors like telecoms and ICT that are highly regulated. How have you navigated that from a faith lens and in the business world?
Strive Masiyiwa: Well, you know, I've taught my children I have five daughters and one son. And I have told them that prayer occupies when you have fear, push it out with prayer. When you have doubt, push it out with prayer. So we should never have fear. We should be wise. But we should never have fear. So I never think in terms of the lion's den or anything like that because that just would be wrong. I am the lion. It's not the other way around. I have never found a place on the earth where I cannot tread. The other side should be the one that fears you. Okay, so sometimes we forget who we are. Okay. So I've never been in that place where I had to fear somebody. It only meant, perhaps, that I hadn't prayed sufficiently.
Ndidi Nwuneli: I love that. I love that it pushing away fear. And in your context, you've clearly stared fear right in the face and then the lion. And can you just speak to specific context? You've written widely about your Niger experience, about your Zimbabwe experience. When the team was doing research on, you know, the the man who sued Mugabe came up as one of the taglines, but taking on ethics and integrity and taking on some of very difficult issues around corruption. How have you navigated that and what strategies and additions of prayer and courage and boldness have been utilized?
Strive Masiyiwa: Sure. Look, these are things that have gone on in the past. I think that for any young believer who happens to be an entrepreneur or for that matter, it really doesn't matter what walk of life you're in. Never approach it as the opportunity knocks once. The Angel of God is always at the door. All you have to do is open the door. So you should never feel that you cannot walk away, that you have to somehow compromise because you'll never have another opportunity. That is not correct. So if the fundamental doctrine that you hold. That comes out of the Word of God and the word of God is the full body of the Bible. You see, when I study the Bible, I have no New and I have no Old Testament. I have the Bible. You see, you will never understand Genesis chapter one if you don't understand Revelation chapter 22. It's impossible. You will never understand the Gospels if you don't understand the Epistles. You will not understand the Book of Joel if you don't understand John's baptism, you know? So these are all fundamentally intertwined. And when you engage with it, you never have to deal with fear.
Henry Kaestner: I'm so grateful that you said that. I was about to ask you if there are specific passages that helped informed the faith that you have that you've found most applicable. And maybe you might answer that if indeed you feel that that's helpful. But I think that the greater lesson is the totality of Scripture, the entire narrative. And I think that a lot of us in the Faith Driven Entrepreneur world might be guilty of having 20 or 30 verses that kind of like drive us. And they seem to have direct application to what we're doing. And they are and they are good. And there are things like the parable of the talents in the parable, the sower, etc. But you are offering up and I agree with you that any one of those taken by themselves, you're just seeing it in black and white, that you need to see it in the totality of scripture, and then that really brings it alive. Is that indeed what you're saying? And or with that understanding of a holistic view of God's word? Are there different passages or lessons that you found most applicable to you in your life?
Strive Masiyiwa: No, it has to be the totality. If you've been a Christian for at least five years and you can read if you haven't read for yourself the entire Bible you are missing a lot the path to maturity is to know the entire body of the Bible. And Jesus himself said that the prophets were writing about me. They were writing about him. Okay. So Moses was writing about Jesus. That is the core. And you have to study the Bible and look for him. Look for him in Moses. Look for him in Abraham. Look for him in Joshua. Understand that whole body and everything opens up. So I never say, Look, I have a particular passage of scripture. No, I love the whole body of the Bible. Faith is defined almost scientifically in the Bible. As you know, I've never seen anything that comes to that level of definition as faith. It is also extraordinarily simple to understand how you get faith. You don't get faith by being a Christian. You get faith by being a Christian who meditates on God's Word, who spends time with God's word, who dedicates themselves to God's word. I spend roughly 2 hours a day studying the Scriptures.
Henry Kaestner: Wow.
Strive Masiyiwa: That is what I have done for over 25 years now.
Henry Kaestner: Wow.
Henry Kaestner: How did that start? So 25 years is a long time. But has faith always been a part of your life? Is it something that's always been part of your business life? Or did something happen where you said, this is the thing that's going to be the most important thing for my life and help drive my business?
Strive Masiyiwa: No, I don't I don't look at it from the perspective of to drive my business. It is about to drive my life. You know, so when I was, I guess about 33 years old, 32, something like that. I'm now 61. I wasn't a man who believed particularly strongly in God. I'd never voluntarily ever gone to a church, and neither did I ever read the Bible. But when I was about 32, I had my encounter with the Lord. And from that day on, I picked up the Bible and I read it for the first time. It took me about 2 to 3 weeks, something like that, to go from Genesis to Revelations using the NIV. And I never put it down during most of that time. And so, you know, that's my personal journey. So it guides my mindset. How I approach things. And what I pursued and how I go about pursuing it.
Henry Kaestner: What guides you during your time in Scripture? 2 hours is a long, long time. Do you have a systematic way of reading through the Bible? Tell us a little bit more about your discipline on that.
Strive Masiyiwa: The way I read a book, start Genesis Chapter one and read through it, and I try to do that at least once a year. But then I have particular things that I study that I'm going through in a particular period, and I write extensive notes on everything that I read today. For instance, I was on a wonderful time. I was studying Ephesians chapter two, verse 15 in the Amplified Bible. That was it for 2 hours Ephesians chapter two, verse 15, in the Amplified. It's a fascinating verse because it talks about the fact that Jesus annulled the law. Okay. So for you to understand why he annulled the law, it goes to the very core of the doctrine of the cross. What happened at the cross. So I would engage in something like that. I will go and look at what others have said and written about it, and I look at the different translations. I'll even go and look at what the Greek witness said about it. Try and just engage in such a fundamental passage.
Ndidi Nwuneli: Amazing. I love it. You know, as I reflect, I'm listening to you, a lot of young people in our continent and you have a heart for young people look to you as a role model, but many of them are getting disillusioned by the church. I don't know if you've experienced that, but it's something I'm seeing in my own network, especially the successful and intellectual Africans who are questioning the role of the church in Africa. What would you say to that?
Strive Masiyiwa: Well, I would be naturally very disappointed, but we are not in the church because we want to follow a particular pastor or a particular evangelist. It is about the word of God. Okay. If you are engaged in the word of God and for some reason you become disappointed because something happens somewhere, it doesn't change your calculus. You find the church, but it's not about being in a church per say. It's about your personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Someone says that disappointed in the church, are you saying, you're disappointed with God. You know, that's a that's a pretty interesting place to be. So the key thing is to have like a calculus.
Ndidi Nwuneli: And in terms of finding role models like you who are men of God, reflect Christ and also an inspiration to the next generation. How do we create that ecosystem of apostles in the marketplace, especially in environments where the line between honesty, integrity and hard work is often blurred with a get rich quick mentality?
Strive Masiyiwa: Well, first of all, we must avoid creating terminologies that are not in the Word of God. There is no word in the Word of God which says Apostle in the marketplace. We are not called to the marketplace. We are called to take the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world. That's what we are called to do. See, I'm not called to be a business man. I'm not called to be an entrepreneur. Not called to be an architect. There's only one calling, which is the great commission. Okay. That's why the word of God tells us that preach the gospel in season and out of season, wherever you are. Okay. I could have had a great conversation with you about anything, really. We could have talked about telecommunications or cryptocurrencies or blockchain, whatever you want. But here we are. We've got a Christian audience. Okay. Preach the gospel. Saint Francis of Assisi said, you know, preach the gospel. But if you must use words. Okay. So sometimes I don't use words, but.
Henry Kaestner: But you use words a lot and it's unbelievable. So we're all in big trouble if our identity is tied into how many people go to Faith Driven Entrepreneur groups or how many people listen to this podcast, or how many people go to a Facebook page or LinkedIn page. And lest I think that we have a Facebook post or more appropriately maybe for us or LinkedIn post it as widely read. I then look at the posts that you make and you will get 450,000 likes when you use words and walk people through a framework on how to think about scaling a business. So, you know, I go for instance, right now that's something I've been reading, which is the three S's that you have where you talk about scaling a business. Can you walk us through that a bit about how you are able to take some of the lessons that you've learned in business, steep them in Scripture, and then share them through constructs like this with the three part series that you have on scaling your business.
Strive Masiyiwa: Sure. So I explained to people that you don't overspiritualize these things. These things are fairly straightforward how you scale a business. And I've built a multibillion dollar business that's. It's fairly straightforward. I teach of the three P's. And I say, First, you got to have a product. Okay, what's the product? And it's got to be a product that somebody is willing to pay for. Okay you kind of run around with the product that no one's going to pay for? Okay. You got to have some sort of revenue model around the product. Now, after you have a product, you must have people, okay? Particularly if you are the one who started who invented something. Okay. You got to have good people. That's the second P is the people. And the third P is process. You've got to understand the process. Okay. Because we scale through process, understanding IT systems, understanding payroll systems, and, you know, all those are processes and then the people coming together around a product to scale. So now I noticed that I don't have an M in there. I don't have an M for money because it's in people. It's the skills you see raising money for a business. It's just a skill. It's one of the core skills. Okay, so I gave an example. I said, you know, when I was scaling my telecom's business, I realized that my skills for raising money were not sufficient, even though at the time I had been an entrepreneur for nearly ten years, but I had never had to go out and raise 20, 30, 50 million at a time. So I went out to find somebody. My CFO was a Christian brother and he was a banker, and he was about to start his own business as a banker. And I said, Listen, why don't you join me and be a co-founder with me? You understand money? You know how to negotiate with banks. I've never done that before. Not at this level. So I did it with people. It was the other P. It's the P for people. So you pull in the people. You pull in the people and those people. In this case, he happened to be a Christian. It doesn't have to be as long as you had common values. You have values of integrity and you can work with people. So you open up your business to the second P and the three are in come mesh. So there's no even if you're building a church. Okay. There are many great evangelists who never or pastors who don't build big churches. All they have to think about is my three Ps. They don't have to think about the product because the product is Jesus, and that's the best product in the world. Okay, but if you don't have good people, you want to know the Bible says about this. Go and see what Jethro said to Moses. The whole management philosophy of how you run a big organization was laid out by Jethro to Moses three or 4000 years ago. He said, Look, Moses, you got to learn to delegate. You got to find the right people. You've got to delegate. You've got to allow them room to operate. You've got to give them good policies as the leader. Okay. They've got to have a clear vision of where you want to go. We didn't invent. Delegation was done by Moses and Jethro because Moses couldn't organize himself. He had just been out there as a shepherd. But Jethro laid it out for him, says Moses. how it's done. Otherwise you'll tire yourself. Okay. So if you're tired, if you're a pastor or you're an entrepreneur and you're always tired at the end of the day because you don't know how to delegate. You don't know how to find the right people to delegate to and trust them to get the job done.
Henry Kaestner: I'm reflecting on that framework and the principle of delegation. And I'm also thinking about how you've been so generous, not just on our podcast, but in a way that you've been able to pour into a younger generation. Again, when you have that many followers on Facebook, you're clearly reaching a younger generation to help instill some of these principles and are providing them some level of mentorship, some leadership. And I know a bit that you've looked to some leadership yourself over time, and I know that Andrew Young, for instance, is a mentor. Can you speak a little bit about the roles of mentors that you've seen in your life and how you think about that playing out in the marketplace or just in life?
Strive Masiyiwa: Well, you know, what is core in mentorship for all of us, you know, is don't approach it like you're in a cafeteria, you know, trying to pick fish or chicken. What shall I eat today? You know, what is important, first and foremost, is you must be anchored in the core doctrine of Christ, because people, even great people, can fall over sometime. Okay. And you'll find yourself out and see. But you are going to have people on your journey, okay? And some people will come in almost like actors on a stage because you've got stage fright. Okay. And some are there for the journey of life. Andrew Young turned 90 this weekend. We celebrated him at 90. I met him when I was, I guess about. 35, 36, something like that. And he asked me to help with something which required me to stop, to spend time away from my business and travel with him. Speaking to young people across Africa for an American funded venture capital fund. Young entrepreneurs. I was one myself, but I was considered successful. So the money wasn't for me. It was to help him get this money out there. We traveled a lot and one day, you know, I was sitting with him on a plane and I reached out into my jacket and I pulled out my little Bible because we didn't have computers in those days. And he said, You know, that I trained in the seminary. I'm reverend Andrew Young. And he says, I haven't had a young man pull out a Bible like this. So what are you reading? So we went through it and that became the anchor of our relationship, you know, literally for the 30 plus years. We have a chat about what's going on in Africa. He says where are you in the word of God. And I love that. And he loves it, too. So you need people like that.
Ndidi Nwuneli: I love that story. And, you know, one of the things I think when I think of you is you give your time, your talents and treasure. And giving has been a core value of yours through the Higher Life Foundation, but through so many other initiatives. How do you inspire the next generation to give as well as you mentor them?
Strive Masiyiwa: You know, when I started my business was 1986. That was when the HIV pandemic broke out. We didn't know what it was. I run a construction company, and every week I was burying somebody. We didn't know what this disease was, but I noticed that being in the construction industry, a lot of my low income workers were leaving young children. And. I couldn't just bury them. And leave the children. So I started a program. To pay for the school fees of the children. I wasn't married when I got married a couple of years later. I told my wife about this. She was fascinated that I had a program where I funded about a hundred children. To go to school, just paid their school fees every term. And she said, you know, she wanted to get involved in it and she'd actually like to run it. I said, Fine, you know, so that's a good deal. Should I get the money? You run it. Let's expand it. So here we are, kind of, I don't know, 25, 30 years later, we call it the Higher Life Foundation because God has blessed us along the way. We could expand that. We are sent to schools some 250,000 kids in that time. We have thousands of graduates at all levels. We have kids even in the United States at the moment. At any given time, we have about 50 or 60 kids in the US. It's a great system, it's a great education system. And particularly when we have very bright kids, we can partner with the universities. So we've partnered with universities like Morehouse College, Yale University and New York and so forth to send our kids there. So the greatest philanthropy is education. You know, when all else fails, you want to be a philanthropist one. You don't believe that. You have to wait until you're a billionaire before you're a philanthropist. That's a misnomer. I'm not a Christian philanthropist. You start today. And as I've always said, I don't give in order to have. It is the other way around. I have in order to give and that is scripture. If you go to I believe it must be two Corinthians chapter, nine verse about nine and ten, somebody correct me. It lays out why you would have to have seed in your hands so that you are never left in a position that you can't help. But then we narrow where we want to help. Africa is an amazing mission field to help. Everywhere we turn, we have an opportunity. What an opportunity we have. The opportunity to be able to be a vessel to help others. So if my business exists, let it exist for that. Not the other way around.
Ndidi Nwuneli: I love that. I have two other questions. I'll just ask them quickly. One is, I once heard Elizabeth tell a story, one of your daughters, about her birthday. I think she was seven. She asked for a big birthday party unless she got to the venue. It was all children. She didn't recognize children from motherless babies homes that have been invited to this party. And that was her early introduction into philanthropy and giving. And I just think you and this is am have a phenomenal philosophy on how you engage your children in your faith, but also in your work. Can you speak to that? So as our listeners think about raising children who love God, who love humanity, who serve God, who serve humanity. How have you been deliberate about that?
Strive Masiyiwa: Now, thank you so much. You know, my wife, when she was running the program, she used to meet all the kids every single year. We couldn't do it now because it's just too many kids. But she there was a time when business was very small and she used to organize these events where she'd call them history maker events, where the children were brought together at a college forum to spend a week with her. And she wanted then to reach out and to believe that they could be history makers, that one day they would be President Roosevelt. Okay. That a disability or a parent missing or anything like that does not stop you becoming what you set out to do. it was on these occasions. And she was there, and there were a group of nuns there. And they came and they said, Mrs. Masiyiwa, you know, we have a two year old here. And my wife said, but, you know, we said the kids should be a lot older. They said, well, this little boy, we brought him for you, and she just took him and brought him home. And he's our son. And you know, some of my daughters love their brother, who's about six foot three, you know, eats all the food here. But it was so important for them. And these are barriers we must break through all of us, because people say they don't want to adopt. So we adopted in order to break that. No, no, you adopt. He was just we took him there. You know, that's my son. And so our kids, we taught them, for instance, that Christmas is not about gifts for you. It's about a gift for somebody else. So you give them each money and you say, go out and buy a gift for somebody else, and you'll only get a gift when you have a gift to give. So they zip through their little gifts. Okay. And they look at this. Sisters and brother in the hope that, you know, you really remembered me because I remember you, you know, and these are little principles, but they're core to how you break through to the ability to get.
Ndidi Nwuneli: Thank you so much for that. That's so powerful. My last question is, what is God telling you about Africa and Africa's future? What is the word that is placed in your heart for such a time like this?
Strive Masiyiwa: Well, first of all, you must always have a perspective of history. Okay. Because we can see events around us and believe that this is only us. Since the age of the church. When the Holy Spirit arrived at Pentecost, there have been many pandemics, sometimes wiping out half populations. So because we have seen a pandemic today, we mustn't behave as though this is it is the end of the world. I'm sorry. It isn't. It's the same with war and conflict. But what is important is to be always relevant. Relevant! Okay. There are no moral equivalence. You can't say, hey, why are you caring about Ukraine? You didn't care about Ethiopia? No, we always. We care about everybody. I am fasting today. I just broke my fast. Okay. I am fasting over the conflict in Ethiopia and I am fasting over the invasion of Ukraine. Because this is the most powerful thing I ever do, which is to respond to an issue from a spiritual perspective. So once I positioned myself like that, I'm saying, God use me. I fasted and fasted over the pandemic. And then I took a call from the president of South Africa one day says, I'm putting you in charge of Africa's response to this pandemic. Okay. I knew I could do it because of where you start, how you position yourself. But don't expect that you're going to be used because, you know, you just really don't care about it. You're you can't afford to miss a meal. You know, we should be deeply concerned. So as Africa is part of the world. It is part of the world. It's not an exotic place. It is part of the entire world community. So it's not about having a prophetic message. I am not a prophet. I leave that to those who sit in that ministry. But we have challenges. We have to address them and we address them through the next generation as much as the present.
Ndidi Nwuneli: That was phenomenal. Positioning yourself to hear from God to the use of God. Thank you. Thank you for inspiring us today. Thank you for your work. Thank you for your faith. And thank you for being a shining light and a hope for my generation. Henry, do you want to close us out?
Henry Kaestner: Strive I'm just very grateful. I think that one of the things that Ndidi and I had wanted to do through this podcast, which bridges some number of folks from the West who have followed our other programs in the past is to give them a re-imagined vision of the opportunities in Africa. And we have a sense of that. You know, clearly you've been able to show through your leadership about thriving business, but you've left us with something far greater, which is just the spiritual underpinnings of an economy and a culture that's focused on God. And I'm just grateful for the fact that you spend time with us. You've got lots and lots of folks that look to you for inspiration, encouragement, and I'm grateful for you to being able to do that with our very small audience. And our hope is that God will use that. Thank you for having blessed me and all of us.