Strive Masiyiwa

Strive Masiyiwa earns The Pioneer designation the hard way, by building where others saw only obstacles. His years-long legal battle against the Zimbabwean government in the 1990s for the right to operate a private mobile network set the template, perseverance as strategy. Through Econet Wireless he then carried connectivity across Africa when infrastructure was minimal and investors were scarce, proving that first movers can create the very markets sceptics insist do not exist.