Strive Masiyiwa

In January 2020 he paid for Zimbabwe's doctor's to return to work after they struck to get paid. Masiyiwa will pay each doctor a subsistence allowance of about $300 (£230) and provide them with transport to work, through a fund he set up. Most of the doctors on strike were earning less than $100 a month.

Upon the cholera outbreak which happened in Zimbabwe in 2019,Strive Masiyiwa together with his wife donated a total of US$10m to fight against the disease. Moreover, he pledged US$60m to be used to build resiliance against the disease.

In 2017, Fortune Magazine named Strive Masiyiwa number 33 in the World's Greatest Leaders list for 2017 along with Elon Musk and LeBron James.

He is married to Tsitsi, they have six children, and live in London, England. Masiyiwa owns two adjacent apartments atop the 29-storey Eldorado Tower at 300 Central Park in New York City, bought for US$24.5 million in 2016.

In 2015, Forbes Magazine named Masiyiwa in the 10 Most Powerful Men in Africa list for 2015.

In 2015, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) awarded Masiyiwa the Freedom Award. The award is given annually to an individual who makes an extraordinary contribution towards supporting refugees and championing the causes of liberty, individual freedom, and dignity.

At the UN Global Leadership, 2015 awards dinner in New York City; The Africa Against Ebola Campaign was recognised for their humanitarian contributions and outstanding work in response to the Ebola epidemic. Chairman of the Trust, Masiyiwa accepted the award on behalf the Africa Against Ebola Solidarity Trust.

In 2014, Fortune Magazine named Masiwa one of the 50 most influential business leaders in the world.

In September 2014, the Chair of the African Union (AU), Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, asked Masiyiwa to help mobilise resources for Africa's response to the EBOLA outbreak. This was the first time The AU had asked a business leader to undertake such a role. Masiyiwa, with the help of other leaders, set up the first ever Pan African fund raising campaign known as #AfricaAgainstEbola Solidarity Fund.

He recently took over, from former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, the chairmanship of AGRA, an organisation that supports Africa's smallholder farmers. In 2013, he was appointed co-chair of Grow Africa, the investment forum for Africa's agriculture, which has helped mobilise over US$15 billion in investments for African agriculture.

In 2012, President Barack Obama invited Masiyiwa and four other business leaders to attend the 38th G8 summit at Camp David to address them on strategies on how to increase food production and end poverty in parts of Africa.

In 2003, a CNN Time magazine poll named Masiyiwa as one of the most influential business leaders in the world.

They sent him to private school in Edinburgh, Scotland. When he graduated in 1978, he traveled back to Zimbabwe, intending to join the anti-government guerilla forces there. "One of the senior officers told me 'Look, we're about to win anyway, and what we really need is people like you to help rebuild the country'" (Time , 2 December 2002). Masiyiwa took the man's advice and returned to school in Britain, earning a degree in Electrical Engineering from University of Wales in 1983. He worked briefly in the computer industry in Cambridge, England, but soon returned to Zimbabwe in 1984, hoping to aid the country's recovery after the war of independence it had won in 1980.

In March 2000, fleeing persecution from the local authorities, Masiyiwa left Zimbabwe, never to return to the country, and moved first to South Africa, where he founded The Econet Wireless Group, a new and completely separate organisation to the listed Zimbabwean entity.

In 1998, the World Junior Chamber of Commerce named Masiwa one of the "10 most outstanding young leaders of the world", an accolade previously bestowed to John Kennedy.

Masiyiwa appealed to the Constitutional Court of Zimbabwe, on the basis that the refusal constituted a violation of "freedom of expression". The Zimbabwean court, then one of the most respected on the continent, ruled in his favour after a five-year legal battle, which took him to the brink of bankruptcy. The ruling, which led to the removal of the state monopoly in telecommunications, is regarded as one of the key milestones in opening the African telecommunications sector to private capital. The company's first cellphone subscriber was connected to the new network in 1998.

Masiyiwa listed Econet Wireless Zimbabwe in July 1998 on the local stock exchange as a gesture of thanks to reward the thousands of ordinary people who supported him during his long legal battles against the Zimbabwean government. Today, Econet Wireless Zimbabwe has gone on to become a major business that dominates the Zimbabwe economy. It is currently the second-largest company in Zimbabwe by market capitalisation.

Strive 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. In five years, he had emerged as one of the country's leading industrialists, having built a large electrical engineering business. The emergence of mobile cellular telephony led him to diversify into telecoms, but he soon ran into major problems when the Zimbabwean government of Robert Mugabe refused to give him a license to operate his business, known as Econet Wireless.

Strive Masiyiwa (born 29 January 1961) is a London-based Zimbabwean billionaire businessman, and philanthropist. He is the founder and executive chairman of the telecommunications, technology and renewable energy company Econet Global.

Strive Masiyiwa was born in Zimbabwe on 29 January 1961. He attended primary school in Zambia before completing his secondary education in Scotland. When he was seven, his family fled the country as Ian Smith's embattled government began to crumble. The family settled in Kitwe, a city in north central Zambia known for its copper mines. Masiyiwa's mother was an entrepreneur. His father worked at first in one of the nearby mines but later joined the family business. By the time Masiyiwa was 12 years old, his parents could afford to provide him with a coveted European education.