At midnight on Thursday, 26 March 2020, the South African government ordered a three-week lockdown in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequently extended this lockdown for a further two weeks until the end of April 2020. Among other measures, businesses not classed as “essential” had to cease operation.1 This meant that Jonathan Robinson, founder of Bean There Coffee Company had to close his trendy Cape Town and Milpark coffee shops, as well as the company’s hospitality and corporate business.

In March 2019, Elena Gaffurini, managing partner of DEV Mozambique (DEV), sat down to evaluate the business. DEV, based in Maputo and launched in 2015, was a consulting and services company supporting entrepreneurial development in Mozambique, by training and supporting small businesses in agricultural-related sectors to improve food security.

In April 2018 the Standard Bank Group opened its first fully-functional branch in Côte d'Ivoire. The bank had exited the country in 2003, when the return of civil war to Cȏte d’Ivoire made it unsafe to conduct business. After political stability returned in 2012, and at the request of its corporate clients, the bank had started a re-entry process in 2013.

For ten years, Gregory Maloka, managing director of Kaya FM, had lived the Afropolitan ethos of Kaya FM. In his career in radio, he had seen the broadcast medium go through several epochs and had never wavered in his resolve to change not only how radio was perceived in South Africa, but also to use it as a tool for social change. Now, at the end of the first quarter of 2018, Maloka was reviewing the station’s results. Sales revenues were down, and listenership figures had not grown as projected.

Khonology Digital Solutions, established in 2013 as a technology service provider with a vision of becoming Africa's leading digital enabler, had been founded by four young Africans around a friendship and value system that went beyond making a profit. It was September 2023 and ten years since Dapo Adeyemo, Africa Nkosi, Mosa Nyamande and Michael Roberts had founded Khonology. In that period, they had come a long way in achieving this vision, but there was still a way to go.

In April 2021, managing director and co-owner Beverley-Anne Joseph, was considering the long-term business strategy options for Zelpy, her hop farm business outside George, a town in the Western Cape, South Africa. As the first black woman hop farmer in Africa, she had run a successful business supplying hops to South African Breweries (SAB), a subsidiary of the global conglomerate Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev).

It was 16 October 2014, and Nonkululeko Gobodo, executive chair of accounting firm SizweNtsalubaGobodo (SNG), was looking to her younger sister, Notemba Dlova, for emotional support, as she sought to address an important issue that was on the agenda of the firm’s board of directors’ meeting the following day. Tensions between her and Victor Sekese, chief executive officer (CEO) of the firm, were mounting, and a number of the directors were unhappy with the status quo. “How do you think I should address the issue?” she asked Dlova.

In November 2019, as TymeBank’s chief executive officer (CEO) Tauriq Keraan watched customers registering to use the new digital bank at its kiosk in the Rosebank store of the South African supermarket chain Pick n Pay, he was excited by the success of the venture, but also concerned about how to ensure its sustainability. TymeBank had become the first fully-branchless, digital bank in South Africa when it opened for business in February 2019.

In July 2019, Nhlanhla Dlamini, the managing director of Maneli Pets based in Johannesburg, South Africa had recently opened an office in Cincinnati in the United States to take over the distribution and marketing of the company’s high-quality protein pet treats. Sitting in his new office, Dlamini contemplated the challenges he had experienced since starting Maneli Pets in 2016, not least of which was parting company with US-based Novel Dog LLC, which had previously marketed and distributed the pet treats.

In April 2022, Ahmed Mujtaba Razzak, director of Montage Interior Solutions, a design, building and construction company based in Mayfair, Johannesburg, was preparing for the official opening of the company’s newly-built Clifton Mall.[1] Ahmed, whose family had immigrated to South Africa from Pakistan in 2004, had big goals for the mall: he wanted it not only to be profitable for his family, but also to help uplift the lives of the shop owners and the member