Here Are The 4 Zimbabweans Who Made The 2018 Forbes Africa Under 30 List

Year after year, Forbes features some of the brightest young leaders, entrepreneurs and billionaires under the 30 Under 30 list across various continents. The Forbes Africa is a regional publication of the publication comprising a single list of 90 of Africas most promising entrepreneurs under the age of 30, split into three categories: Creative, Business and Technology. On coming up with the list, Forbes says;

We put in months of rigorous research, sifting through over 600 nominations, vetting them for weeks, verifying and investigating them. We favored entrepreneurs with fresh ideas and took into account their business size, revenue, location, potential, struggles, social impact, and resilience. A panel of judges then debated the final 90. You may not know many of their names now and they may not be richest people in Africa, but they could be the billionaires of tomorrow gracing our future covers.

According to the financial publication, the list was released after very careful selection and scrutiny. This year, over 90 people make the Forbes Africa 2018 list spanning across Business, Technology, and Creatives.

As such, 4 Zimbabweans make up this year’s List. Here are the Zimbabweans;

Samuelle Dimairho, 27, Zimbabwe

Samuelle is a co-founder of a couple of companies such as Chengetedzai Depository Company and Auro group Limited and of Aura Group. Chengetedzai Depository Company is the most well-known and perhaps the most successful of the two. Zimbabwe’s first central securities depository for the capital markets with securities’ deposits that have peaked at over $7 billion and trade settlement now in excess of $2 billion. The company had $1.5 million in revenue last year.

He is also the founder of Aura Group, a management consulting, technology and business process outsourcing services company expected to turn over $2 million this year.

Nomvula Mhambi, 29

Nomvula is a seasoned entrepreneur with runs many business ventures. She registered a catering and events management company at age 19. She was later invited to work on a concert that featured Akon and Sean Paul. A year later, she was called to assist with artiste logistics for a concert that hosted Ciara, Phat Joe, Lil’ Kim and DJ Scratch. At age 22, her company was contracted by DStv Zimbabwe to host their Big Brother events. She saw a gap in the advertising industry and founded Disruptive Innovation, a full-service media communications and advertising social enterprise.

For the first two years of the business, many doors were shut in her face. When she was close to giving up, she was selected for the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) where she won a $25,000 grant towards her restroom advertising pilot project.

Mhambi has partnered with local municipalities, renovating dilapidated public toilets, and charging people for use. This revenue is used to maintain the sites, assist schools in need of sanitation hardware and help clients get their product to their consumers.

Mhambi also runs a hair and nail lounge and is also into agriculture, growing button and oyster mushrooms, which she supplies to a majority of Zimbabwe’s supermarkets and restaurants producing over 1,000 punnets per week. She employs 25 full-time and 12 part-time staff.

Gilbert Eugene Peters, 29

Peters started out buying and selling satellite dishes to his community in Harare. Through word of mouth, this business grew until he employed two people. Together, they installed over 2,000 satellite dishes. All this before he was 19 years old. The demand waned and Peters went into formal employment as a graphic designer.

At 21, armed with $300, he registered Spidex Media with the hope of addressing the need for faster advertising and design services in 24 hours. His girlfriend at the time, now his wife, provided her entire $160 salary from working as an ice cream shop attendant to rent office space. The investment paid off.

Today, Spidex has offices in Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Zambia. It’s one of the largest advertising companies in Zimbabwe with a majority market share in the financial sector handling brand portfolios worth over $870 million. He has won 12 business and entrepreneurship awards in Zimbabwe, a businessman of the year award at just 25 years old, and employs 55 people.

Simba Mubvuma, 26

Mubvuma co-founded Lexware Inc., a tech company based in Zimbabwe growing as a leader in innovative technological solutions for the legal profession in Africa. The idea of the company began in 2014 when he and a university friend created a program called Lex Mobile, which allowed law students to access court judgments and legislation from smartphones without the need for the internet.

Today, Lexware focuses on increasing efficiency in legal systems, placing its clients as market leaders in the various countries in which it operates. Over the past two years, the company has worked with over 50 young freelance developers, creating opportunities for them to utilize their skills in software development. They have done business with many prestigious law firms around the continent.

Congratulations!!!