Success in Africa: CEO Insights from a Continent on the Rise

CHAPTER 2

At the Dawn

At last we all speak the same language, and operate from the same assumptions.

Sam Jonah, CEO, AngloGold Ashanti (1986–2004)

Even most growth countries, they’re coming to that leveling off point. Not Africa.

Graham Mackay, CEO, SABMiller (1999–2012)

Few images convey Africa’s turnaround as powerfully as two covers of The Economist, separated by eleven years and depicted in figure 2–1.

In 2000, the editors of the Economist saw in Africa a continent in a spiral of violence and despair. As the Economist’s editors described it in their lead editorial, “Mozambique and Madagascar have been deluged by floods, famine has started to reappear in Ethiopia, Zimbabwe has succumbed to government-sponsored thuggery, and poverty and ...