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Brunswick Review The Leadership Issue
HARDY PEMHIWA
CAROL ROOS
Partner, Chicago
Published
21 April 2022
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* Technology, Media & Telecoms
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ON CASSAVA TECHNOLOGIES AND AFRICA.
Cassava Technologies owns and operates “Africa’s digital railroad,” the only
broadband network that extends across the continent. Thirty years in the
building, Cassava’s network and its unique digital solutions are driving
commerce and elevating quality of life across the continent. President and CEO
Hardy Pemhiwa, a more than 20-year telecommunications veteran in Africa, talks
with Brunswick Partner Carol Roos, about the potential for Cassava Technologies
to help transform the continent.
In your recent Fortune interview, you said, "For people who have capital to
deploy, Africa is ready." What's the argument for investing in Africa?
India has 1.4 billion people. Africa has 1.3 billion people. India's GDP is
around $3 trillion. Africa's GDP is around $3 trillion. Yet look at the level of
investment that has gone into India versus Africa. When you look at the size of
Africa, at the pivot to democracy across the continent, at the literate young
population, at the voracious appetite for new technologies, at the need for
healthcare—I don’t mean to sound disrespectful, but I think it would be foolish
for any business leader not to be taking a hard look at Africa, and asking, "Why
am I not here?"
By 2050, 90 cities in Africa will have more than a million people. In terms of
the world’s mega cities—those with more than 10 million people—six are going to
be in Africa by 2050. And 17 others will have more than five million people
living in them. There will be a strong need to serve that young urban
population. Right now our median age is 19. In 2050, it will be below 25.
That's why I say to anybody with dollars to deploy, Africa is ready.
Does the Russian invasion of Ukraine have implications for Africa? For Cassava?
Any time you hear of war, you know that innocent people are the ones who will
suffer. And it’s particularly tragic given the peace dividends going back to the
Second World War are there for everybody to see. I would dare say some of the
progress in our industry, the tech industry, may not have been possible if we
had not had such a long period where spending could be redirected to productive
sectors rather than to any kind of military effort.
That’s at a global level. From an African standpoint, the impact is likely to be
one of awareness. Africa is constantly competing for attention. On a good, calm
day, Africa needs to shout a few decibels higher than others in order to be
noticed, particularly around the area of investment. Any kind of noise that
distracts the rest of the world moves Africa even further down the agenda, which
is unfortunate.
In terms of Cassava Technologies specifically, we will continue to do what we
have always done. We can't wait for perfect conditions to continue to deliver on
our vision of a digitally connected future that leaves no African behind. We
started our journey when conditions were far from perfect. For any business
leader, dealing with volatility, uncertainty and complexity is a daily thing
now.
Hardy Pemhiwa is President and CEO of Cassava Technologies.
For investors, what kind of opportunity does Cassava Technologies
represent?
Cassava Technologies is unique in the ecosystem that we have built. We are
Africa's digital railroad. We own more than 100,000 kilometers, more than 62,000
miles, of fiber network, from Cape Town to Cairo, and all across Africa. That’s
crucial, because when you talk about digital transformation, fiber broadband
networks really provide the kind of digital infrastructure that you need to
drive it.
Because Africa has lots of challenges with reliable power, we are developing
solar renewable energy solutions for ourselves—and also for our enterprise
customers, who on average suffer anywhere from an hour to as much as 12 hours a
day of power outage, which requires them to have decent generators.
We also have data centers that are across the African continent as a way of
bringing cloud services closer to the users. So, a fiber network, energy
solutions and data centers—those three form the digital infrastructure
underpinning that you really can't do without, and that people in other parts of
the world in Europe or in North America take for granted because of the last 60
to 70 years of investment. So now that our platform has been fully invested and
fully built, we are starting to build the digital services that transform lives.
The key for us is to keep driving down the cost of data. On average, Africans
pay anywhere from 8% to 15% of their monthly income at a family level for one
gigabyte of data. I mean that compares to anywhere from 1% to 3% from North
America, Europe and Asia. So that ecosystem that we have built provides various
touchpoints for anybody who would like to partner with us to reach consumers and
businesses.
Crossing that many borders must have required diplomatic skills.
We have the consummate strategist, visionary, and diplomat in our executive
chairman, Strive Masiyiwa. I remember 15 years ago when we started to build this
network, one particular investor said, "Look, your chairman is a great
evangelist for technology in Africa--but this whole thing of building fiber from
Cape Town to Cairo is one of those pipe dreams that are good for the
newspapers."
I'm glad to say that I did meet that same gentleman three years ago, and
apparently he didn’t remember what he’d said 15 years ago. Because now he said,
“This is the most amazing story that I've ever heard. Why didn't the big
telecoms do this?" I didn’t remind him of what he’d said earlier. I just said,
"We are Africans. We live here. We work here. We keenly understand what the
continent needs. And the challenges we have to surmount. And we know that we
just have to keep going."
What would you say about Cassava to investors who want their capital to achieve
social as well as financial returns?
I would say we don't make a distinction. We have built our business from the
ground-up for social impact. Just think about what universal and affordable
access to telecommunications or internet access has done on the African
continent. By some estimates from the World Bank and the African Development
Bank, you can add 2% to 3% to the GDP of a country just by providing universal,
affordable access to the internet.
Other studies out there show tremendous impact, particularly for women and
mothers, from gaining a smartphone in their hand. Access to technology has a
direct correlation to an increase in the family's GDP.
Can you talk a little bit about fintech and payments? It's such a foreign
concept for people outside of Africa that there’s this huge unbanked population
who haven’t been able to send and receive money.
You’ve got 500 to 600 million Africans with no access to formal banking
services. In 2011, we were one of the pioneers of mobile money, which is really
a basic SMS service with a trust account in between.
Essentially, somebody walks to an agent and gives that agent let's say $10. And
they get an SMS back that says, "Now you've got $10 in your mobile money
account." And now they can send an SMS to another person in another part of the
country in that network. And that person with that SMS code walks to an agent
where they collect the $10. After starting off person to person, this became
person to merchant, merchant to person. Soon enough, the government realized,
"Here's a quick way for us to collect taxes."
Today, we've got our clients who pay school fees with mobile money. We’ve got
thousands of schools that sit on our platform that receive school fees from
members of the family that are either in the diaspora or in the cities. Now, the
tuition cannot be misused, because it's going directly to the school accounts
that sit on the mobile money platform.
A mother can go to a doctor, and the daughter who is working in the city can
send the money directly to the doctor during the consultation. So the mother
doesn't have an opportunity to start thinking, "With this $5, it’s actually more
important for me to buy a meal for tonight." You now have businesspeople who
transact $1,000 a day, but if you mention going to the bank, they will look at
you like, "Why would I ever go there? I mean to do what?"
Personally, I don't remember the last time that I paid a plumber or an
electrician with anything but mobile money. It’s incredible to see what this has
done in terms of just bringing people into the formal economic system.
Is technology spurring entrepreneurialism in Africa?
In Africa, it’s not whether or not to be entrepreneurial. It's at what age do
you start?
You’re talking about children figuring out a way to make a dollar. You’re
talking about women across Africa who wake up every morning and set up stores
and marketplaces to sell vegetables and other produce. The entrepreneurial
spirit is alive and well, driven by a highly informalized sector. And the lack
of formal employment. We just don’t have formal employment opportunities across
the continent. Employment is really created at an individual level.
In Africa, there’s the story of the gazelle and the lion. When the gazelle wakes
up, it has to outrun the fastest lion. And in Africa, when the lion wakes up, it
has to outrun the slowest gazelle. In Africa, you wake up and you just run.
How would you summarize the story of Cassava Technologies?
If you go back to 1993, only 5% of Africans had access to a telephone. Today,
85% of Africans have a mobile phone or access to a mobile phone. And our
beginnings are really from that age, when our founder and chairman in fact
challenged the government monopoly of the day in one of the countries on the
basis that communication is a basic human right.
It couldn’t be that a state functionary sitting in an office could just tell you
that you can't have a telephone. That’s where we started from. It has always
been a journey of inclusion. Everything that we have built has always been
around this digitally connected future that leaves no African behind.
We totally believe in the power of telecommunications and technology to
democratize access to opportunity. A young kid going to school in the rural
areas with access to technology all of a sudden has similar opportunities to
somebody that is in a big city.
Similarly, in terms of access to primary health care, the doctor-to-patient
ratio in Africa is very low. But now, a clinic in the rural areas run by a nurse
can dial up a doctor, put them on a video link, and essentially have a
consultation.
Are there instances in your daily life where you see first-hand evidence of
progress?
A member of our staff went to see their grandmother, and the sister of this
young woman had gone overseas for education, and the grandmother hadn't spoken
to her in maybe eight years, since she left. The sibling was able to call up the
sister, give the phone to the grandmother, and say, "Speak to your
granddaughter." And the grandmother was just ecstatic. Enriching the life of a
grandmother is the kind of impact we will never put in any reports.
--
Brunswick Partner, and member of the firm’s Chicago office, Carol Roos has
advised clients on issues critical to their reputation, from Chicago, San
Francisco and Johannesburg.
Illustration by David Plunkert; photograph courtesy of Cassava Technologies;
chart by Peter Hoey.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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