Chris Bishop has been a journalist for 35 years and has travelled Africa for the last 22. He has interviewed almost every leader in sub Saharan Africa including Mandela, Mugabe, Kaunda, Chissano and Zuma. Aside from this, he has reported from the war in Angola and the Congo; along with trouble spots in Zimbabwe Zambia and Mozambique. Bishop was appointed as the founding editor of Forbes Africa, in May 2011, and launched the magazine four months later. He won the Sanlam Award for excellence in financial journalism in 2011 and the Pica Editor of the Year award in 2013. In 1987, he won the Sir David Beattie Award for excellence in journalism for his investigation into assassination attempt on the Queen. Bishop began his career in newspapers in England and worked for many years at the BBC, Sky Television , SABC, CNBC Africa and TVNZ. He is married with two children and lives in Johannesburg.
From $20 to $300 million. Ramachandran Ottapathu arrived in Botswana with $20 to march across Africa to become a retail king. Ottapathu is the head of Choppies, Botswana’s biggest retailer, with a turnover in 2015 of $533 million. Today, Choppies runs 170 stores across Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe.
Herman Mashaba started out as a travelling crockery salesman. Limited by the Group Areas Act he saw a gap in business and created Black Like Me, the only black hair care company in the country. From selling his products from the boot of his car, his personal wealth now sits at $100 million. A remarkable way to come from a small village called Hammanskraal in Gauteng.
