Three from SA, four from Kenya among 2017 Young Global Leaders

By Alec Hogg

The weighty expectations that accompany being recognised as prodigy make it a double edged sword. Ask any school’s Head Prefect. But that won’t stop us trying to picking future winners.

In this quest, the World Economic Forum has done better than most with Jack Ma (Alibaba.com), Larry Page (Google) and Matteo Renzi (Italian PM) having graduated from its Young Global Leaders programme. So its annual list of the world’s 100 most promising people under 40, is eagerly anticipated.

Leader of South Africa’s Democratic Alliance (DA) Mmusi Maimane. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko

This year’s class has three South Africans, headed by the Leader of the Opposition, the DA’s Mmusi Maimane. The others are Anglo American’s SA Operations head Billy Mawasha and the JSE’s FD Aarti Takoordeen, who follows in the footsteps of her CEO, former YGL Nicky Newton-King.

One small disappointment, though is that in number terms SA is behind Kenya which provided four of this year’s 13 new YGLs from Sub Saharan Africa. Among the Kenyans is Jesse Moore, the Oxford-educated co-founder of M-KOPA, a Nairobi company that offers credit to low-income earners to buy their own solar power systems (deposit: $30). Dare we hope for a similarly revolutionary disruptor among SA’s 2018 nominees?

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