Latest content
The Quiet Force Behind African Fintech: Inside the Crossfin Playbook
Colin Iles · 20 Jul 2026
Dean Sparrow and Anton Gaylard on backing founders, surviving the wiGroup crisis, building iKhokha against the banks, and the case for patient capital.
Where Is the Pangolin?
Colin Iles · 3 Apr 2026
You think Google or Microsoft should have built this. They didn't. A small South African startup did.
If You're Under 30, I'll Gently Plead With You
Colin Iles · 20 Jun 2026
Colin Iles on why copying the habits of successful leaders fails, what GLP-1 weight loss taught him about hidden advantages, and why purpose beats ambition.
From Paper Loans to AI Banking
Chijioke Dozie · Co-Founder & CEO, Carbon
Chijioke Dozie on Nigeria's $5bn credit gap, Carbon's 7-minute loans, and how AI is reshaping digital banking in Africa. Full recap and video.
AI Meets the African Bush
Willem Kellerman & Dirk Strauss · Co-founders, Veriphy
Chisl co-founder Willem Kellerman on how Veriphy and Project Gaia used AI drones to census South Africa's biggest reserves, backed by AWS H200 GPUs.
Building Where Incumbents Won't
Alan Knott-Craig · CEO, Fibertime
Alan Knott-Craig on how fibertime reached 415,000 township homes on 5-rand-a-day fibre, why wireless fails, and the REIT model funding a 100-billion-rand mission.
AI Might Save the World, But Only If Humans Get Out of the Way
Colin Iles · 18 Apr 2026
Colin Iles asks whether AI could have saved the Titanic, and why the real risk is not AI getting it wrong but humans ignoring it when it is right.
Inside the $205M Bet on African Tech
Hans Otterling · Founding Partner, Norrsken22
Hans Otterling backed Spotify and Klarna, then turned south. He tells The Backroom why Norrsken22's $205m fund treats Africa as a timing play, not charity.
In 2030, Why I Would Regret Not Asking Better Questions
Colin Iles · 26 Mar 2026
A fictional 2030 memoir by Colin Iles: a law firm partner who adopted AI early, made millions, and still ended up unemployable. Who pays when AI fails people?
Farzam Ehsani on Why VALR Sacrifices Money for Values
Colin Iles · 3 Mar 2026
VALR CEO Farzam Ehsani on building Africa's largest crypto exchange, profitability, USDC minting, stablecoins, and why regulation must catch up to the technology.
Charles Savage on Scaling Easy Equities and Backing ZARU
Colin Iles · 3 Feb 2026
Easy Equities founder Charles Savage on ZARU, the AI accelerant, and building a listed fintech from a nine-cent share price to 1.2 million clients.
Africa Must Bet on Itself: Aboyeji on Building From the Continent
Colin Iles · 11 Dec 2025
Future Africa co-founder Iyinoluwa Aboyeji tells the AWS Founders Series why global capital will not return, why fintech copycats bore him, and what actually builds a unicorn.
GB Agboola on Flutterwave and Africa's Payment Superhighway
Colin Iles · 19 Nov 2025
Flutterwave founder GB Agboola on why Nigeria was the hardest market to start in, the $1bn quarter, and how PAPS and stablecoins could reshape African payments.
How Mounir Nakhla Built MNT-Halan Into Egypt's First Unicorn
Colin Iles · 10 Nov 2025
Mounir Nakhla started by financing tuk-tuks in 2010. Fifteen years on, MNT-Halan has served 8 million customers and disbursed over $15 billion. Here is how he did it.
Melvyn Lubega on Building Africa's First Edtech Unicorn, Go1
Colin Iles · 13 Oct 2025
Go1 co-founder Melvyn Lubega on building Africa's first edtech unicorn from Oxford to Y Combinator, why customer obsession beats Silicon Valley funding, and the discipline of purpose.
Clickatell's Pieter de Villiers on 25 Years From Four Lines of Code
Colin Iles · 8 Sept 2025
Clickatell co-founder Pieter de Villiers on building the world's first SMS gateway from a Cape Town flat, raising from Sequoia, and why he wishes he had taken more risk.
Africa's Tech Growth Needs More Than VCs, It Needs Corporates
Colin Iles · 30 Aug 2025
Colin Iles talks to AfricArena's Christophe Viarnaud about why African corporates, not just VCs, must start funding startups the way Microsoft backed OpenAI.
Vuyo Mpako on Building Old Mutual's Venture Arm, Next176
Colin Iles · 7 Aug 2025
Vuyo Mpako, managing director of Next176, unpacks how Old Mutual's venture arm built an 18-company portfolio and why African corporates should be backing startups.
Africa Doesn't Have a Startup Problem, It Has a Trust Problem
Colin Iles · 26 Jul 2025
Colin Iles on why VCs fund founders they trust, why that favors Ivy League profiles like Zuckerberg and Bezos, and why African corporates must step in.
TymeBank's Tjaart van der Walt on Building a Bank by Design
Colin Iles · 10 Jul 2025
Tyme Group's Tjaart van der Walt on how design, distribution and crazy belief built an 18.2 million customer digital bank across South Africa and Asia.
Leadership in an Exponential Age
Herman Singh · CEO, Future Advisory; former group chief digital officer, MTN
Herman Singh, CEO of Future Advisory and former Chief Digital Officer at MTN and Vodacom, on leading through AI, agentic systems, collapsing hierarchies, and the death of junior roles.
Respect, Power and Accountability with Mteto Nyati
Mteto Nyati · Former CEO of Altron and MTN South Africa, Chairman of Eskom
Mteto Nyati, one of South Africa's most respected leaders, on his journey from a rural trading store to leading IBM, Microsoft, MTN and Altron, and why unchallenged respect hinders progress.
What If Unemployment Could Be a Good Thing?
Colin Iles · 19 May 2025
Colin Iles imagines a 2050s South Korea where AI agents and collapsing fertility rates combine, and asks whether fewer jobs could ever be a good outcome.
Will AI Finally Give Us the 15-Hour Workweek?
Colin Iles · 12 May 2025
Colin Iles revisits Keynes's 1930 prediction of a 15-hour workweek, and asks whether AI and robotics will finally deliver it, or replace work altogether.
Leadership Beyond the Textbook with Lincoln Mali
Lincoln Mali · Group CEO, Lesaka Technologies
Lincoln Mali, CEO of Lesaka Technologies and author of Blazing a Trail, on influence over hierarchy, building cultures of trust, and leading with purpose.
Leading the SABC with Nomsa Chabeli
Nomsa Chabeli · CEO, SABC
SABC CEO Nomsa Chabeli on her journey from marketing to leading one of South Africa's most critical media institutions through digital disruption and transformation.
Lessons From the Edge: A Micro-Entrepreneur's Journey
Colin Iles · 3 Jan 2025
Colin Iles on leaving a senior banking role in 2019, the low point that nearly broke him, and the five lessons that turned FUD into a working business.
The 1% Bet: Are You Afraid to Take It?
Colin Iles · 29 Nov 2024
Colin Iles on Astro Teller's $1 billion at 1% odds question, why corporates always choose safety, and why that's now the riskiest choice of all.
It Has Never Been More Critical to Find Our Niche
Colin Iles · 30 Sept 2024
Colin Iles on why niche businesses like Nerve Money and Nvidia beat generic ones, and why AI makes finding a defensible niche more valuable than ever.
Stop Asking for Feedback. Why It Can Really Hurt
Colin Iles · 30 Jul 2024
Colin Iles on New Coke, the RAC speeding survey, and why Five Guys built a multi-billion-dollar chain by watching behavior instead of asking for opinions.
High Performance Is a Myth in a World of Ordinary Humans
Colin Browne · 16 May 2024
Colin Browne argues the cult of high performance burns out ordinary teams, and that empathy, respect and optimism are what actually unlock great work.
Remove This to Win, But Beware of the Consequences
Colin Iles · 16 May 2024
Colin Iles on why Uber, Netflix and TikTok all won by removing friction, what Klarna's AI assistant proves, and whether a frictionless world costs us jobs.
Will Robots Run Companies?
Colin Iles · 31 Mar 2024
Colin Iles on Dictador's AI CEO Mika, Mustafa Suleyman's forecast for autonomous business execution, and why boards should plan for algorithmic leadership.
Why KPIs Can Kill Companies
Colin Iles · 10 Jan 2024
Colin Iles uses Abraham Wald's WWII bomber armor puzzle to explain how DBS Bank's Paul Cobban found 250 million wasted customer hours hiding in plain sight.
Data Offers Huge Opportunities, But Only If You Trust Your People
Colin Iles · 15 Nov 2023
Colin Iles on why Messi's slow start, Yongqianbao's typing-speed credit model, and TikTok's no-choice interface show data only works if leaders let go.
New Advantages and Opportunities for African Entrepreneurs
Colin Iles · 19 Sept 2023
Colin Iles on Nolwazi's backroom rental business, GG Alcock's Kasinomics, and why South Africa's R50 billion informal sector is a huge opportunity banks miss.
Predict the Future: How Top CEOs Use Data to Stay Ahead
Bill Schmarzo · Data strategy leader, Dell Technologies; former CTO, Dell EMC
Bill Schmarzo, one of the world's top voices on data monetisation and former Dell EMC CTO, on why companies fail to turn data into value and the blueprint for fixing it.
Ethical AI with Kerryn Arnott
Kerryn Arnott · Ethical AI lead, Standard Bank
Standard Bank's ethical AI lead Kerryn Arnott on how companies can embrace AI rapidly and at scale without unintended consequences.
Adapt or Die: What Must Boards Do to Improve Survival Chances?
Colin Iles · 4 Jul 2023
Colin Iles on Chegg's ChatGPT collapse, Jeff Bezos's Day 1 philosophy, and why boards must fight executive hubris before disruption arrives suddenly.
Can Banks and Telcos Partner to Improve Society?
Colin Iles · 28 Apr 2023
Leaders from Vodacom and Standard Bank on whether banks and telcos can, should, and will partner to improve society, the first OneHub Insider Conversation on ESG as a business opportunity.
The Future of Ethical Sourcing
Justin Dillon · Founder and CEO, Freedom (FRDM)
Social entrepreneur Justin Dillon and Standard Bank's digital ESG lead Joel Buatre on why ethical sourcing has become a competitive advantage rather than a cost.
Why Storytelling Is a Powerful Tool in Business
Colin Iles · 17 Apr 2023
Colin Iles on Steve Jobs recruiting John Sculley, why purpose-led firms like TOMS and Unilever outperform the S&P 500, and why for-profits struggle to tell stories.
Business Models Are Changing. Why It's Good for Women
Colin Iles · 8 Mar 2023
Colin Iles on why diversity training hasn't moved the needle for women leaders, and why the shift toward purpose-led business, seen at PepsiCo and Patagonia, will.
The Future of Blockchain with Monica Singer
Prof Monica Singer · Africa Lead, ConsenSys (former CEO, Strate)
Prof Monica Singer shares her vision for the future of blockchain, whether DeFi will disrupt financial services, and how DAOs might change the fabric of corporations.
Inclusive Innovation with Tashmia Ismail
Tashmia Ismail · Founder, Youth Employment Service
Tashmia Ismail, founder of the Youth Employment Service, on what inclusive innovation really means, whether it works, and her own journey through the workplace.
How to Build a Viral Super App
Gour Lentell · Founder, Moya
Moya founder Gour Lentell on building a data-free super app with over 6 million users and hundreds of thousands of new joiners every month.
The Future of Financial Crime
Nic Swingler · Group Head of Financial Crime, Absa
Absa's Group Head of Financial Crime, Nic Swingler, on the true scale of financial crime, why state capture went undetected, and whether crypto helps the banks or the criminals.
The Power of Partnerships with Tauriq Keraan
Tauriq Keraan · CEO, TymeBank
TymeBank CEO Tauriq Keraan on the Pick n Pay partnership, purpose, and how collaboration became the secret to building South Africa's fastest-growing digital bank.
The Future of Banking Is Open?
Andre Hugo · Founder and CEO, Spot Money
Andre Hugo, founder and CEO of Spot Money, on building South Africa's first open banking marketplace and why the big banks could not build it themselves.
Is Self Sovereign Identity Going Exponential?
Andrew Baker · Head of EC2 Engineering, AWS
AWS Head of EC2 Engineering Andrew Baker and a surprise guest from the Sovrin Foundation on whether self sovereign identity can fix digital identity for good.
Behavioural Banking with Hylton Kallner
Hylton Kallner · CEO, Discovery Bank
Discovery Bank CEO Hylton Kallner on how a purpose-led health insurer became one of South Africa's biggest success stories, and why it moved into banking.
How Do You Build a $1.25 Billion Business in a Pandemic?
Alex Bouaziz · Co-founder and CEO, Deel
Deel co-founder Alex Bouaziz on raising over $200 million, reaching 150 countries, and hitting a $1.25 billion valuation in under two years with a fully distributed team.
Is the Traditional Staffing Model Dead?
Dr John Wentzel · Chief Executive Officer, Adcorp Holdings
Adcorp CEO Dr John Wentzel on the gig economy, degree-free hiring, and whether the pandemic is the tipping point that kills the industrial-era staffing model.
Leadership Lessons from Rob Paddock
Rob Paddock · Co-founder, GetSmarter and Valenture Institute
Rob Paddock, co-founder of GetSmarter, on the leadership lessons he learnt building the $100 million online education platform.
Racial Bias in the Workforce
India Martin · Racial Equity Consultant to CEOs and Leadership Teams
India Martin talks to Colin Iles about what companies can, and should, be doing to manage racial bias within the workforce.
Transformation in Banking with Andy Baker
Andrew Baker · CTO, Absa Group
Absa Group CTO Andrew Baker on transforming a big bank's technology, why cloud and open source are reshaping the industry, and why email and PowerPoint are cancerous for organisations.
Why Digital Transformations Fail
Tony Saldanha · Author, Why Digital Transformations Fail
Tony Saldanha, author of Why Digital Transformations Fail, on why 70 percent of transformation programmes go wrong and what leadership can do about it.
How Zaf Mahomed Turned Around Cell C's Balance Sheet
Zaf Mahomed · CFO, Cell C
Zaf Mahomed, CFO of Cell C, on turning around 8.7 billion Rand of debt by shifting the telco from network owner to network renter, on The Inspire Series.