Ahabwe Collins

__Talking a good game is not enough. I was meeting with one of New York’s most successful bankers, when he quipped, "In my business we don’t rely on intellectual property. There’s nothing we do that’s so special; we’re just damned good managers of businesses!" I could immediately understand what he meant because when, for instance, you stop to think about a business like McDonald’s, you ask "What’s so special about a hamburger?" But somehow out of that humble hamburger they’ve built a $96bn business… a global business bigger than the GDP of Kenya ($70bn)! __They are "just damn good managers of business!" When we launched our Mobile Money business in Zimbabwe, it wasn’t a new idea in Zimbabwe, or in Africa. To be honest, one of our competitors was a year ahead of us, but it really didn’t matter to me. I knew that when we finally launched our own service, it would be bigger and better because "We're good managers of busine...

When you have a country in massive debt, in economic and political disarray, with loss of trust in the government, it’s only a matter of time before a dictatorial leader steps in and gains the support of the people. That’s what happened in 1789 in France, and triggered the French Revolution. Citizens turned against King Louis XVI in protest of the monarchy’s excesses and the debt France had racked up during the American Revolution, catching the elite totally off-guard. Napoleon took advantage of the situation and created a dictatorship, declaring himself “Emperor” and taking charge of the army. Unwittingly, the French public had jumped from the frying pan into the fire. What happened next? Napoleon adopted what’s now famously know as the “Napoleon complex”, proclaiming to make France great again by attacking all France’s international neighbours. The world pushed back, defeating Napoleon in the Battle of Waterloo and exiling him to the remote island of Saint Hel...