New Podcast: An interview with Addis Alemayehou, Founder & Chairman of Ethiopia’s Kazana Group On His Amazing Entrepreneurial Journey in Ethiopia and Kenya
This is an interview that I had yesterday afternoon with Addis Alemayehou, the founder and chairman of Ethiopia’s Kazana Group. The Kazana Group currently has a portfolio of over 13 companies operating in marketing, communications, advertisement, fintech, telecom, manufacturing, logistics, technologies, investment management, and advisory services. Kazana Group’s mission is to promote economic prosperity by supporting companies in Africa to make impactful changes and solve critical problems in the lives of communities around them. Kazana Group also believes in empowering African entrepreneurs as they are principal stakeholders in the impetus towards inclusive growth and development.
Addis has an interesting background in that he actually grew up in Nairobi in Kenya and as a result, even the name ‘kazana’ is actually Kiswahili for ‘striving hard’. Addis moved back to Ethiopia around 21 years ago and was behind launching Ethiopia’s first English language radio station after spending time learning from the late Chris Kirubi and his team at Kenya’s Capital FM. Addis then started a marketing agency and gradually expanded the number of businesses that eventually came to form the Kazana Group. Addis also launched a TV station in Ethiopia thereafter where they dubbed over international content in Amharic that became very successful leading to it being acquired by France’s Canal Plus.
Addis is behind a startup called Mafuta in Kenya that provides loans for fuel to taxi drivers in Kenya where they are currently running a pilot with over 1,000 drivers. Mafuta aims to solve the problem of helping them fuel their cars even when they don’t have cash. At the same time, Addis is this week in Nairobi signing a partnership agreement with Kenya’s Strathmore Business School through his Capital Business School to offer their executive programs in Ethiopia. Going forward, Addis is keen on supporting technology startups in Ethiopia and Kenya with young entrepreneurs and will be raising a multimillion-dollar fund for this purpose later this year. Have a listen to learn more about Addis’ amazing entrepreneurial journey and the state of the digital ecosystem in Ethiopia including the impending launch of Safaricom Ethiopia: https://bit.ly/3HYxw4m
