#13: Investing in African women, detrimental copy-and-paste approach, curl classification - Lelemba Phiri
What is Africa’s biggest treasure? It’s women! In this episode, we are joined by Lelemba Phiri, as she sheds light on glaring gaps in investment allocation and shares her thoughts on how best to fuel the potential of African women.
Lelemba Phiri is an award winning educator, writer, keynote speaker and gender-lens angel investor. She is the Principal at the Africa Trust Group that takes a holistic approach to investing in women by investing in both the woman entrepreneur and the enterprise. Lelemba is also the Operating Partner for the US-based Enygma Ventures Fund, focused on investing in women entrepreneurs.
Moreover, she is also a shareholder and the current board chair for Zoona Zambia, an African mobile payments business and a shareholder at Africa Trust Academy, a coaching and consulting company focused on leadership and entrepreneurship development and financial literacy. Lelemba is based in Cape Town, South Africa.
From being a cog in the corporate machine to making impactful waves
Lelemba built her career across a span of various industries and firm sizes. She tells us more about how the urge to pursue more a more impactful path, led her to leave the corporate world, and venture into the startup space. From there, she began angel investing and eventually transitioned into building a venture capital fund. Her understanding of both the worlds of startups and investment, provides a bridge for women entrepreneurs in Africa, as she strives to lower access-barriers to finance.
African women are the backbone of the small-enterprise economy
The African continent boasts the highest rates of female entrepreneurs worldwide. Yet research suggests that women-led businesses in Africa receive a disproportionally small share of the venture capital pie. Gender lens investing has thus become a strategic approach to closing the investment gap and promoting economic equity. Lelemba explains how the lack of female capital allocators is part of the reason why female entrepreneurs remain underrepresented. Diversity and representation matters across the board. More women in leadership positions, controlling the flows of capital, are likely to invest in more female-led ventures.
“Money is being left on the table because you just don’t have diversity at the capital allocation table.”
Investment vs. aid
We speak about the sustainability and efficacy of aid. Lelemba points out that foreign aid donations can and should only ever serve as temporary relief and must be coupled with long term approaches to building the economic landscape of African countries. She stresses business as the solution to long-term development, and the importance of ensuring that women entrepreneurs play active roles in their respective economies.
“We definitely need more women in business because they tend to think about success and business and economics in a more sustainable way.”