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Zimbabwean mogul and founder of pan-African telecom heavyweight Econet Group Strive Masiyiwa has taken a seat on Netflix’s board of directors, underscoring the Silicon Valley giant’s ambitions on the continent of more than 1 billion people.
Masiyiwa, who fought a murky politics and legal jungle to obtain a license to establish a mobile phone network in the country of his birth in 1998, is the first African to join Netflix’s top decision-making body.
His appointment, which was praised by Netflix President and Co-CEO Reed Hastings, as strategically important, comes at a time when the world’s largest streaming platform is vying for a stronger position in the small but growing market of Netflix. video streaming from Africa.
“His entrepreneurial spirit and vision in building businesses in Africa and beyond will bring valuable knowledge and experience to our board as we work to improve and serve more members around the world,” Hastings said in a statement Thursday.
Masiyiwa brings a wealth of experience from Africa and abroad to Netflix. He is a member of several international boards of directors, including Unilever, National Geographic Society, and Asia Society, and of the global advisory boards of Bank of America, the Council on Foreign Relations in the US, Stanford University, and the Prince of Wales. Trust for Africa. .
He pursued his ambition to create a multinational champion of Africa with his Econet Group, which has operations and investments in 29 countries in Africa and Europe and more than 100 million subscribers.
“Netflix is at the forefront of bringing great entertainment from anywhere in the world to everyone in the world, and I look forward to working with the board and all stakeholders to continue its traditions of innovation and growth,” Masiyiwa said in the statement.
The appointment of Masiyiwa, whose company owns a majority stake in SA’s Liquid Telecom, is in line with Netflix’s stated ambition to gain more subscribers on the mainland, where video streaming remains rare due to slower internet speeds. and poverty.
Netflix, with 195 million customers around the world, has invested heavily in Africa and made efforts to expand its presence on the continent and produce original programming. It has a couple million subscribers in Africa, according to Digital TV Research, a London-based firm.
Consulting firm Accenture Africa estimates that between 5% and 8% of Netflix’s production budget of $ 17 billion (R177 billion) goes to investments in original African shows.
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