African business leaders make use of social media to communicate with and mentor their followers, dropping pearls of wisdom in under 140 characters.
Twitter is becoming a popular short-message platform in which to connect with the masses, and some of the top businessmen and women in Africa tweet out to thousands of followers around the globe.
From South Africa to Nigeria, the high profile personalities and multi-millionaires from Africa offer their opinions on many issues while advancing their own agendas through social media.
Here are 12 African business leaders who are worth following on Twitter.
Kenyan businessman Chris Kirubi is very active on Twitter, discussing matters with his 528,000 plus followers on the platform. The media mogul, who is one of the richest people on the continent, often uses hashtags like #AskKirubi to chat with followers.
The Executive Chairman and Founder of the Econet Group has close to 100,000 followers on Twitter, and he has been an active member of the social media site since January 2012. Masiyiwa often comments on African business while publicising news about his business interests.
One of the continent’s most influential entrepreneurs, Elumelu is a Nigerian business tycoon and philanthropist with over 242,000 followers on Twitter. He is currently chairman of Heirs Holdings and the founder of the Tony Elumelu Foundation.
Collymore became the governance director for Africa at Vodafone and Kenyan subsidiary Safaricom in 2006. In 2010 he was appointed the Chief Executive Officer of Safaricom, and he uses Twitter to communicate with his 711,000 plus followers.
Egyptian investor and politician Sawiris has an incredible Twitter following of over 2.8 million people. In 2011 he turned his focus to politics, but before that he was executive chairman of telecommunications giants Wind Telecom and Orascom Telecom Holding.
South African venture capitalist and former First National Bank Chief Executive Jordaan is another of the African business leaders who uses Twitter as a tool to express his opinion on a variety of issues and interact with over 120,000 people who follow him on the social media network.
Daredevil investor, entrepreneur and philanthropist Thakkar is followed by a whopping 1 million Twitter followers, and is very active online. He is the founder of Mara Group, a Pan-African conglomerate with interests in internet, telecom and communications, property, manufacturing and finance.
The Kenyan CEO of Bidco Oil Refineries, the largest manufacturer of edible oils in the East African region, uses his Twitter account to share inspirational quotes from philosophers and business leaders with over 60,000 followers.
Over 239,000 people on Twitter follow Nigerian billionaire and richest man in Africa, Aliko Dangote. The owner of the Dangote Group joined Twitter in 2013, and while he may not be as active as some of the others on this list, he often uses the platform to push philanthropic causes.
Over 291,000 followers on Twitter interact with Dewji, the CEO of Tanzania’s METL, a conglomerate with interests in manufacturing and distribution. He often tweets business success quotes and links to stories about African business.
Zimbabwean entrepreneur and publisher Ncube is an avid user of Twitter, with over 63,000 followers receiving his opinions and retweets on their Twitter feeds. He now lives in South Africa but publishes newspapers in both South Africa and Zimbabwe.
Mengi is the founder of IPP Group, Tanzania’s largest media conglomerate. While most of his tweets are in Swahili, he is one of the African business leaders who generates a great deal of buzz through his 820,000 followers on Twitter.