Lelemba Phiri is the Principal at Africa Trust Group - the fund manager for the R100m US-based Enygma Ventures fund for Southern Africa. Enygma Ventures is the first VC focused on investing in women entrepreneurs in Southern Africa (SADC). She is a gender-lens angel investor and award winning educator.
With more than 16 years of work experience across 8 sub-Saharan countries which included scaling a startup across several African markets, Lelemba is committed to investing in the growth and development of women leaders and entrepreneurs across the continent.
As an entrepreneur, Lelemba was a key part of successfully growing Zoona, a Fintech startup from one operating market to three, raising over $25m in financing. The business created over 5000 jobs across Zambia, Malawi and Mozambique with over $2bn transacted through their mobile payment platform.
Lelemba holds a Masters Degree in Development Finance with distinction from UCT GSB. She is a UK Certified Chartered Accountant (FCCA) and also holds a BSc in Applied Accounting (Hon) from the Oxford Brookes University (UK). She is currently a PhD Candidate at Gordons Institute of
Business Science. She is also a wife and mother to two teenage boys.
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Africa Trust Group
Principal
Lelemba Phiri is an award-winning educator, writer, keynote speaker and gender-lens angel investor. She is the Principal at Africa Trust Group - the Southern Africa fund manager for the R100m US-based Enygma Ventures fund. Enygma Ventures is the first VC focused on investing in women entrepreneurs in Southern Africa (SADC). They take a holistic approach to invest in women by investing in both the woman entrepreneur and the enterprise; and facilitating their access to markets and critical business tools.
The Zambian born Angel investor is a wife and mother of two teenage boys. Her passion is with women leadership and entrepreneurship development in Africa and has committed her life’s work to advance equality and empowerment for women.
Lelemba is the Principal at Africa Trust Group - the Southern Africa fund manager for the R100m US-based Enygma Ventures fund. Enygma Ventures is the first VC focused on investing in women entrepreneurs in Southern Africa (SADC). They take a holistic approach to invest in women by investing in both the woman entrepreneur and the enterprise; and facilitating their access to markets and critical business tools.
Prior to her entrepreneurial journey, Lelemba has worked 15 years with various organizations across various African & Sub-Saharan countries. Her work experience includes heading key functions such as marketing, training and development and finance in multi-nationals. She has also provided leadership and personal development training at various organizations including lecturing and keynotes at Universities such as University of Cape Town, University of Cambridge, Oxford University, Rhodes University, University of Zambia and University of the Free State.
Lelemba holds a Masters Degree in Development Finance with distinction from the University of Cape Town’s Graduate School of Business. She is a UK Certified Chartered Accountant (FCCA) and also holds a Bachelor of Science in Applied Accounting (Hon) from the Oxford Brookes University (UK). She has also received extensive personal and business development training from various world-renowned experts such as Dr John Demartini, Roger Hamilton and Robert Kiyosaki including training on organizational effectiveness and staff development experts from Vital Smarts.
Some other achievements:
- Awarded Top 5 most influential marketers in the world by World Marketing Congress
- Named one of 50 change-makers advancing gender equality in South Africa by Treeshake in 2018.
- She is a 2016 Cordes Fellow
- Named as one of African’s most influential women in business and government in 2014 by CEO Magazine.
- Received a Zambian Woman of the Year Award.
- Awarded the Rising Star Award for 2010 at the Mwape Peer Awards in Washington DC
Startup Circles
CEO
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Zero1 Creations
CEO & Founder
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Sandras is the founder of Startupcircles.ai He is an expert on entrepreneurship and innovation. He has founded successful companies in IT, entertainment and startup education. He has worked with over 25 organisations, lectured at over 17 universities and been to 22 countries.
He is the director for Startup Grind Cape Town and the director of entrepreneurship development at Africa Trust Group, the fund manager for Enygma Ventures.
Sandras has a degree in Computer Science and an MBA from UCT. He has been taught by teachers such as Dr John Demartini, Roger Hamilton and Tony Robbins. He has spoken on the same stage with Facebook and Asana co-founder Dustin Maskovitch, Youtube co-founder Steve Chen, Guy Kawasaki, Steve Blank and Clayton Christensen.
He has worked in banking, mobile payments, unit trusts, IT and education. He has been named one of the 15 tech people to follow in 2018 and 2019. He has been featured on CNBC Africa and SABC 3 and has been a mentor on SABC 1 TV programme Making Moves.
Brian Mulambo is the CEO & Founder of Zero1 Creations, a marketing and branding business that aims to accelerate digital transformation in small and medium sized businesses in South Africa while creating jobs for freelancing designers. He’s a self-taught graphic designer and social media marketing strategist with over 2 years of experience in the marketing and branding field. He works with a team of 5 people who are committed to producing top quality content while changing lives.
Brian is a student at the University of Cape Town, doing his second year and he’s studying Bcom Financial Accounting: CA stream. He’s a Dell Young Leaders Scholarship holder and a Deloitte bursary holder, He’s a member of the Golden Key Society and the Deputy Head Student at Clarinus Village. He’s a Marketing Director in one of the biggest student societies – InvestSoc at UCT.
Brian is one of the Co-Directors of Startup Grind Cape Town and he’s working with Sandras Phiri the CEO & Founder of Africa Trust Academy a coaching and consulting firm and Director of Startup Grind South Africa.
Brian has worked with some of the best companies in South Africa such as Startup Grind Cape Town, Primestars Marketing, Akro Capital, Amazon Web Services, 3M South Africa, The voice TV, Tshwane TV, Africa Trust Academy and a lot of Societies at the University of Cape Town. He’s been featured on Jozi FM, Kaya FM, Soshanguve Community Radio, Kasie FM, CliffCentral and Radio 2000. Brian has organized more than 25 events to date and has managed teams ranging from 5-35 members all of which resulted in remarkable success.His business made it to the Top 100 Startup Istanbul start-ups to join the program after being selected out of 137,783 Startup applications from 150+ countries to join the Startup Istanbul Program on 18-21 October in Istanbul, Turkey & has recently been nominated for best student Startup of the year in the Global Southern Africa Startup Awards. His business also made it to the Top 5 Finalists student entrepreneurs in Cape Town and also Top 5 in the Global Southern Africa Startup Awards.
His journey started in 2014, when he won the Step Up To A Startup Young Entrepreneurs Connect Project where he won the young entrepreneurs of the year award. He ventured into business and has made great success thus far.
