The Business of Africa

What Is The Business of Africa

We help people understand Africa, properly.

Everyone is building Africa's future. The Business of Africa works with the people who decide what that future really looks like.

Most of what is written about Africa is written from the outside. By people who have never lived there, never built there, never navigated its systems, its cultures, or its contradictions.

The Business of Africa exists because that gap is costing people, in bad decisions, missed opportunities, and strategies that collapse on first contact with reality.

We believe change must come from the top down through leadership and institutions, and rise from the bottom up through communities and innovators. Real progress happens where these forces meet in the middle.

We sit at the intersection of both, translating what is actually happening on the ground into intelligence leaders at the top can act on. While taking the vision at the top and connecting it to what is actually possible on the ground.

Human Intelligence

Lived experience and boots-on-ground context, from real people in real places. The kind of intelligence that never shows up in a spreadsheet.

Pattern Recognition

Connecting the dots between the seemingly unconnected, across sectors, systems, and histories, to reveal what is really happening and why.

Legacy Thinking

Focused on what lasts. Generational foundations, not short-term wins. Building for the Africa that comes next, not just the one in front of us.

Glocal Strategy

Building locally with local knowledge, local truth, and local people, so the work is rooted enough to travel globally.

Why Human Intelligence

What we do, only works if the intelligence is real, and in Africa. Most of it is not.

Most intelligence on Africa is written from the outside, built on assumptions, and does not reflect what is actually happening at the level where decisions get made. By the time analysis reaches a boardroom, a brief, or an investment committee, it has already lost contact with reality.

What we bring is different. Lived experience. Rigorous research. Context that only comes from being inside the story, not observing it from a distance. That is the intelligence that changes how leaders think, plan, and act on the continent.

Meet Our Founder

The intelligence behind The Business of Africa.

Mayward Martindale Chief Intelligence Officer and Founder, The Business of Africa

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"Africa does not need saving. It has everything it needs. What is missing is the right thinking, the right intelligence, and the right people in the right rooms. It needs people who understand it well enough to build with it."

Mayward Martindale was born in Sierra Leone. Her formative years saw her raised across Guinea-Conakry, The Gambia, and eventually the UK — four countries, four completely different realities, each one shaping how she sees the continent and the work she does. She has spent her entire career working directly with the people at the top. CEOs, COOs, MDs, and Founders across Africa and its diaspora.

Her career spans education, strategy and management consultancy serving West Africa's most influential private clients and HNWIs, communications and PR for technology startups across Africa, and freelance research and copywriting. People leave a conversation with Mayward feeling seen. She understands what you are building, why you are building it, and where the missing pieces are — often before you have found the words yourself.

She has never stopped supporting people to build. Finding the missing links. Seeing what leaders could not always see themselves. Everything she has built, studied, and learned points in one direction. The Business of Africa. And the work of building it right.

She is currently based in Cairo, Egypt.

"The Business of Africa is built on a glocal principle. Build from where you are, with what you have, for others beyond your borders. Deep local roots, strong global reach and let the quality of the work do the travelling."

Worked With

Urbanime Foot Locker EU The Brixton Topcats All Things Africa

Here is how we work with you.

Whether you need to understand a market, brief a leader, make a high-stakes decision, or shift how your organisation thinks about Africa, there is a way to work with The Business of Africa that fits where you are.

Intelligence Briefings

High-level briefings on Africa's markets, leadership, and opportunities. Focused, intimate, and built for people who need to understand Africa quickly and deeply.

Strategic Advisory

Private advisory for leaders, founders, and investors making high-stakes decisions about or within African markets. Retainer-based. Discreet. Built around your specific context.

Leadership and Team Development

Training built on servant-leadership principles and the philosophy that high-performing organisations are teams, not families. Delivered across all levels, from senior executives and private office staff to mid-level managers and frontline teams.

Intelligence Content

Long-form YouTube analysis and Substack intelligence editions, building the case for Africa's potential one argument at a time. Free and accessible to all.

Intelligence Reports

Sector-specific intelligence for organisations that need more than statistics. They need the context, the history, and a clear view of what is actually happening on the ground.

Brand Partnerships

Strategic partnerships with organisations whose work genuinely aligns with Africa's development, where The Business of Africa's credibility and audience can amplify what matters.

Make an Enquiry

Who We Serve

If you make decisions about Africa, this is for you.

World Leaders and Government

Leaders and institutions making policy decisions that shape Africa's direction and its place in the world.

Founders and Entrepreneurs

Builders operating in or entering African markets who need real intelligence to make real decisions.

Investors and HNWIs

High-value decision makers who cannot afford to misread the continent or rely on surface-level analysis.

Institutions and NGOs

Organisations whose work on the continent depends on genuine understanding, not assumptions or outdated data.

The Business of Africa.

We help people understand Africa, properly.

What we do, only works if the intelligence is real, and in Africa. Most of it is not.

The intelligence behind The Business of Africa.

Here is how we work with you.

If you make decisions about Africa, this is for you.

We are at a critical point in time.

The right intelligence changes everything.