Jonathan Nzali To Be a Successful Entrepreneur in Africa, ‘Wake up Every Day Ready for Change

Jonathan Nzali is the founder and president of JNF Capital Group. He is also the chairman of The Jonathan Nzali Foundation and CEO of JN Financials. He is a single man from the Washington DC area who holds a Ph.D. in Economics & Finance. Jonathan Nzali is an African American young man, serial entrepreneur, philanthropist, avid sports and fitness enthusiast, and extensive world traveler. Jonathan Nzali was born to an immigrant parent originally from Africa. He comes from a large family. As of 2025, Jonathan Nzali is also the writer/author of two nonfiction books: "Jost, My Life” and “For The Love of Thee.” Jonathan Nzali made his money in the financial industry. His ventures through The JNF Capital Group enable young entrepreneurs, minorities, disenfranchised and marginalized groups of people who typically wouldn’t have access to financial markets, as well as anyone else, to access services that will provide them working capital.

2. To Be a Successful Entrepreneur in Africa,
‘Wake up Every Day Ready forChange’

3. Recently, I had the pleasure of conversing with Nigerian custom furniture
mogul IbukunAwosikaduring Wharton’s recent Africa Business Forum that
we both attended. She very kindly had a few words of advice for investors
leery of putting assets in Africa: “Don’t listen to CNN.” The news media are
highly selective in highlighting trouble spots, such as violence in the
Democratic Republic of Congo or the tumultuous reign of Zimbabwean
president Robert Mugabe. Rarely, she said, do Westerners hear of Africa’s
triumphs, such as galloping economic growth (that showed little sign of
slowing until a recent collapse in commodity prices).

4. “Africa … is highly diverse. It is [not] one country. It is 52 different
countries.” She takes to task anyone who still clings to the Western business
stereotypes that dog the continent. Not checking out business opportunities
in such a vast and underdeveloped market is costing those people money,
she and others argued at the forum. “Those markets that CNN tells you are
not the good markets are actually the hidden secret,” said Awosika, general
manager and CEO of The SokoaChair Centre, a privately held furniture
manufacturer with several million dollars a year in revenue. The former
chemist’s implication: Her enterprise serves as an example of the lucrative
deals in African countries that savvy outside investors can encounter, if they
know where to look. Personally, I could not agree more.

5. After centuries of colonialism, and despite bloody civil wars and turmoil in
some of its nations, Africa has the potential to be counted among the
emerging markets poised to offer outsized returns for foreign investment,
according to investors and entrepreneurs at Wharton’s recent Africa
Business Forum. Still, they caution, transitional or ill-defined regulatory
frameworks pose significant downside risk to doing business there.

7. According to Judith McHale, managing partner of the Global Environment
Fund/Africa Growth Fund and a former Discovery Communications chief
executive, the reality of the risk diminishes with the application of due
diligence and thorough market research. “All the dynamics for us showed an
incredible opportunity,” McHale said. Micro-lending programs, of the sort
popularized through the research of Nobel Prize-winning economist
Muhammad Yunus, already address, if not completely satisfy, the low end of
the lending market. This is indeed a sector that my company JN Financial has
dived into and intends to expand exponentially. Sovereign wealth funds and
other large investments are active at the other end of the spectrum. But,
McHale added, there is a critical shortage of investment players in what she
called the “critical middle” —the small and medium-sized businesses that
form the stout foundation of national economies. “We saw an emerging
consumer class wanting quality goods and services. Our model for this is
what happened in the United States in the 1950s.”

8. African business people are quick to point out that the uninitiated can soon
find themselves in over their heads because they lack the ability to respond
quickly to change. Uncertainty is almost a given, they said, although
infrastructure and institutions are becoming more reliable through steady
development and reform.

10. In the developed world, Awosikanoted, “you don’t have to think about
power.” But power outages can cripple her production facilities and threaten
business, so she keeps back-up generators on standby at her factory in
Nigeria. “I have to think about power every day.” Infrastructure issues aren’t
the only hurdle. Changes in government policy, which can happen quickly and
with very little notice, can instantly invalidate a business plan, she said.
Like the time in 2004, when the Nigerian government banned the
importation of furniture, giving practically no notice. Awosikafeared the ban
would destroy her business, which at the time depended on overseas
manufacturers. Her company approached a key supplier, office furniture
maker SOKOA S.A. of France, with the idea of a joint venture to produce
chairs in Nigeria. With an investment of nearly $200 million, the gamble paid
off in about a year. “You’re going to have to be very creative. If you’re an
entrepreneur in Africa, you’re going to wake up every day ready for change.”

11. Shoreline Energy International, an energy holding company, has created a
successful business model of buying the struggling operations of foreign
firms in sub-Saharan Africa and “re-starting those businesses,” said Toks
Abimbola, a partner in the company. He and the other panelists suggested
that cultural differences make Africans better suited than Europeans, Asians
or Americans to navigate the complexities of doing business with locals. “We
know how to manage our people and we know how to manage our
customers.”

12. Sidestepping Corruption
Abimbolaacknowledged a perception that African nations are rife with
corruption, which in turn adds significant inefficiencies to commerce.
“Nigerian businessmen have a reputation for being less than honest,” but
such assertions are “not true.” Nevertheless, he cautioned potential
investors to check out the track record of would-be partners before making
a big commitment. Shoreline Energy, he asserted, is proof that prudent
investment partners can be found in Africa: “You don’t get into [deals] with
Goldman [Sachs] if you’re dodgy,” he said, suggesting that a relationship with
a major Western financial player amounts to a seal of approval. Transparency
International, a corruption watchdog group, observed that at least one form
of corruption across Africa has decreased between 2006 and 2007.
According to the group’s Global Corruption Report 2007, petty bribery
decreased from 47% to 42%. In other words, 42% of respondents reported
having had to pay a bribe to receive a service.