They are part of our ranking of the 100 essential African personalities of 2020: they are telephony players, who have been able to reinvent their profession by riding the wave of the continent's digital development.

But where have they gone? No trace this year of the representatives of the web economy. The founders of Jumia and other African leaders from Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft (Gafam) are giving way this year to a telecom industry that manages to imagine services and take advantage of the possibilities offered by the mobile phone and bandwidth.

The powerful african tech companies therefore remain the bosses of the major traditional telecommunications groups. Among them, the emblematic Rob Shuter who is living his last months at the head of a recovered MTN that he will leave in March 2021.

Determined to establish itself as the most African of the continent's digital service operators, the group brandishes its secret weapon: proximity by local languages offered on a chat tool that aims to be the only entry to a myriad of services (mobile money, banking-insurance, entertainment, etc.).

Hassanein Hiridjee, newcomer

Alongside Alioune Ndiaye (Orange Africa and Middle East) who has just launched Orange Bank in Africa, or Mike Adenuga, boss of Nigerian Globacom in search of international expansion, Hassanein Hiridjee joins the club of 100 influential on the continent. It must be said that the boss of the diversified conglomerate Axian (finance, telecoms, real estate, energy) has not ceased to be talked about in recent months.

In addition to the percentage he holds in Free in Senegal, he is also present in Togo where he acquired at the end of 2019 the incumbent operator, Togocom, which he wants to transform into a sub-Saharan showcase for his group.

Because the one who is essential in the Indian Ocean where he controls the operator Telma in Madagascar and the Comoros, as well as Telecom Réunion-Mayotte, does not want to stop there. Axian has applied to acquire a private telecom operator license in Ethiopia.

Only woman in the category, Rebecca Enonchong

Jacobus Petrus, known as "Koos" Bekker shares this same spirit of conquest. Although he is now more erased in the activity of the South African giant Naspers, he remains president of a diversified group whose subsidiary Prosus is valued at more than $ 100 billion on the Amsterdam Stock Exchange.

A success that Naspers owes to this 67-year-old man who in 2001, sniffed the potential of the Chinese behemoth of internet and mobile services of Tencent by acquiring 46.5% of the shares of the young company. This poker move allows Naspers to have a stake of $ 130 billion in the Chinese conglomerate.

The only woman to appear in this category, Cameroonian Rebecca Enonchong, does not derive her influence from her financial firepower but rather from her media hyperactivity coupled with an activism in favor of the digital transformation of small and medium-sized enterprises on the continent.

Discreet about the activities of AppsTech, his company established in forty countries and specialized in business management software for VSEs and SMEs, this fiftieth anniversary remains a voice that counts and motivates many young entrepreneurs on the continent. Enough to ensure him a place in our 2020 ranking.

* Robert Shuter, CEO of MTN (South Africa)

Rob Shuter, Managing Director of MTN at the 2019 South African Investment Conference in 2019. © MTN Group/Twitter/2019.

In March, Rob Shuter thought he could calmly start his last year as boss of the South African group MTN. Thanks to its arrival in 2017 from Vodafone, the continent's largest mobile operator by number of customers had ended its dispute with the Nigerian authorities by paying a record fine of $ 1.5 billion, but also improved its profitability and announced its refocusing on its core business.

A restructuring with financial overtones that did not surprise the one who, after starting his career in audit at Deloitte, then held leading positions at Standard Bank and Nedbank. But it was written that Rob Shuter's time within MTN, a leader as discreet as he was effective, would be marked by exceptional events.

In the wake of the coronavirus crisis, this hiking fan has made the decision to reduce his group's investments by 20% this year. In this way, he preserves his ability to invest in Ethiopia if he manages to obtain a license there. A file whose outcome he is not sure to see before the date of his departure, scheduled for March.

* Rebecca Enonchong, founder of AppsTech (Cameroon)

Cameroonian Rebecca Enonchong. © Patrick Nelle for JA

It is as an entrepreneur that Rebecca Enonchong, 53, has made a name for herself in the global tech ecosystem. But the aura of the founder of AppsTech (provider of management software) has since gone beyond the boundaries of tech.

In Cameroon, this native of the English-speaking Northwest is also one of the voices in the fight against social injustices. In 2017, she carried the mobilization #BringBackOurInternet at arm's length, after the government cut off internet access in the Anglophone regions in the grip of a major socio-political crisis.

Since then, Rebecca Enonchong has not hesitated to use her growing audience (more than 105,000 followers on Twitter) to denounce injustices in her country. ActiveSpaces, the start-up incubator it launched in Cameroon, continues to expand its network. In July, the young company opened a new branch in the west of the country.

* Hassanein Hiridjee, boss of the Axian group (Madagascar)

Hassanein Hiridjee © Eric Lefeuvre

If he was already among the 100 most influential Africans in 2019, Hassanein Hiridjee, 44, is making strong progress this year thanks to a very rich news. The Axian family group, which he has led since 2015, launched a 5G mobile phone network in Madagascar at the end of June, reinforcing its status as a national leader in telecommunications.

It is also active in this sector in Senegal and Togo, eventually betting on a continental concentration of mobile operators. Present in banking, distribution, real estate and agribusiness, Axian is also active in the energy sector, with large electrification projects in Uganda and Mali.

At the end of 2019, the group also opened nextA in Antananarivo, a start-up incubator inspired by the Station F, in Paris, of billionaire Xavier Niel.

* Apollinaire Compaoré, CEO of the Planor Africa group (Burkina Faso)

Apollinaire Compaoré © Jacques Torregano for JA

Despite an eventful 2020 due to the health crisis, the influential boss of the Planor Africa group reaffirms his intention to continue his investments in telecoms and banking. More than 55 billion CFA francs (84 million euros), half of which will be released this year, are needed to renew the 4G license of Telecel Faso, which is preparing to launch Telecel Money, its mobile banking service.

In neighboring Mali, Apollinaire Compaoré intends to invest nearly 150 billion CFA francs to develop Télécel Mali, which has reached the milestone of one million subscribers. This sum will also be used to open two banking subsidiaries. The sexagenarian, also boss of Burkinabe bosses, is also studying the option of launching Wendkuni Bank International outside the country's borders. According to our information, Mali and Côte d'Ivoire are in particular in his line of sight.

* Mike Adenuga, President of Globacom (Nigeria)

Mike Adenuga, founder of Globacom. © Jacques Witt/SIPA

Eternal challenger of Aliko Dangote, Michael Adeniyi Agbolade Ishola Adenuga Jr is a billionaire and Nigerian, like his rival, and has built most of his fortune in the oil sector, especially with his exploration company Conoil. At 67, he also reigns over Nigeria's second largest mobile operator, Globacom.

A graduate of Pace University in New York, this father of seven children occupied at the beginning of 2020 the third place in the ranking of African billionaires, behind the irremovable Aliko Dangote and Naguib Sawiris, with a fortune estimated at $ 7.7 billion according to Forbes.

* Alioune Ndiaye, Orange Africa Director (Senegal)

Alioune Ndiaye, CEO of Orange Africa, in Paris, in 2018 © François Grivelet for JA

In January, Senegalese Alioune Ndiaye proudly inaugurated Orange's new Africa headquarters (which he has managed since 2018) in Casablanca. long at the head of the Senegalese subsidiary of the Sonatel group, to achieve the financial objectives set by its CEO, Stéphane Richard.

By 2025, Orange aims to achieve 20% of its turnover in Africa. To achieve this, Alioune Ndiaye will launch Orange Bank in Côte d'Ivoire at the end of the year, before targeting other WAEMU countries.

Above all, it will try to obtain a license in Ethiopia, a country of more than 100 million inhabitants – which has decided to open the telecom sector to competition – and to enter another major market: South Africa, Nigeria or, why not, Algeria. These projects could be financed through the IPO of the holding company, which brings together all the operator's African operations.

* Koos Bekker, CEO of Naspers (South Africa)

Born in Potchefstroom in 1952, Koos Bekker is at the head of a fortune estimated at $ 2.3 billion. After starting his career in advertising, he founded with some young colleagues M-Net, one of the first two pay-TV services in South Africa.

In 1997, he became the CEO of the Naspers media group and set up a very special remuneration system: he received no salary, bonuses or benefits, receiving only stock options. In fifteen years, Naspers' market capitalization has grown from about $1.2 billion to... $45 billion.