Business
Seven African Entrepreneurs Who inspire Innovation
Lydie Hakizimana
The Survivor
A compilation of inspirational African entrepreneurs would be incomplete without mentioning Rwanda’s Lydie Hakizimana. In 2006 Hakizimana leveraged her passion for reading into a reputable bookshop. Following the phenomenal market response Hakizimana and her husband, Tunga Hakizimana expanded the venture into a company, Drakkar Limited, and started developing relationships with publishers. Their big break came when they successfully negotiated a deal to become the exclusive distributors for Pearson Education, the global leader in educational publishing. Rwanda’s Ministry of Education took notice and ordered that text books in primary and tertiary institutions change from French to English to accelerate the national objective to boost literacy in Rwanda. Lydie Hakizimana is now the President of the Junior Chamber International Rwanda. She was recently awarded African Sales Rep for the year 2011. With people like Hakizimana steering the country away from its painful past, it is no wonder that Rwanda is called the rising Star of Africa.
