Africa's Business Revolution

PREFACE

As global business interest in Africa has blossomed, we have found ourselves traveling the world to help executives understand where the true opportunity lies, and how their businesses can seize that opportunity before their competitors do. A few years back, one of us (Acha) found himself in Seoul, presenting to the chairman of one of the largest Korean conglomerates. At that stage, the company had almost no presence in Africa and its executives were concerned that their Chinese competitors were stealing a march on them.

As always, the McKinsey team arrived at the meeting armed with a PowerPoint presentation, the first page of which was a map of Africa. We’d intended to flip quickly past it, but the chairman stopped us in our tracks. ...