Afleveringen
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Six years ago, Christopher Marquis wrote that the B Corp movement was remaking capitalism. Today the movement is twenty years old, ten thousand companies strong, and in the middle of a reckoning.
Marquis, Sinyi Professor at Cambridge Judge Business School and author of Better Business, Mao and Markets and The Profiteers, joins the show to talk straight. Why the Dr. Bronner's exit and the Nespresso certification forced B Lab to tighten its standards. Why a company's positives can no longer outweigh its negatives. Why regulation catching up is not a threat to B Corp but the highest form of success.
We also go where few sustainability conversations dare: China's dominance in clean energy despite its authoritarianism, the risk of a K-shaped world that leaves the Global South behind, and where Africa really stands.
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In 1919, a group of business people gave themselves a strange name: the Merchants of Peace. Their bet was that trading nations fight less. They had just watched Central Europe destroy itself, and they believed commerce could be a brake on war. A century later, with the Strait of Hormuz blocked and tariffs rising, that idea is being tested in real time.
Sebastian Ferrari leads strategic initiatives at the International Chamber of Commerce, the world business organization representing an estimated 45 million companies across 170 countries. He argues the answer to fragile supply chains is not less trade but less concentration: more regional integration, especially across Africa and Latin America.
We cover EUDR, TradeRoots Africa and AfCFTA, food as social stability, and whether trade can still keep the peace. Listen and share at samueletini.com.
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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For years, men gathered in Kenyan trading centres, read the Nairobi Coffee Exchange price in the newspaper, did some quick math, and concluded their cooperative leaders had stolen their money. Most of the time, nobody had stolen anything. They were using the wrong number.
Henry Kinyua, the Coffee Man of Kenya, is a trained agronomist and value chain specialist who has worked the Kenyan coffee sector from the smallholder farm to the auction floor. In this episode he explains why information asymmetry, not corruption, broke trust in cooperatives, why capturing value means controlling every step of the chain, and why the spread of coffee into new counties like Narok, Baringo and Uasin Gishu is as much a political shift as an agronomic one. He is blunt on the EUDR: Kenya was rated low risk because its farmers already reforest with macadamia and avocado shade crops, so the same goals could have been reached without the extra cost. He closes with the line that frames the whole conversation: buying Kenyan coffee is not charity. It rewards 800,000 households directly.
A masterclass on coffee, value chains, and economic agency. Listen and share.
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What if everything you do to "live green" makes almost no difference, and quietly makes things worse? Michael Maniates, author of The Living Green Myth and co-author of Confronting Consumption and Consumption Corridors, argues that buying eco products and living lean is a comforting story that commodifies our anxieties and parks conscientious people in dead ends of despair. He explains why technological efficiency only buys time, why the real lever is changing the structures of everyday life rather than nagging individuals, and why it takes only 10 to 15 percent of people to drive change. He reframes the Global South debate around consumption classes instead of geography, noting that the elite in Nairobi and London now consume in the same way. A former Yale-NUS academic Maniates closes with Buckminster Fuller's trim tab idea: find the small leverage points, work with others, move mountains. Listen and rethink where your agency really lies.
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Up to 50% of Kenya's fruits and vegetables never reach a plate. Not because farmers can't grow. Because nobody can reliably move, sort, price and pay.
Claire van Enk is the founder and CEO of Farm to Feed, a Nairobi-based agritech platform that today connects 6,000 smallholder farmers with hotels, restaurants, schools and food processors across Kenya through bespoke logistics, traceability and a 200-SKU catalogue that includes "grade rescue" produce too imperfect for conventional buyers. The business started as a COVID-era GoFundMe in 2020. Five years and one commercial pivot later, it is one of the most ambitious operational businesses in East African food.
In this episode of The Samuele Tini Show, Claire makes a case that cuts against most of the African startup conversation: the continent does not need more cloud-based platforms. It needs warehouses, trucks, cold rooms and the unglamorous logistics that physically move food from a farm to a kitchen. Investors prefer asset-light businesses. The real bottleneck is physical.
We talk about the fragmented food system, the multiplier effect on rural employment, the limits of traceability in a country with weak pesticide regulation, and the "Africa discount" that keeps Kenyan products underpriced on global markets. Claire also shares the hardest founder lesson of her journey: realising she had to stop being an entrepreneur and start being a CEO, and that the two are not the same job.
A direct, honest conversation about food systems, climate-resilient supply chains, and what it really takes to build operational businesses in Africa.
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What if the obsession driving the global economy is not a strategy, but a religion?
In this episode, Professor Tim Jackson (University of Surrey, author of Prosperity Without Growth, Post Growth, and The Care Economy) argues that GDP has filled "the God-shaped hole" left in the 20th century, becoming a creed we recite without questioning. Sam and Tim explore where this obsession came from, why technology alone cannot decouple growth from environmental damage, and how a different organising principle, care, could replace growth as the engine of the economy.
Tim makes the case that prosperity was never about income. It was about health, balance, and the ability to thrive within limits. Drawing on Wangari Maathai, Ubuntu, and the autonomic nervous system as a metaphor for governance, he reframes the role of rich countries: not to help the Global South, but to take their foot off the accelerator.
A conversation about economics, philosophy, indigenous wisdom, and the kind of business worth building.
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"There is no funding gap in Africa."
That is the provocation from Burak Buyuksaraç, CEO of Afri Capital and a 16-year business veteran in Tanzania. He arrived in Dar es Salaam in 2010 as a mining executive, stayed to build a diversified portfolio across tourism, security, insurance, consultancy and trading, and now runs one of East Africa's newer investment firms.
In this episode we unpack why the real bottleneck in African SME finance is not capital but pipeline. Why smaller tickets are harder to raise than larger ones. Why Tanzanian banks demand 125% collateral for a loan. And why Burak sees Africa and Latin America as the only two regions left on the planet with genuine room to grow.
Burak shares two recent Afri Capital deals: a $15M refinancing for an Arusha agro-processor and a $3.5M facility for a Tanzanian bank servicing the education ecosystem.
Essential listening for founders, impact investors, DFI teams and anyone working on SME finance in emerging markets.
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Oil above 100 USD. The Strait of Hormuz under pressure.The world scambling for energy. Again. and Again...
Every energy crisis sends us looking for the same answers: another pipeline, another terminal, another sanctions package. But what if the real way out is not on Earth at all?
Martin Soltau, Co-CEO of Space Solar, returns to the show with a roadmap that has hardened into something impossible to ignore. His UK startup, nine people and ÂŁ10 million in funding, is building Cassiopeia: a modular solar power satellite designed to harvest energy in geosynchronous orbit and beam it down to receivers on Earth, 24/7, all weather, gigawatt scale. Independent analysts price it at around $10 per megawatt hour, roughly ten times cheaper than today's wholesale energy. A solar panel in orbit produces 13 times more energy than the same panel on the ground.
In this conversation we get into the part most people miss. This is not a physics problem, it is engineering the economics, and the milestones are real. First in-orbit demonstration in two years. Minimum viable product by 2030. First commercial 600 MW satellite in geosynchronous orbit by 2033. Martin makes a sharp case for why wind and solar alone cannot scale fast enough, why the UK is now paying the highest energy prices in the developed world despite one of the world's most ambitious clean energy programmes, why orbital data centres are the wrong answer to AI's energy hunger, and why a technology that uses 1000 times less critical minerals than ground-based renewables could finally break the link between energy and geopolitics.
If you care about energy security, decarbonisation, or where the next decade of clean power is actually coming from, this is the conversation worth your time.
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73,000 sharks are killed every day. 16,000 chemicals are added to plastics, and only 1% are regulated globally. The ocean is in crisis, but almost nobody sees it.
Antoinette Vermilye (Co-Founder, Gallifrey Foundation & SHE Changes Climate) has spent over a decade connecting the dots between ocean destruction, human health, climate finance, and gender in global negotiations. In this episode, she walks us through how her team convinced 60 airlines to stop carrying shark fins, why the plastics treaty negotiations keep stalling, what "carbon cowboys" are doing to blue carbon projects, and why biodiversity of perspectives matters as much as biodiversity in nature.
What you'll learn: How systems change actually works in ocean conservation. Why regulation, accountability, and penalties are the missing link. How blue carbon credits can work fairly. And what you can do right now with your voice, your vote, and your pocket.
A conversation that will change how you see the ocean and everything connected to it.
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What if the ethical framework AI needs was coined thousands of years ago in Africa?
Wakanyi Macharia-Hoffman is co-director of the Inclusive AI Lab at Utrecht University and founder of the African Folktales Project. She grew up near Ngong Forest in Kenya, where her primary school was literally inside the forest. Today she's on a mission to recover African indigenous knowledge and bring it into the spaces where it matters most: classrooms and technology labs.
In this episode we explore:
Ubuntu as relational intelligence: from self, to community, to planetThe ulimi sana algorithm, designed at the University of Johannesburg, that optimizes AI for cooperation instead of competitionHow 17 African folktales mapped to the 17 SDGs are reshaping education for 21,000+ teachers worldwideWhy AI is a mirror of humanity, and why the real question isn't what AI will become, but who we are becomingWhether you work in tech, education, sustainability or development, this conversation will change how you think about innovation, indigenous knowledge, and what it truly means to be human.
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When Tonderai Njowera's father came home and asked, "Did you know you can own a highway?" it changed everything. That one question sent a young boy in Zimbabwe on a journey from civil engineering to investment management to venture building in Cape Town.
In this episode, Tonderai breaks down why Africa's biggest challenge isn't lack of capital or resources but a leadership gap. He argues that protectionism is the wrong response to global competition: African entrepreneurs need to think globally, not retreat locally. Using a powerful Formula One analogy, he explains how underdogs win by reading the conditions and capitalizing on disruption.
Key insights from the conversation:
Infrastructure is more than roads and bridges. It includes cultural and educational foundations that shape innovation capacity.The current global economic reset is an equalizer. Smart entrepreneurs can use it as a launchpad.Long-term thinking must coexist with short-term execution. The challenge is mixing the dose right.Family offices, DFIs, venture capital and grants each play a distinct role in the long-term investment picture.Tonderai Njowera is an entrepreneur, systems architect, and investor based in Cape Town, with roots in Zimbabwe's engineering and infrastructure sectors.
Listen now and rethink what "competitive advantage" means for African founders.
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What if the most profitable climate investments aren't sexy at all? Costas Papayconomou, co-founder of Una Terra, spent a career in innovation consulting (including building and selling an agency to Accenture) before turning to circular economy investing. His thesis is simple and counterintuitive: don't disrupt old industries, clean them up. In this episode, Costas walks us through investments that sound boring but are brilliant: a cellulose-based white colorant replacing toxic titanium dioxide (with IKEA as lead investor), smarter food packaging that cuts energy use while making meals taste better, and paper pulp innovations. He shares why founding teams should be obsessed with customers, not investors. Why they literally added "does this violate the laws of physics?" to their deal screening. And why the talent war, not regulation, will ultimately force every industry to go green. His closing advice: look for the smallest problem that affects the most people.
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What if the most powerful innovations don't come from billion-dollar labs, but from people who have almost nothing?
Navi Radjou left Silicon Valley after 13 years because he realized most innovation there serves the top 1%. Now based in Bangalore, he's spent two decades proving that resource scarcity breeds the most radical creativity. In this episode, Navi breaks down why Africa is set to become the world's innovation lab, not its charity case. He introduces the "frugal economy" model built on three pillars: cooperation over competition, decentralized production over mega-factories, and regeneration over extraction. From Hello Tractor (the Uber for small farmers) to Levi's sharing proprietary tech with rivals, Navi delivers a blueprint for a post-capitalist economy rooted in Ubuntu philosophy. His parting shot: the world's biggest crisis is a crisis of imagination, and Africa holds the answer. Listen now on samueletini.com
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In this episode, Iâm joined by Alisa Sydow (Professor of Entrepreneurship at ESCP Business School) to unpack what women founders are really navigating in Africaâs entrepreneurship ecosystem beyond the usual âbarriers list.â
We discuss:
Why purpose is powerfulâbut can also limit growth if it makes founders neglect commercial fundamentals.The overlooked role of founder identity (and why some women subconsciously place business last).The gap between policy and lived reality in finance access (including stories shared by founders in 2025).A practical, grounded view of product uniqueness, market fit, and why the local market is often underestimated.Why âtrendyâ international calls for proposals can distort markets and push founders toward the wrong models.If you mentor founders, invest, design entrepreneurship programsâor you are building yourself this is an episode to bookmark.
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Syntropy isnât about the tropicsâitâs about the physics of life. In this episode, Samuele sits down with Sven Verwiel, CEO & CoâFounder of Forest Foods (Kenya), to unpack syntropic agroforestry: a regenerative farming approach designed to compound productivity over time through stratification (vertical layers) and succession (time).
We go from field reality to unit economics: what it takes to regenerate degraded soils, why syntropic systems can reach ~200â230% landâuse efficiency, and how Forest Foods is proving a commercial model with outdoor production, zero chemicals, and strong market demand for premium quality.
We also discuss livestock integration (pastureâraised chickens), the hardest founder challenges (land access, capital, logistics, cold chain), and why regenerative agriculture must become a career path that attracts the next generation.
Key topics: syntropy vs entropy, soil regeneration, agroforestry design, profitability, goâtoâmarket, scaling regenerative food systems in Africa
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In this episode, Samuele speaks with Apollo GabaziraâCountry Director at CARE International (Uganda) and an awardâwinning regenerative farmerâabout what it takes to make farming profitable, scalable, and youthâattractive in East Africa.
Apollo shares the Asaba Farm System and its âquad modelâ:
dairy as a foundation
agronomy and circularity (turning waste into value)
skilling youth through handsâon learning
community extension through local oneâstop hubs (âFarmers Point Outletsâ)
We also unpack Apolloâs most actionable insight: the 80/20 rule in dairyâfocus on nutrition and reproduction to shift the majority of outcomes, from milk yield to economics.
Finally, we zoom out to the bigger levers: what must change in policy, access to capital, and publicâprivate collaboration so regenerative and climateâsmart agriculture can become the normânot the exception.
Key topics: profitable regenerative farming, extension models, youth skilling, policy, capital, SME partnerships.
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When you clear a forest to plant maize and make charcoal, youâve already put a price on natureâthe future cash flows from the maize and the wood. The problem is that price is far too low.
In this episode of The Samuele Tini Show, I speak with Josep Oriol, Managing Partner at Okavango Capital Partners and a leading natureâfinance expert working across SubâSaharan Africa.
A Catalan who fell in love with African wildlife as a child, Josep trained as a lawyer, moved into venture capital and banking, then finally to Southern Africa to build a different kind of private equity firmâone that backs natureâpositive businesses whose performance depends on how they treat forests, soil and water. Today, Okavangoâbacked companies help protect around 8â9 million hectares of land (about twice the size of Switzerland) and create income streams for hundreds of thousands of rural people.
We dive into:
The mispricing of nature: every landâuse decisionâfrom forest to maize fieldâis already a price signal, and why thatâs dangerous if we ignore the true value of ecosystems.Forest carbon in practice: the story of BioCarbon Partners, REDD+ projects, and rural families living on ~$20/month in cash who now earn income by keeping forests standing.Carbon market backlash: Josepâs response to critics of carbon credits, and why, compared to agriculture, mining or logging, highâintegrity projects are often far more transparent and generous to local communities.Three big opportunity themes:smarter agriculture and agroforestry to boost yields and cut waste,tech for soil, postâharvest, insurance and finance,monetising ecosystem services via tourism, carbon, biodiversity and water creditsâand why fuelwood is still the elephant in the room.Why classic 5âyear 10x PE funds donât fit Africa: and how Okavango uses longer horizons and flexible instruments (loans with equity options, convertibles, prefs) instead of only straight equity.We close with Josepâs advice for entrepreneurs in natureâbased sectorsâlive with existential threat, love cash flow and margins, and assume everything will take twice the time and three times the moneyâand his vision of Africaâs future looking more like South Korea or Malaysia than Europe, if we get the nature piece right.
If you care about where climate capital should actually go, this is a sharp, grounded conversation from inside the deal flow.
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We talk a lot about tree planting, but far less about what happens to all the agricultural and organic waste we burn or dump. Thatâs where biochar comes in.
In this episode of The Samuele Tini Show, Iâm joined by Luisa Marin, Executive Director of the International Biochar Initiative (IBI). After 25+ years in conservation with organisations like Conservation International and The Nature Conservancy, Luisa moved into carbon project developmentâand discovered biochar: a carbonârich âblack spongeâ made by pyrolysing crop residues, prunings, manure and other organic waste instead of letting them rot or burn.
9th December Luisa Marin (1)_otâŚ
Done well, biochar can:
Lock away carbon in soils and materials for hundreds to thousands of years
Regenerate soils, boosting water retention, porosity and microbial life
Cut fertiliser and irrigation needs for farmers
Create new revenue streams through products and carbon creditsâespecially in the Global South
Luisa explains how research suggests biochar could remove up to 6% of global annual emissionsâroughly like switching off 800 coal plants for a yearâand why just 1 gram of biochar can have the surface area of two tennis courts. She also talks frankly about âgood biocharâ vs âbad biocharâ, the importance of standards and lab tests, and the most common mistake she sees: projects chasing carbon money without proper technical and financial feasibility or patient capital.
9th December Luisa Marin (1)_otâŚ
We also hear real examples from Kenya, Zimbabwe, Ghana and Latin America, where farmers and communities are already turning waste into value using both industrial and artisanal kilnsâwith support from NGOs, digital MRV tools and local governments.
9th December Luisa Marin (1)_otâŚ
If you care about climate action, soil health and future markets in the Global South, this episode is a clear, grounded introduction to one of the most powerfulâand underratedâtools on the table.
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In most emerging markets, âsustainabilityâ has been designed for big exporters, banks and multinationals. Everyone else â the micro, small and medium businesses that actually employ people and move the economy â is basically left out but more and more customers are asking for proofs.
In this episode, Luke Hayman, Executive Director of Sustainable Kenya, explains how his team is trying to flip that script with an Africa-first sustainability infrastructure.
Instead of 40-page ESG questionnaires in foreign jargon, they use:
Short, contextualised assessments in English and Swahili
AI to analyse answers, documents and even voice notes
Clear scorecards plus realistic next steps, not just a vanity score
A growing public directory of businesses that can actually prove what they claim
We talk about why sustainability is fast becoming a language of credibility in Kenya: if you can show evidence, you unlock customers, finance and partnerships; if you cannot, you are increasingly invisible. Luke also shares what Kenyan consumers are really saying about âsustainable productsâ, why price and trust still block action, and how shared data could stop every investor inventing their own ESG scoring system.
If you are tired of ESG theatre and want to see what practical, bottom-up sustainability looks like, this conversation is for you.
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Special Episode â Recorded live at the Oppenheimer Research Conference 2025.The global conservation debate is loud â but often poorly informed about what people who live with wildlife actually think. In this revealing episode, researchers Dr. Darragh Hare (Oxford) and Dr. Lovemore Sibanda share evidence from multi-country surveys exploring views on militarised conservation, ranger powers, trophy hunting, wildlife crime penalties, and protected area governance.
What they found is both nuanced and surprising:⢠Communities living near wildlife arenât always opposed to ranger enforcement⢠Support varies dramatically depending on governance models⢠Magadi (Kenya) stands out as a case where community scouts foster high acceptance⢠Assumptions from global media often misrepresent local realities⢠Sustainable conservation must factor in perspectives of those most affected
A crucial episode for anyone designing policy, funding projects or shaping the future of African conservation.
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