South Africans among top 10 African millionaires

We look at the Forbes top 10 African millionaires to keep an eye on

Yolanda Cuba is the only South African woman to feature on the latest Forbes top ten African millionaires to watch.

Cuba, a former DESTINY cover star, is currently the Executive Director for Development and Decision Support at SAB and serves on the board of Absa, among others.

A chartered account, Cuba became one of the youngest chief executives at JSE-listed Mvelaphanda Holdings a few years back. She is a BCom Statistics graduate and has an honours in accounting from the University of KwaZulu-Natal.

Cuba is one of two women to top the list. The other is Magatte Wade, a Sengalese-born entrepreneur who headed up Adina World Beverages. Now based in the United States, Wade founded her own company, Tiossano.

According to Forbes, Wade raised R245 million in capital from investors. The goods manufactured by her company were then sold by two international conglomerates.

Of Tiossano, Wade said it was an infusion of different cultures that would produce modern-skin care products for the international market.

The rest of the list comprises eight men from Africa, two of them from South Africa. Mark Shuttleworth, the first South African to venture into space, is worth over R4 billion, according to Forbes. Shuttleworth sold his Internet security company for about R600 million when he was in his twenties, cementing his status as a local millionaire.

To date Shuttleworth has been involved in promoting science to South African youth through his Hip2b2 square project while supporting various charities. He also founded the Mark Shuttleworth Foundation which provides funding to upcoming entrepreneurs.

Shuttleworth is joined by Vinny Lingham, founder of Yola Inc, a website building company. Although based in the USA, Vingham has teamed up with billion rand companies to found Click2Customers and the Silicon Cape Initiative.

Forbes also released a list of the top 10 richest celebrities under 30. See full lists below:

Top 10 African millionaires to watch:

1. Yolanda Cuba
2. Magatte Wade
3. Mark Shuttleworth
4. Vinny Lingham
5. Kamal Budhabhatti
6. Ashish Thakkar
7. Ladi Delano
8. Justin Stanford
9. Mike Macharia
10. Jason Njoku

Top 10 highest paid celebrities under 30:

1. Taylor Swift – R471 million
2. Justin Bieber – R454 million
3. Rihanna – R438 million
4. Lady Gaga – R430 million
5. Katy Perry – R372 million
6. Adele – R289 million
7. Kirsten Stewart – R278 million
8. Lil Wayne – R221 million
9. Taylor Lautner – R212 million
10. Robert Pattinson – R212 million