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The African Storyteller: Rewriting Africa's Narrative and Facilitating Growth
The African Storyteller is a Pan-African public affairs consultancy established in July 2017, it has made a significant impact in rewriting Africa's narrative and positioning the continent for growth. The organization is driven by the need to reshape the perception of Africa and showcase the continent's stories of progress and development.
Over the past seven years, the African Storyteller has been instrumental in enhancing the working relationship between big businesses and governments, sharing Africa's growth stories through media profiling of its clients' work, and enabling strategic engagements between the private and public sectors on key issues.
The consultancy has worked with global and African brands operating in various sectors, including financial services, healthcare, mining, and rail transportation, across multiple markets in Africa, such as Egypt, Eswatini, Germany, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Nigeria, Russia, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zambia.
In 2023 the company launched the African Storyteller Podcast to showcase Africa's stories of economic growth by profiling leaders and brands committed to investing and growing in Africa.
Founder and Managing Director
Ms. Thulisile (Thuli) Phiri (APR) –Founder and MD of The African Storyteller. Thuli is one of Africa’s most seasoned business communicators and stakeholder relationship managers. She is an accredited public relations practitioner (the highest expertise and experience accreditation by the Public Relations Institute of Southern Africa (PRISA). She has over 26 years of experience in building, managing, and promoting brands across Africa, she has held senior roles in several multi-national companies including Petrochemical company, TOTAL and US Conglomerate, and General Electric (GE).
In July 2017, Thuli founded The African Storyteller, a Pan-African Public Affairs consultancy that provides government and stakeholder relations and media relations services to B2B companies.
Ms Phiri received a Special Recognition Award in the 2021 BRICS Women Innovation Contest. This award recognised her work in shaping Africa's narrative and positioning Africa for investors through her work. She supports various philanthropy projects and sits on the Ashinaga Advisory Council on Africa.
Connect
We connect our clients with Africa's key markets and leaders.
Engage
We enable two-way engagements between businesses and various stakeholders with the aim of promoting good governance, partnerships, and strategic alignments.
Share
We share African stories of social-economic growth and best practices by narrating how the investments made by our partners and clients contribute to changing the lives of ordinary people.
Financial Services
Africa has some of the fastest-growing economies globally, and the financial services sector continues to see Africa as an attractive growth market. Whether it is the growing middle class or the prospect of the highest number of young people in the world, Africa is undeniable a market that offers vast prospects for this sector.
We are proud to have partnered with our client Minet Holdings Africa to launch their new brand in seven strategic markets in Africa, i.e., Malawi, Namibia, Kenya, Lesotho, Uganda, Tanzania, and Zambia.
Minet is a trusted pan-African advisor that meets tomorrow’s uncertainties by delivering risk and human capital solutions today. As the largest Aon Global Network Correspondent, Minet has access to over 50,000 colleagues in 120 countries and proprietary data, research, and analytics, enabling us to manage and secure tomorrow's risks and provide clients with an unrivalled advantage.
Healthcare
“A healthy nation is a wealthy nation. “
Healthcare is South Africa and Africa’s key priority, one without which Africa’s future would be bleak.
Our client, Gilead Sciences, is a global biotechnology company that researches, develops and commercialises drugs. The company focuses primarily on antiviral drugs used to treat HIV, hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and influenza, including Harvoni and Sovaldi.
Gilead strives to transform and simplify care for people with life-threatening diseases worldwide.
We are privileged to work with a client that puts promoting access to quality healthcare for all at the centre of their business.
Mining
Africa’s mining sector is the largest mineral resources industry in the world.
The continent is the second-largest and endowed with large quantities of mineral wealth.
For many African countries, mining is the backbone of their respective economies, with mineral exploration and production contributing significantly to their gross domestic product (GDP).
We pride ourselves on supporting our client Exxaro Resources, the largest coal and heavy minerals mining company in South Africa, by connecting, engaging and sharing their “Proudly South African” story with various strategic stakeholders.
Rail Transport
Africa’s rail renaissance is here. One cannot ignore the vast investments that have been pumped into reviving Africa’s ageing rail infrastructure and rolling stock over the past five years.
We have been fortunate to service this industry at a very critical and opportune time where Africa’s rail sector was re-writing the narrative of Africa’s growth potential. We partnered with TMH Africa to tell authentic African stories of how the investments into this sector are increasing Africa’s competitiveness, moving loads and loads of goods from our roads to rail and connecting Africa to Intra-Africa trade and regional integration.
We have done work for TMH Africa, a subsidiary of TMH International, a division of the TMH Group, and a world leader in railway engineering and Russia’s largest company in transport engineering. Globally, TMH has an annual turnover of 4.5. billion Euros employs over 100 000 people, has 13 industrial sites and nine locomotive repair sites, and has 15 000 locomotives under maintenance.