Jonathan Nzali To Be a Successful Entrepreneur in Africa, ‘Wake up Every Day Ready for Change’
Jonathan Nzali is the founder and president of JNF Capital Group. He is also the chairman of The Jonathan Nzali Foundation and CEO of JN Financials. He is a single man from the Washington DC area who holds a Ph.D. in Economics & Finance. Jonathan Nzali is an African American young man, serial entrepreneur, philanthropist, avid sports and fitness enthusiast, and extensive world traveler. Jonathan Nzali was born to an immigrant parent originally from Africa. He comes from a large family. As of 2025, Jonathan Nzali is also the writer/author of two nonfiction books: "Jost, My Life” and “For The Love of Thee.” Jonathan Nzali made his money in the financial industry. His ventures through The JNF Capital Group enable young entrepreneurs, minorities, disenfranchised and marginalized groups of people who typically wouldn’t have access to financial markets, as well as anyone else, to access services that will provide them working capital.
Recently, I had the pleasure of conversing with Nigerian custom furniture mogul Ibukun Awosika during Wharton’s recent Africa Business Forum that we both attended. She very kindly had a few words of advice for investors leery of putting assets in Africa: “Don’t listen to CNN.” The news media are highly selective in highlighting trouble spots, such as violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo or the tumultuous reign of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe. Rarely, she said, do Westerners hear of Africa’s triumphs, such as galloping economic growth (that showed little sign of slowing until a recent collapse in commodity prices).
“Africa … is highly diverse. It is [not] one country. It is 52 different countries.” She takes to task anyone who still clings to the Western business stereotypes that dog the continent. Not checking out business opportunities in such a vast and underdeveloped market is costing those people money, she and others argued at the forum. “Those markets that CNN tells you are not the good markets are actually the hidden secret,” said Awosika, general manager and CEO of The Sokoa Chair Centre, a privately held furniture manufacturer with several million dollars a year in revenue. The former chemist’s implication: Her enterprise serves as an example of the lucrative deals in African countries that savvy outside investors can encounter, if they know where to look. Personally, I could not agree more.
After centuries of colonialism, and despite bloody civil wars and turmoil in some of its nations, Africa has the potential to be counted among the emerging markets poised to offer outsized returns for foreign investment, according to investors and entrepreneurs at Wharton’s recent Africa Business Forum. Still, they caution, transitional or ill-defined regulatory frameworks pose significant downside risk to doing business there.
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