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2025 Forbes Entrepreneurial CMO 50

2025 Forbes Entrepreneurial CMO 50

Forbes01-05-2025

Forbes
The marketing leaders who made the 2025 Forbes Entrepreneurial CMO 50 list were celebrated at an exclusive event at Forbes on Fifth, where they opened their playbooks and shared their hard-won lessons for success.
They gathered alongside a select group of industry peers to reflect on how they balance sustainable brand growth with the need for rapid, real-time decision-making. The evening wrapped with a toast to the bold disruptors shaping their companies, their communities and the wider world.
Explore their key takeaways below and watch the event in full.

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South Africa leads as 17 African companies make Forbes list of world's largest firms
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South Africa leads as 17 African companies make Forbes list of world's largest firms

For the 23rd consecutive year, Forbes has released its Global 2000 ranking, highlighting the world's largest and most influential publicly traded companies, with South Africa accounting for the majority of Africa's entries. Forbes released its 23rd Global 2000 ranking of the world's largest publicly traded companies in 2025. A total of 17 African companies are on the list, with South Africa leading the entries. South Africa dominated the African representation with firms across finance, tech, mining, chemicals, and more. In 2025, a total of 17 African companies made the Forbes Global 2000 ranking, dominated by South Africa with 14 entries, followed by Morocco with 2 and Egypt with 1. Per Forbes, the 2025 Global 2000 companies collectively account for $52.9 trillion in revenue, $4.9 trillion in profits, $242.2 trillion in assets, and a $91.3 trillion market capitalization. Notably, despite global economic challenges such as renewed U.S. trade tensions, these companies achieved record-breaking figures across all four key metrics: revenue, profit, assets, and market value; showcasing remarkable resilience. 17 African countries ranked within the global top 2,000: RANK Company Country Sector New Gains 1 FirstRand South Africa Banking $2.26 B 2 Standard Bank Group South Africa Banking $2.39 B 3 Naspers South Africa IT software & Services $3.31 B 4 Sanlam South Africa Insurance $1.21 B 5 Absa Group South Africa Banking $1.17 B 6 Attijariwafa Bank Morocco Banking $956 M 7 Nedbank South Africa Banking $926.6 M 8 Old Mutual South Africa Insurance $418.2 M 9 Gold Fields South Africa Materials $ 1.24 B 10 AngloGold Ashanti South Africa Materials $1 B 11 MTN group South Africa Telecom Services $-523.2 M 12 CAPITEC South Africa Insurance $659.1 M 13 International Commercial Bank Egypt Banking $1.1 B 14 Momentum Metropolitan Holdings South Africa Insurance $271.4 M 15 Sasol South Africa Chemicals $ -2.69 B 16 Banque Centrale Populaire Morocco Banking $416.9 M 17 Bid South Africa Hotels, Restaurants & Leisures $433.3 M Africa's representation on the Forbes Global 2000 list may be modest, but there's no doubting its economic influence is steadily growing within and beyond the continent. This is evident in the diverse range of companies featured, from established multinationals to emerging tech and financial powerhouses. South Africa has once again cemented its dominance in Africa's corporate landscape, with the majority of the continent's representatives in the 2025 Forbes Global 2000 list. Out of the 17 African firms that made the cut, 14 are based in South Africa, spanning sectors such as banking, insurance, telecommunications, mining, and chemicals. Leading South Africa's presence are FirstRand, Standard Bank, and Naspers, reflecting the country's strength in finance and tech. Morocco follows distantly with two companies, Attijariwafa Bank and Banque Centrale Populaire, while Egypt's Commercial International Bank (CIB) is the only North African entrant outside Morocco. The exclusion of Nigerian companies from the ranking is concerning. Despite hosting major oil and industrial giants, Nigeria's low number of publicly listed large-cap firms and weak presence in global financial benchmarks limit its corporate visibility, even as Africa's most populous nation.

Ballers Sports Startup Raises $20M Backed By Andre Agassi, Sloane Stephens And NBA Star Tyrese Maxey, Launches Luxe Athletic Venues Nationwide
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How much did Drake make on the Dave's Hot Chicken deal?
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Like Toronto rapper Drake, the founders of Dave's Hot Chicken started from the bottom. This month, they may have all cashed in together. On June 2, the high flying chicken chain, which counts the music superstar as an investor, sold a 70 per cent majority interest to private equity firm Roark Capital in a deal that reportedly valued Dave's at US$1 billion (the deal's exact terms weren't disclosed). Atlanta-based Roark is known for its portfolio of major restaurant brands including Subway, Arby's, Dunkin' Donuts, Baskin Robbins and Buffalo Wild Wings, among others. The sale capped a dramatic rise in the fortunes of childhood friends Arman Oganesyan, Dave Kopushyan, Tommy Rubenyan and Gary Rubenyan, who pooled US$900 together in 2017 to start a pop-up selling Nashville-style chicken out of a parking lot in Los Angeles. After six months of hour-long lineups thanks to word of mouth and social media buzz, the company started slinging its tenders, sliders, fries and kale slaw out of its first bricks-and-mortar store in an East Hollywood strip mall. Eight years later, franchising has helped Dave's Hot Chicken grow exponentially into 315 store locations in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and the Middle East. Along the way, the chicken chain has benefited from a cult following and a troop of celebrity investors including Drake, who bought his minority stake in 2021. There's no doubt Drake's hype and social media buzz — the rapper has 142 million Instagram followers — has played a part in Dave's Hot Chicken's meteoric ascent. For the last three years, the superstar has celebrated his birthday on Oct. 24 by sponsoring a free chicken giveaway at Dave's Hot Chicken locations in Toronto. The latest valuation also marks a big jump from Dave's Hot Chicken's first deal in 2019, when the four co-founders sold a 50 per cent stake in the business for $2 million to a group of investors led by Bill Phelps, who became the company's chief executive, and movie producer John Davis. The investor group included such celebrities as actor Samuel L. Jackson, journalist Maria Shriver, television host and former NFL player Michael Strahan and Boston Red Sox chairman Tom Werner. The four co-founders reportedly split the remaining 50 per cent stake. At the time of the Roark Capital deal, Forbes reported that Phelps and Davis were the company's largest shareholders with 'roughly equal stakes' (though both declined to reveal exactly how much they owned). Each of the four co-founders owned around 10 per cent of the business and sold 80 per cent of their stakes, netting a cool US$80 million each (before taxes), according to Forbes. So, how much did Champagne Papi make off of the deal? Bloomberg reported that Drake was among the company's biggest investors when he bought his minority stake in 2021, but his exact ownership percentage and how much he paid for it has never been disclosed. If the founders owned a combined 40 per cent (10 per cent each) before the deal and Phelps and Davis were the biggest shareholders with roughly equal stakes, Drake would have to own less than 20 per cent of the chicken chain, with the likely total being much lower than that. With each percentage point worth a cool US$10 million, even a five per cent stake would be worth US$50 million. The Financial Post reached out to Dave's Hot Chicken for comment about whether Drake sold any of his shares as part of the deal, but did not receive a response. Dave's is not Drake's first foray into the food world, but it appears to be his most successful restaurant investment to date. The rapper has opened two Toronto eateries in the last decade: Frings, a venture with chef Susur Lee and his sons that opened in 2015 and closed three years later, and Pick 6ix, a sports bar that opened in early 2018 and closed by the end of 2019. 'I tried the food and it was amazing': Drake buys stake in Dave's Hot Chicken chain Tim Hortons partners with actor Ryan Reynolds on breakfast boxes The rapper has also reportedly invested in green tea retailer MatchaBar and plant-based chicken company Daring Foods Inc. (the same year he bought his stake in Dave's) and collaborated with U.S. entrepreneur Brent Hocking to launch his own whiskey brand (Virginia Black) and champagne (Mod Sélection). • Email: jswitzer@ Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

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