This year, the excesses of gender inequality has rocked Fox News, Uber, and the Weinstein Company, in which powerful men have taken advantage of women or created workplaces hostile to gender equality. So for Forbes to feature 2014 Tutu Fellow Samuel Mensah - along with three other men in South Africa - a country hardly known for gender equality in business, says something of their credibilty. Mensah is the co-founder of the leading African fashion brand, Kisua.
2008 Tutu Fellow Elsie Kanza helped organise and stage the successful WEF Forum On Africa, which was held in Durban earlier this year. For fashion watchers, they'll have noted that the Senior Director and Head of Africa at WEF was wearing Kisua, founded by Sam Mensah, another Tutu 2008 Fellow and who is becoming a global fashion force. As colleagues from the same leadership cohort, Kanza not only looked the part, but was able to show off an outfit of his surrounded by heads of state and other African leaders. This kind of high visibility is not out of line for Mensah's brand, which has just launched a new Kisua shop in Menlyn Mall in Pretoria.
Forbes has written a piece on Kisua, highlighting how the company is putting African fashion on the map. It starts out by pointing out that even if you’re not immersed in fashion, you probably understand that most designers originate from Paris, Milan, New York, and London. Africa seems to be a fashion afterthought. But it then makes the case for the impact African fashion has had on international design and the role that Kisua is playing today.
2014 Tutu Fellow Samuel Mensah has been featured on CNN Style in a frank interview about his fashion company Kisua. In it, he explains his transformation from being a suit at an investment fund to rolling the dice and starting up a fashion company.
