Compiled with Farai Gundan
This generation of young African women is the most ambitious yet. They are eager to build industries, reform societies, save lives, rewrite history, and transform the continent.
Our annual “20 Young Power African Women” list illuminates the brightest stars and Africa’s most outstanding female game changers. We enlisted a group of young, professional African women to help identify the most innovative, courageous, daring and successful young women aged 45 and under. It is a subjective list, no doubt, but it’s the closest you will get to a definitive list.
Meet the 2013 class of 20 Young Power Women in Africa: the continent’s emerging power brokers, the Amazons to watch, and the custodians of tomorrow.
Ola Orekunrin, Nigerian. Medical Doctor & Founder, The Flying Doctors
Orekunrin, 25, is founder and Managing Director of Flying Doctors Nigeria Ltd., an air ambulance service based in Lagos, Nigeria. Orekunrin’s company is the first air ambulance service in West Africa to provide urgent helicopter, airplane ambulance and evacuation services for critically injured people. She is a 2013 New Voices Fellow at the Aspen Institute and was named a Young Global Leader in 2013 by the World Economic Forum.