African Business Stories
African Business Stories is the go-to podcast for insights into the women shaping Africa’s business landscape. Africa is one of the world’s most promising frontiers for growth and innovation—and women are at the heart of this transformation.
Hosted by Akaego Okoye, this podcast spotlights female entrepreneurs who are breaking barriers, scaling businesses, and driving economic development across the continent. Through bold conversations, we explore funding, scaling strategies, digital transformation, and industry innovations—equipping you with insights, practical tools, and inspiration to navigate your own entrepreneurial journey.
When women win, economies thrive. These stories amplify success, challenge narratives, and create a blueprint for the next generation of female leaders in Africa and beyond.
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African Business Stories
Sandrine Nzeukou: Founder & CEO Playbook - Sports Media, Driving Investment in Emerging Sports Economies
Ever wondered how to bridge the gap between sports and business in emerging markets? Join us as we chat with Sandrine Zoku, the inspiring founder and CEO of Playbook, who brings her unique journey from Cameroon to the United States and beyond to life. Sandrine shares her personal story of cultural adaptation, the childhood dreams that shaped her, and the profound influence of her parents in keeping her connected to her Cameroonian roots. From aspiring chef and fashion designer to college athlete, discover how her diverse experiences laid the foundation for her entrepreneurial spirit.
Get ready to learn how Sandrine transitioned from a corporate career at Vanguard to impactful roles at Invest Africa and NBA Africa events, driven by intuition and the right connections. Listen to how a serendipitous internship turned into a stepping stone for her career, highlighting the importance of being present in the right geographical locations. Through her narrative, you'll gain insights into the challenges and triumphs of her professional journey, including a pivotal co-founder breakup that tested her resilience and ultimately led to the creation of Playbook.
Explore the genesis of Playbook, a groundbreaking media company focused on the sports business in emerging economies, particularly Africa and the Middle East. Sandrine takes us through her move to Nairobi, the strategic partnerships she's formed, and her vision for the future of Playbook. She offers invaluable advice to women entrepreneurs, emphasizing the power of personal branding and social media. This episode is a treasure trove of actionable insights and inspiring stories for anyone looking to make an impact in the sports and business landscape.
A former professional athlete, Sandrine represented her home country of Cameroon in the 2011 and 2015 FIBA Olympic qualifying women’s basketball tournaments in both Bamako, Mali and Yaounde, Cameroon. She holds an MBA in Management and B.S. in Marketing from the University of Nevada Las Vegas where she served as a captain of the women’s basketball team.
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Hi there and welcome to another episode of African Business Stories. Africa is the only region in the world where more women than men choose to be entrepreneurs. What this says to me is that the story of business in Africa is the story of the African business woman. So we are on a journey of discovery to find these women and tell their stories. So we're on a journey of discovery to find these women and tell their stories. On the show, we will hear from female innovators and entrepreneurs building and running businesses in Africa. They will share the highs and lows of their entrepreneurial journey and lessons learned along the way. Some of these women you may know, and many you may not, but I assure you that all their stories are inspiring in their own right. My hope is that these stories will inspire you to reach for your dreams and leave a legacy for generations to come. It makes such a big difference to us if you can rate, review and share our episodes. You can do this mainly on Apple Podcasts, and you can find us on all podcast platforms If you're in Africa. Spotify is now available, so check us out there and don't forget to rate, review and share.
Speaker 1:On today's episode, I chat with Sandrine Zoku, founder and CEO Playbook, a sports business company for emerging markets. The daughter of immigrant parents, she moved to the US at age five. We talk about how she used sports as a tool to travel the world and how it ultimately reconnected her to Africa. In pursuit of African-focused impact work, she leaned into the two things she loved most sports and Africa. In pursuit of African-focused impact work, she leaned into the two things she loved most sports and Africa. We talk about the journey into entrepreneurship, surviving co-founder breakup and deciding to try again. I admire Sandrine's clarity of vision and truly enjoyed this conversation. Let's get into it. Hi, Sandrine, welcome to African Business Stories, Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 1:I've known you for a couple of years now and just watching your trajectory has been incredible. So I just want to start right from the beginning, because I know you were born in Cameroon, next door neighbor, and I wonder do people confuse you for Nigerian at some times?
Speaker 2:100%. They either confuse me for Nigerian Congolese and then also because I'm tall people can't see now, but I'm 6'1", so they also confuse me for being Senegalese. So I'm all over the place.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, I mean, I thought you were Nigerian too, so I'm all over the place. Wow, yeah, I mean I thought you were Nigerian too, so I'm guilty. I read that you moved here as a five-year-old I think, from Cameroon.
Speaker 2:What was that experience like, coming to the US for the first time, so young, oh my goodness it was quite a culture shock that's number one but really just such a pivotal moment of my life that shaped who I was, especially because I didn't go back to the continent, and specifically to Cameroon, until I was 20 years old and so I spent a really long time away and just getting acclimated to a new culture, getting acclimated to new people, can be quite challenging, and so I think a lot of you know children of immigrants who move when they're younger experience the same thing, where you'll get teased or bullied for certain things. But you know, I was grateful for the opportunity to be able to come and learn, and I'm glad that I have both cultures of also, you know, understanding American culture but also being Cameroonian as well, sure.
Speaker 1:Did your parents do any specific things to help keep the culture alive when you were growing up?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say the number one thing is I'm so grateful that they spoke so much French to us and so that we still retained our language. And then the second piece is really food, food and culture, our community. I feel like African people are such communal people and so our entire community basically was African growing up and then just also being able to. Honestly, cameroonian food is so good. So having the privilege of being fed Cameroonian food my entire life, that was really predominantly what we ate growing up. Some of my best memories are around the table eating some food, so honestly, I think that's also been a really good kind of tie back to the culture.
Speaker 1:When you were younger, what did you aspire to be? What did you think you were going to do when you grew?
Speaker 2:up. Yeah, gosh, that's so funny. No one's ever asked me this question. Gosh, that's so funny. No one's ever asked me this question. And I realize now, as an adult, that I am exactly the same way as I am now. I thought I was going to be a chef, a model, a fashion designer. I fully thought that I was going to be doing all of these things at the same time and I told myself, oh, I'll just be this person who just does all of these things, who says I can't do it all. Yeah, yeah. I'm still in that dreamland where I have a number of things that I want to do and I'm actively pursuing right now, actually.
Speaker 1:So, in terms of going to college, you know I did read that your dad played basketball for Cameroon, so very much into sports, and he leaned into all his children as far as sports was concerned, and you got to have basketball pay for university, or for college, as we call it in America. So what was that experience like going into college and being an athlete?
Speaker 2:It was such an interesting experience and it colored it's really colored my life, but it really colored kind of those formative years. First and foremost because when you're a part of, when you're a part of, a team in college number one, what people don't realize is that you have a full-time job. That alone is a massive amount of time, but thankfully it also comes with privileges. You get support, access to, you also get to travel and you also get an embedded set of friends and family and community right off the bat when you join, when you go to university, which most people don't have and have to really find and build for themselves through clubs and other activities that they pursue. And so it was an incredible experience. I wouldn't trade being on a team and I've been on teams my whole life but I wouldn't trade being on a team specifically in university for anything. I'm still friends with so many of my teammates from college and you just go through so much, you know, because it's so physically demanding, it's so mentally demanding, and then you're also dealing with the regular college kid stuff, and so being able to grow and evolve with that set of people was immeasurably helpful.
Speaker 2:And I was also very privileged to go to school at University of Nevada, las Vegas, as a basketball player, because it's a really interesting place to not only be an athlete but also, specifically, basketball players. So you have the NBA Summer League that happens there every year. You have the USA national teams, on the women's and the men's side that train there every summer, and so we got to meet Kobe and LeBron and, you know, and Brittany Griner and Diana Taurasi All of these people were just in our gyms during the summertime and, as a basketball player, really having quite literally the world's best athletes, you know, being able to see them live, meet them, interact with them, was unlike anything else, and being able to be a part of that community and experience, it was absolutely unreal. And then you know, we have the Las Vegas Strip, five minutes down the street from campus.
Speaker 2:And so you also have access to all of these celebrities. It's such an interesting and kind of surreal place to go to school, but it was really really unique and I'm grateful.
Speaker 1:That's excellent. So did you ever think you would go pro? Was that ever part of your plan?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, absolutely not. Well, I did not think I was going to go pro in the WNBA is what I should specify Specifically, because what a lot of people don't also realize is that the WNBA is much more difficult to get into than the NBA is, because we have so fewer teams. There's 12 teams in the WNBA, but there's 30 teams in the NBA, so literally there's just less spots. So when the women who are in the WNBA are really the best of the best, it's like if you cut the NBA down by a third and only had those players playing. And so I never thought I was. I knew I was never going to be good enough to play in the WNBA, but I did play professionally overseas, which was, you know, a beautiful experience. Being able to play in Spain and in Lithuania and, yeah, just being able to live and get paid to play basketball. It was amazing.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. And talking about playing abroad, you know I read that one of the things you're most proud of was being able to play for the Cameroonian national team. Talk to us a bit about that, yeah it was such a beautiful experience.
Speaker 2:It was the reason actually why, when I said that I hadn't returned to the continent for about 16 years, what brought me back was the national team, was tryouts for the national team, and it was such an eye-opener to be re-familiarized with my culture on the ground through the lens of basketball, because it taught me so many things, first and foremost, how impressive just the athletic talent is back home with so fewer, less resources and infrastructure, and so it was very humbling for me, which was, you know, really necessary and really, really cool. But it also really helped to enlighten me to the challenges that we experience as athletes and just the sports industry across the continent. And it's not that it's specific to the continent, because some of the issues and challenges that I faced, for example, were like pay discrepancies and pay being withheld from us, and my last experience really playing for the national team was in 2015,. We were playing Olympic qualifiers and, after we performed the best we'd ever performed, our basketball federation wanted to pay us essentially 3% of what we were contractually owed, and so we decided to stage a sit-in, and we staged a sit-in over the course of two weeks and in the hotel that we were staying at and over the course of those two weeks we did radio interviews, tv interviews, spoke to journalists and we got the attention of the president and the first lady who ultimately really put pressure on the Minister of Sports and the Federation ultimately to pay us what we had agreed upon.
Speaker 2:But that struggle and that challenge really opened up my mind to the opportunity. Ultimately it's what planted the seed for Playbook. I didn't know it at the time but it was such an interesting experience, really enriching and you know same thing, kind of. Going back to my comments about my teams, like I, I loved my teammates and being able to also play with other women who are Cameroonian and being able to just like feel that sense of camaraderie and honor for playing for our country is honestly you just it, you know, an experience of my lifetime I just can't replace that.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic. So you eventually come back and join Vanguard and I'm wondering, wondering, do I sense an immigrant parent influence at some point in this story?
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely Absolutely. And it was interesting because when I decided to play in 2015, I was already working at Vanguard. I was there since 2013. And I took a leave of absence for three months to go play, which ended up working out really really well. And I took a leave of absence for three months to go play, which, you know, ended up working out really really well, and I was so grateful to my bosses for even allowing me to do so.
Speaker 2:But you know, to your point about African parents, absolutely, because when I transitioned back, I knew in 2015 that when I stopped playing, that was going to be the last time that I played, but I had retired one time before then, before I started working at Vanguard.
Speaker 2:And the reason why is because when I played for Spain and Lithuania, I played overseas for a year and God bless my mom, but she did not think that basketball was a real job. So I ultimately, after the year, I wanted to continue playing because I was really using it, also as a tool to explore the world and being able to live in different countries. So I wanted to play in another country, namely, specifically, italy. Yeah, so I decided to go back because I was set to get a real job, you know, and finish my master's degree at that point as well, because I had taken a year off my master's degree and so finished my MBA, went into finance and then took the break to play for the national team and then came back and ultimately just stopped playing completely. But winding journey, but yeah.
Speaker 2:African parents were definitely involved.
Speaker 1:We know them. They're probably a little more understanding these days, but back in the day not so much. So, Vanguard, what was Vanguard like? What was that experience like for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was. It was man. I have not talked about Vanguard in so long. It was such an interesting experience, really enriching but eye-opening, because it was my first experience in a very corporate setting. And of course it's finance and then it's also institutional finance as well, and so there's just so many guardrails, and Vanguard, specifically, is so successful because they're known as a very conservative company, and so it was really interesting understanding corporate politics and corporate culture and how that plays into your career. Also, I participated in a program that was an accelerated program within the corporation, that where we had, essentially, it was either 13 or 14 of us and we did. It was a accelerated program within the corporation that where we had, essentially it was either 13 or 14 of us and we did.
Speaker 2:It was a rotational program, so each and every single person over the course of I think it was about a year and a half or a little bit, almost two years had the experience of transitioning between different departments, and that was the reason why I participated in it, because I really wanted to get the experience of what it was actually like to work in some different, you know, in some different disciplines in Cameroon.
Speaker 2:I knew that the work that I wanted to do, I wanted the scope to include the African continent, and at that time I'm not quite sure about their investment strategies now, but at that time, you know, the conversation about Africa was completely just non existent, to be honest, and even international conversations were really happening as much.
Speaker 2:They had an office, you know, in the UK that really led the international office, but it just it wasn't robust, and so I knew early on to my experience at Vanguard that my career would have to transition out of Vanguard in order to ultimately pursue some of the, like you know, experiences that I wanted to have and to have the impact that I wanted to have, at least geographically. But you know, all in all, it taught me a lot. It also taught me about how I don't really want to participate in a lot of corporate politics. I think that it takes so much for me energy, and I want to focus on the work and what we're doing, and so I learned a lot from the experience. But all in all, it was really interesting. It was really interesting to understand that side of just corporate America in general.
Speaker 1:So how did you then transition to Invest Africa, which is like it's like you put it out there you wanted to do work that was relevant to the continent and entered this opportunity. So how did Invest Africa come about?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was very serendipitous because I had an internship working with the Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury, wnba and NBA teams and my boss at the time. This was back in like 2011, it was either 2010 or 2011 when I worked for them and then my boss was attending some of the like university games in Phoenix at the time, and so she would invite me to come with her and it was there that I actually met the nephew of, who was the CEO of NBA Africa but is now the president of the basketball Africa league. I'm a do fall and so I ended up becoming really good friends with the nephew and was sharing with him that I wanted to get back into the space working on the continent, but I also had this love of sports and he was really instrumental in helping to connect me first to the SEED project and identifying which is Amadou Fall nonprofit organization that uses basketball as a tool for development for youth, and so I find my found myself helping to support them. I also moved to New York for about a month while I was in working for Vanguard and helped and did a lot of networking while I was in New York, because I also knew that New York was a place that I wanted to transition to next, and so, as I started thinking, I was about three and a half years into my time at Vanguard and I started thinking seriously about what that next step could be.
Speaker 2:I had no idea what I wanted to do, but I knew very clearly that basketball and sports was a pool, and that Africa also was very clear for me, and at the time, the NBA Africa World versus World Games were happening in South Africa, and I knew that. I didn't know what job title I wanted, but I knew that anyone who is in that world would be there, and so I knew I wanted to place myself in that environment, and I've always been pulled. I've been someone who's always been pulled to places geographically. I think that's a little bit of kind of my gift. I know where I'm supposed to be physically, and anytime I listen to that intuition of where I'm supposed to be physically, something always happens, and so I felt that really strongly about. You know, I need I know, for whatever reason, I need to be in Johannesburg during this time, and so I went to the games in 2017 and ended up getting an opportunity to help coach with a basketball camp the basketball without borders camp there and through that experience and some networking and, honestly, being very just hungry for opportunity, I ended up volunteering at the NBA Africa Summit at the time Business Summit and I met Paul Hinks there and it was Paul who was speaking on a panel and he had mentioned something during his panel and made a statement and I went up to him and spoke to him about you know his comment and it was very strange because in the span of probably 10 or 15 minutes of us talking, he just kind of looked at me and said, hey, like I think I kind of have a job for you and started talking to me a little bit about what Invest Africa was.
Speaker 2:And initially I was like this is crazy, I don't know anything about this, but I was very intrigued and I was trying to move more into the sports world but had the experience from being in the investment world as well and I was very clear before going on this journey that the impact that I wanted to make and that impact of wanting to really contribute to the growth of industry and business on the continent, it really just aligned in this very strange way, especially because on my flight there I remember telling myself I just have a feeling. I know I'm going to get a job. I know I'm going to find an opportunity for this experience.
Speaker 2:And so, when you mentioned that, over the course of the next kind of three or four days of our time, we kept meeting up, we kept having more conversation. I also had an opportunity to be introduced to Reva at the time, who was also one of the founding board members as well, aubrey Ruby as well, who's also a founding board member, and so it was amazing. And so over the course of those four days I became familiar with the opportunity, and three weeks later he had, and a couple of conversations later, I was signing an offer letter to work for Invest Africa and be their next, or at least their first, executive director, and then I moved to New York City like three weeks later after that. So it was an incredible, incredible opportunity and it really dropped me right into the center of the African investment community, and so it was a really trial by fire experience but exactly, I think, the type of opportunity that I needed and was really calling into my life, and so that's how I ended up, kind of in the African West.
Speaker 1:Wow, that is such an amazing story, that whole thing about understanding your intuition and listening to it and being able to visualize in your mind what exactly it is you want for yourself, and I think that's a very, very powerful lesson. You know in how we we maneuver and how we we pivot. So you were at Invest Africa for what? Three years.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was at Invest Africa for almost four years, so three yeah three years and change.
Speaker 1:Then you started getting another itch.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, I, I well, it was a little bit of starting to get an itch, but also it was. It was just proper burnout, you know, and I think that so many people experienced this 2020 and quarantine and just the state of the world. I just reached a point where I knew, you know, and I was I was at one woman show at Invest Africa as well, you know. I mean, thankfully, we had so many people that were there to support and our board was really great, you know. But I just had reached the point, personally, where I was pushing past even my physical limits to keep, you know, just moving the business forward and keep progressing.
Speaker 2:And when you do that, your body will always catch up with you, always. And so it reached a point where I had to, I personally had to stop and I forced myself to transition in order to really help my body just kind of come back to center and heal. And it's still been a journey. I still think that that's. I don't even know that I'm fully over. You know the burnout experience. I think it takes so long, but yeah, it was, it was proper burnout.
Speaker 1:I can't even I can't even lie about it. Yeah yeah, I know, I know that feeling well, and so at what point did you start thinking about Tessa?
Speaker 2:I'm assuming that's the next venture you went into next venture you went into, I found myself a little bit back to where I was before Invest Africa, in that I didn't have a job title for what it was that I wanted to do, and I was, just again, very clear about the impact that I wanted to have and had no clue of what that path would be. But I just, quite literally, couldn't think of the job title, and so I thought to myself you know well, I just have a feeling that I'm going to have to create this myself and figure this out along the along the way, and so I first took time off. I took about five months off from working and I, during that time, the first basketball Africa league final or not even finals. That time, the first basketball Africa League final or not even finals the entire league was happening.
Speaker 2:And it was at a time where we were fresh off COVID. So everyone you know, all the players, including, you know, the attendees were in a bubble, and so we went to. I went to Kigali and got to see the first. You know, iteration and being able to see the product in person was amazing. I feel like Amadou and his team have built such an incredible asset. But something that was very clear to me was that it's not something that can be sustainable without the private sector really coming on board, because that's how sports work.
Speaker 2:Sports functions based, obviously, off of ticket sales, but also, namely, sponsorship dollars and investment, and, as Africans in general, we have not yet understood sports to be a true business opportunity. And so I thought to myself how can I contribute to the growth of this industry and helping the private sector understand what is here? And so I met my former co-founder of Tessa and we had just decided you know, I think it's just best to start an advisory firm and start to help people, you know, on a one-on-one basis. So that's ultimately what we did. We started the business in the fall of 2021 and we're doing that work for approximately yeah, about a year and a half. We did it for about a year and a half and we're entirely focused on private sector businesses, government entities who are looking to leverage sports not only for just development in general but also youth development as well. We also put on some camps.
Speaker 2:But it was a very interesting experience and what I will say is that I think that business was a hair early because a lot of the conversations that we were having were convincing people that it was even worthwhile to consider investing in sports and I think that made our business development process wait far too long. But in the span I think, of even the last couple of years, year and a half, there's been some things that have happened in the sports industry that have forced just the general broader community, but specifically the African private sector community, to understand hey, no, there's something here. We have athletes who are not only just great, they, they are absolutely world-class. You know, we have now Afcon. This year was incredible the viewership, it was incredible, even just the revenue. It made $80 million of profit for the first time. Like, there's so many things that are happening now that I think people are starting to pay attention to. Yeah, that's, that's the journey of kind of going into Tessa and really wanting to help to build the industry from the ground up.
Speaker 1:What did it feel like having to bring that business to a pause or a halt? What did that feel like?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was heartbreaking. To be honest, it was really heartbreaking. There was a couple of things. The first thing I think it was a good and natural not first thing. I think it was a good and natural, not even natural. I think it was a good transition because we were helping people on a one-on-one basis and I wanted to have more of an impact and realize that it was the industry was starting to develop more quickly and to have a louder mic. I wanted to have a louder microphone about what was just even taking place.
Speaker 2:but also, really, it was generated by a co-founder breakup, you know, and ultimately, and what I didn't realize is, it really was like a divorce, to be honest more than anything, and I've never been married, I can't really say exactly what that feels like, but that's what it felt like to me, especially because myself and my co-founder were very close friends.
Speaker 2:And surely, when you're building something, when you're trying to bring a concept from the ether, from your mind, into reality, the process of that is a very intimate process. It's a very vulnerable process as well, and especially when you're trying to just generate revenue for yourself, and so you know, the split of our friendship, the split of our business subsequently as well, was just heartbreaking for me, and so having to go through that experience was challenging, and then also how to pick up the pieces again is so challenging, and so I spent most of 2023 picking up the pieces and trying to figure out, like, what am I going to do at this point? You know what do this? And questioning is this still something that I even want to do? You know there's there's so many things that happen, so many feelings that I think can be brought about by some of these breakups. So I went through every emotion, through the frustration and the anger to the sadness, depression.
Speaker 2:I went through all of those feelings, but that's a part of life and it's about weathering that storm and trying as much as you can to maintain the confidence in yourself and in your vision, and knowing that all of these things happen for a reason, I feel I'm a very spiritual person as well, so I feel very I trust that God is guiding me in the right direction, and so it made me respect the entrepreneurial journey in a very different way and understand that for me it's much more of a spiritual journey than anything else, and so that's been something that I've been trying to lean even more into, and that's where I feel like I find comfort in what this crazy journey that entrepreneurship really can be. I find comfort in what this crazy journey that entrepreneurship really can be.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for sharing that In that place of feeling like you failed. You didn't give up. You had another idea and Playbook was born. So to talk to us about coming to a point where you decided I'm going to go this alone.
Speaker 2:I'm going to create a new company and this is what the company is going to do. Yeah, I had had this idea, mainly about convenings, because that's the work that I did at Invest Africa. It was really. You know really what that role was as executive director was like a community manager. It was about how can you grow the community, how can you support members of the community, and so I hosted probably a hundred events over the course of my time there, and so I really wanted to go back to what I knew, and so I never anticipated in my wildest dreams that I would be running a media business.
Speaker 2:I didn't know anything about media, but I knew that I wanted to have a bigger microphone. And I knew that I wanted to have a bigger microphone, and I knew that I needed to build a community of people who were having these conversations so that we can just help to bring the industry further along. And so it's been an interesting journey in that it feels right and it's helped me not only regain confidence in my own vision but also understand more of who I am, in a way, and being confident in who I am, because really, what media is is just, it's just a voice, and what I realized is that people don't want to hear you echo what everybody else is saying. People want to hear what it is that you specifically are offering and what you have to say, and so this experience of I've been incubating content on LinkedIn for the past few months, and the posts that have been getting the highest engagement have all been about the times where I say, no, this is what I really think, or hey, here's an idea that I have. Let me know what you all think, and those are the ones that people are most interested in, and so I think we need a lot more voices.
Speaker 2:But ultimately, for me, it's about not only sharing my perspective because I think I sit in a really unique spot as an athlete that played on the continent, plus understands the investment space really well and has been very familiar with the African business community, but also coming from, you know, from the Western perspective and Western experience as well, and so I wanted to not only be able to share what it is that I've learned and what I've seen and some things that I think a lot of people are not considering, but also platform all of the people who are on the ground and have been on the ground, have been doing this work for decades and find ways to funnel as much capital as I can to them, and so, really, ultimately, what Playbook is is a media company, so we put out news and insights about what's happening in the sports business industry, not only in Africa, but also in the Middle East, as we are looking to be a platform for all emerging sports economies, you know, starting, of course, with Africa, because it's what I know best, but ultimately being able to also create community host events and ultimately being able to really derive data that can help to inform business leaders on the continent, as well as those who want to enter into the continent, on how to, you know, structure their businesses and make better business decisions in order to help the industry at least develop sustainably.
Speaker 2:That's the goal, that's the dream.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic. So, in terms of funding, what does funding look like for Playbook?
Speaker 2:Yeah, as of now, playbook has been entirely funded by me, and I'm really grateful, though, to have a partnership with Yatra Ventures. Do you know who Raja Jendlayah is?
Speaker 1:I know the name.
Speaker 2:Yes, so she is the founder of an infrastructure firm and VC firm that put the consortium together for the East African oil refinery that's being built in Uganda. So she's always been in infrastructure and I met her originally during my time built in Uganda. So she's always been infrastructure and I met her originally during my time in West Africa. She's become such an incredible mentor to me so I'm really excited to be able to partner with her on helping to grow Playbook and it's her interest really in this space is she has such a focus on helping African economies develop sustainably and she really believes in higher education and what she has observed over the years is how, in Western world, specifically namely in the States, sports for universities has really helped to drive revenue, and so universities, many universities in the States are entirely independent of state funding, and so, in order for African universities to diversify their revenue streams and to become more independent of government funding, she wants to explore this idea of what would it look like to use sports to do the same thing.
Speaker 2:First issue that we really face, the foundational issue that we face, is infrastructure. We don't have the stadiums we don't have and even if we do, they're not kept, you know, upkept and they're just not of global standards. And so how can we help to elevate infrastructure at the foundational level? And how, then, that, you know, plays out into economic development, whether that be through higher education, being able to provide, you know, more sustainability for universities themselves like that is tremendously important but also how that impacts communities around just holistically. There's so many ways in which sports can help to contribute to an economy, to a society, and so I'm really grateful to have her really as somebody that's been helping to support me along this journey since day one Funding in general, I've been doing it alone thus far but, it's certainly something that I'm going to be considering very seriously and opening up because I want it to be.
Speaker 2:I think that there's a lot of value that we have to offer, and I want it to be something that is built in community.
Speaker 1:So you've also moved again physically to the continent? Tell us about that.
Speaker 2:Oh, that has been such a realization of a dream that I've had for so long. There's nothing like being back home and, you know, even though it's not in Cameroon specifically, even just quite honestly being the majority as a Black woman, being the majority in your own space and people who understand. You know, we all have a communal culture as Africans in some sense, and so just being in a place that is so comforting in that way has been great. I also think that Nairobi, specifically, is a very interesting space. Right now. It is growing so quickly really as an international destination.
Speaker 2:I don't think that a lot of people realize how important I think Nairobi will be to the rest of the world in the next few years. So it almost feels like I'm planting my roots in New York City before it became New York City to the rest of the world in the next few years. So it feels like I'm planting my roots in New York City before it became New York City to the rest of the world. There's so much business happening there and also it's so close to the Middle East, where so much development is also happening as well, and obviously where Playbook also has a focus. So I wanted to choose a place where it was easy to travel between both regions. So I'm really grateful for Nairobi and, you know, there's just comfort levels as well. There's Uber Eats and Wi-Fi is good. You know, I'm not really hurting for much in Nairobi and the community has been the entrepreneurial community. There is also amazing. So it checks off the boxes in so many ways.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the weather too.
Speaker 2:The weather's amazing and I went to the Kenyan coast for the first time. The Kenyan coast is incredible and not enough people, I think, know about it, but it's incredible White sand, beaches and blue water it's like. It's like zanzibar, it's like a place yeah that's amazing.
Speaker 1:So so, what does, as we, as we wrap up um, what does the next five years look like for, for playbook and for you, sandrine?
Speaker 2:yeah, I have two lanes, I think, that I'm really focused on developing right now. One is, of course, playbook and sports business, and in five years I would love for playbook to be hosting an annual conference on emerging sports economies. I would love for there to be a playbook Africa, middle East, southeast Asia, latin America as well, but, you know, have these regional expansions that able to really cultivate communities in these different regions and see more collaboration happen between all. So I would love for that to be the case. Who knows? I think I also. It would be very interesting and and likely a part of Playbook's journey, to also develop an investment fund as well, specifically for, you know, the sports industry.
Speaker 2:And then my personal passion that I also have, that's, you know, just as significant as sports for me is fashion, and I've been weaving that a little bit through the content that I have on Playbook, but I also personally just have a. Really I just feel like my life's mission is to make clothes. So I need to develop my fashion line that I have in my head and when I think about just who I am, everything that's really at the intersection of sports and fashion really feels like me, and so I'm just trying to really structure my life and work on projects that help to bring that more to the forefront as much as I possibly can. So yeah, hopefully there'll be a line, hopefully Playbook will be established, but that's the dream, I love it.
Speaker 1:I love it. So, just in terms of advice for other women who are building businesses in Africa, what advice would you give to them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, the first advice which I think that, especially for early founders to truly understand, especially for female founders, to truly understand that you are your business, you are the voice of your business and don't be afraid of that, and to actually lean into that, and I've found that incubating the content for playbook. I decided to do it through my personal page versus my company page for a reason, and that was because people relate and want to connect with a human being and, to be quite honest, also the algorithms on social media. Brand pages are becoming more obsolete and company pages are becoming more obsolete and there's a lot more content being developed around the founders and the story of your business and your idea are coming from founder pages. So you're seeing, oftentimes, founders gaining traction and followers far more than their company pages are, and the algorithms are understanding this and reinforcing that, and so, as a woman founder, I would absolutely say lean into that.
Speaker 2:I also think that LinkedIn is an incredible tool. I know that most people don't see it as a content creation platform, but we're now in the day and age where every company has to be a media company as well, and so you should really see yourself and your journey as an opportunity and a platform to be able to share just the progress of what is happening, to be the voice of your company. It's tremendously important and I think it allows, most importantly, people to connect with you and allows you to be able to communicate who you are, because, ultimately, the people who are naturally attracted to you partners, potential mentors, et cetera, clients will find you. But you need to be able to like communicate who you are and do it often, and there's a billion users on LinkedIn and only 1% of users are posting content, and those that are are posting it, you know, at once a week like. So if you are somebody who even commits to making a couple posts a week, you're far and ahead.
Speaker 2:Your competitors are far and ahead other people in the industry, and so it's a huge, huge underutilized resource right now, and so you should definitely take advantage of it.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, Sandrine. This has been an incredibly insightful conversation. Thank you so much for spending time with us today.
Speaker 2:Of course, thank you so much for having me. It was really fun to have this conversation. Thank you so much for spending time with us today, of course, thank you so much for having me. It was really fun to have this conversation.
Speaker 1:I appreciate it. Thank you so much for listening. If you're not already subscribed, please do so on Apple, spotify or wherever you get your podcasts, and don't forget to leave us a review so we know how we're doing. I'm Akego Okoye and you have been listening to African Business Stories.