President Nelson Mandela in 1997 made an impassioned plea for black professionals to enter the mainstream economy of South Africa to bring about meaningful transformation of the social and economic landscape in order to redress the economic legacy of apartheid. This resulted in Dr. Survé leaving his first love medicine, and founding the Sekunjalo Group, which is today wholly owned by the Survé family. Today Sekunjalo is one of Africa’s most successful Investment Holding Groups with a portfolio of 176 investments and a net asset value exceeding $3.5 billion.

Sekunjalo’s investment portfolio includes Oil and Gas, Food, Fishing, Aquaculture, Power, Resources, Transport and Mobility, Telecoms, Civil Security and Defense, Media, Technology, Bio-technology, Healthcare & Pharmaceuticals and Asset Management. Sekunjalo pioneers many social impact investment initiatives in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The story of Africa’s rising is an important narrative that The Survé family and Sekunjalo have committed to by investing in media on the African continent. In South Africa, Sekunjalo has acquired Independent Media (20 major titles, more than 6 million daily print readers and 3 million online viewers).

Two important initiatives which the Survé family and Sekunjalo has funded and committed to are: the launch of The African Independent (AI), the first continent wide print newspaper (distributed to 40 countries in Africa) which is also accompanied by the online website

The second major initiative is the launch of The African News Agency (ANA) to provide the first news and content syndication service by Africans for an African and global audience. ANA’s success is unprecedented in African media in that it recently placed a minority shareholding of 10% with international investors at a company valuation of a billion dollars (six months after its launch).

Dr. Iqbal Survé is a medical doctor born and educated in South Africa. He was affectionately known as the “Struggle Doctor” because of his provision of medical care towards victims of apartheid brutality including those imprisoned on the infamous Robben Island such as Nelson Mandela on his release from Robben Island in February 1990.