Africa’s Next Generation of Builders will attain greater heights if they take onboard the message delivered by the Managing Director, Financial Institutions Training Centre, Dr. Chizor Malize, via a Compelling Keynote address at the TIBA Conference & Awards 2025, writes Oluchi Chibuzor

The 2025 TIBA Conference and Awards once again turned the spotlight on Africa’s brightest innovators — the young professionals, entrepreneurs, and founders who are pushing boundaries and redefining what is possible across industries. But beyond the celebration of excellence, this year’s event gave the continent something more: a strategic playbook for the future of African enterprise.

That playbook came through the highly impactful keynote delivered by the Chief Executive Officer of the Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC), Dr. Chizor Malize, whose message to this emerging generation of builders and innovators was powerful, practical, and deeply inspiring. Through her keynote, Malize gave the room a framework for growth, themed “Transformational Tripod for growth; Innovation, Resilience, and Dynamism”

Her message resonated not only because it reflected the realities young Africans face, but because it mirrored the very attributes that have powered some of Africa’s most successful unicorns that she referenced such as Flutterwave, M-Pesa, and Andela.

Building Growth Mindsets 

Malize spoke on the mindsets and muscles that Africa’s next generation will need to thrive in a world moving at unparalleled speed. “The future does not reward the talented, it rewards the prepared, the adaptable, and the courageous,” she said, capturing the attention of the room filled with young leaders, business founders, entrepreneurs and high-potential professionals. Her message came at a time when African youth are launching businesses faster than ever. The TIBA platform, a celebration of these emerging leaders, became the perfect setting for her call to action.

Innovation: Africa’s License to Compete

To illustrate the importance of innovation, Malize referenced Flutterwave — a company that simplified one of Africa’s biggest challenges: moving money across borders. Flutterwave was born from a simple observation: payments in Africa were broken, and solving that problem could unlock everything else.

“This is the kind of innovation to pursue; innovation rooted in solving real problems,

innovation born from local insight, innovation that transforms complexities into opportunities”. She remarked. 

She reminded the audience that innovation must simply create value. For many young Africans, this message hit home. Innovation begins with paying attention to the little things, to the little changes that need and can be made. And to the big things that can disrupt. 

Resilience: The Backbone of Every Successful African Venture “If innovation is the spark, resilience is the engine,” She enthused. 

African business environments, she said, often come with unpredictability – fluctuating regulations, limited infrastructure, or economic swings. “Yet resilience is precisely what has propelled companies like M-Pesa, which reimagined financial access in Kenya long before global markets began talking about mobile banking.  M-Pesa succeeded not because conditions were perfect, but because its builders learned to navigate constraints with persistence and creativity.” She stated.  Malize challenged the audience to build this same kind of inner stamina.

“In moments when doors close, resilience gives you the courage to build your own,” she said, a statement that resonated with the room full of enthusiastic attendees. 

Her point was simple: Resilience is not merely surviving challenges — it is using challenges as raw material for reinvention.

Dynamism: The Ability to Evolve at the Speed of Change

The third pillar, dynamism – spoke directly to Africa’s young workforce and new founders. Dynamism, she explained, is the willingness to learn, unlearn, and pivot when necessary. No African unicorn embodies dynamism better than Andela, which began as a developer training company and later evolved into a global talent marketplace. When the world changed, Andela changed too boldly and intentionally. This adaptability, Dr. Malize noted, is essential for emerging African innovators: the ability to evolve, to stay curious, to stay open, and to stay relevant. Dynamism is not speed — it is intelligent movement.

Place for Talent Development: The FITC Perspective

While her keynote was directed at the youth, it was grounded in the institutional experience of FITC, which has spent over 40 years developing leaders, strengthening institutions, and preparing professionals for the future of work. Through initiatives like the FITC Future of Work Academy (FOWA), which promotes and equips young workforce with digital leadership programmes, Cybersecurity courses, innovation and technology bootcamps, and resilience masterclasses, FITC has become a talent engine for the continent. Malize’s perspective is shaped by the evidence she sees daily partnering with professionals and organisations across Africa as FITC bring knowledge solutions to the financial sector across the continent. 

Blueprint for Africa’s Emerging Innovators 

The lesson from the TIBA stage can be distilled into three clear mandates for every aspiring African innovator:

      ⁃     Innovate with insight and originality 

Solve problems that matter. Solve them in ways that reflect your environment. Solve them with courage.

      ⁃     Build resilience as a core leadership skill

Not everything will work immediately. But through resilience build what is enduring.

      ⁃     Stay dynamic, evolve as fast as the world around you

Amongst the big charges to the audience are to Be flexible. Be curious. Be willing to pivot. And be unafraid to change direction.

TIBA Stage as a Catalyst for African Excellence

The TIBA Conference and Awards platform, known for elevating the continent’s brightest emerging leaders, created the perfect environment for this message. Every honouree had a story of grit, passion, reinvention, or breakthrough — living examples of the transformational tripod in action.

What made Malize’s keynote particularly impactful was how it aligned seamlessly with the ethos of the TIBA Awards: celebrating not just success, but the journey behind success, the late nights, the failures, the rebounds, the pivots, and the discoveries.  Her message complemented this spirit beautifully.

In that single keynote, Dr. Chizor Malize distilled what has taken global innovators years to learn and what African unicorns continue to demonstrate: success in Africa is not accidental; it is engineered through innovation, resilience, and dynamism.

Her message at the TIBA Awards did more than inspire.

It equipped.

It clarified.

It challenged.

It reset expectations for what Africa’s emerging innovators must become.

For the young talents who filled the TIBA hall that evening, one truth became unmistakable:

Their future will be shaped by the tripod they build today.