Forbes 100 – Let's Celebrate A Century Of A Business Idea Born In Africa

Anyone who knows me will tell it takes a lot to stun me into silence. You could argue talking and commenting are sharp tools of my trade, as an editor, that I like to keep keen.

- Chris Bishop

Yet one warm summer night, with the night sky crystal clear, I sat in sweet silence at Pilgrim’s Rest, Mpumalanga, the former mining town with its 100-year-old preserved wooden buildings, in the north east of South Africa.

The night sky was like a dark canvas strewn with sparkling diamonds; it took your breath away. I have yet to see a painting, or photograph, that can capture the beauty of an African sky at night, uncluttered by buildings, that stretches down to the treetops. It feeds your soul and opens the mind to a world of possibility. On that night, I visualized some of the achievements I wanted in life; of which editing this august publication is one and authoring a book is another.

It struck me, as I prepared to write this column, that Bertie Charles Forbes – the founder of the world-famous Forbes magazine of which FORBES AFRICA is the 16th English language version – would have looked up at the same African sky more than a century ago as he pondered his path to millions. It was clear that the genesis of his big ideas came when he was working in Africa.