The Samuele Tini Show - where business, innovation, and sustainability converge

In this episode, I’m joined by Alisa Sydow (Professor of Entrepreneurship at ESCP Business School) to unpack what women founders are really navigating in Africa’s entrepreneurship ecosystem beyond the usual “barriers list.”

We discuss:

• Why purpose is powerful—but can also limit growth if it makes founders neglect commercial fundamentals.
• The overlooked role of founder identity (and why some women subconsciously place business ...

Syntropy isn’t about the tropics—it’s about the physics of life. In this episode, Samuele sits down with Sven Verwiel, CEO & Co‑Founder of Forest Foods (Kenya), to unpack syntropic agroforestry: a regenerative farming approach designed to compound productivity over time through stratification (vertical layers) and succession (time).

We go from field reality to unit economics: what it takes to regenerate degraded soils, why synt...

In this episode, Samuele speaks with Apollo Gabazira—Country Director at CARE International (Uganda) and an award‑winning regenerative farmer—about what it takes to make farming profitable, scalable, and youth‑attractive in East Africa.

Apollo shares the Asaba Farm System and its “quad model”:

1. dairy as a foundation

2. agronomy and circularity (turning waste into value)

3. skilling youth through hands‑on learning

4. community ext...

When you clear a forest to plant maize and make charcoal, you’ve already put a price on nature—the future cash flows from the maize and the wood. The problem is that price is far too low.

In this episode of The Samuele Tini Show, I speak with Josep Oriol, Managing Partner at Okavango Capital Partners and a leading nature‑finance expert working across Sub‑Saharan Africa.

A Catalan who fell in love with African wildlife as a child, J...

We talk a lot about tree planting, but far less about what happens to all the agricultural and organic waste we burn or dump. That’s where biochar comes in.

In this episode of The Samuele Tini Show, I’m joined by Luisa Marin, Executive Director of the International Biochar Initiative (IBI). After 25+ years in conservation with organisations like Conservation International and The Nature Conservancy, Luisa moved into carbon project ...

In most emerging markets, “sustainability” has been designed for big exporters, banks and multinationals. Everyone else – the micro, small and medium businesses that actually employ people and move the economy – is basically left out but more and more customers are asking for proofs.

In this episode, Luke Hayman, Executive Director of Sustainable Kenya, explains how his team is trying to flip that script with an Africa-first sustai...

Special Episode — Recorded live at the Oppenheimer Research Conference 2025. The global conservation debate is loud — but often poorly informed about what people who live with wildlife actually think. In this revealing episode, researchers Dr. Darragh Hare (Oxford) and Dr. Lovemore Sibanda share evidence from multi-country surveys exploring views on militarised conservation, ranger powers, trophy hunting, wildlife crime penalties, ...

pecial Episode — Recorded live at the Oppenheimer Research Conference 2025. How do we build conservation models that work for both people and nature? In this eye-opening conversation, Lessah Mandoloma (Oxford) and Katie Mackenzie (Jamma Conservation & Communities) unpack the principles of human-centred conservation—a framework that challenges siloed thinking, brings communities into decision-making, and addresses the real trade...

Stop Chasing Sexy Startups: Why Boring Businesses Win in Africa

Fifteen years ago, Kyle Schutter had a choice: get a PhD in biofuels or move to Africa and start a biofuel company. He chose the second option — and landed in Kenya after what he calls the “blue cheese test”: if a country could produce local blue cheese, it probably had enough cold chain, middle class and basic infrastructure to build serious businesses. 

His first ven...

Special Episode — Recorded live at the Oppenheimer Research Conference 2025. In South Africa’s fight against rhino poaching, data—not emotion—drives progress. Conservation researchers Dr. Timothy Kuiper and Lucy Chimes share the results of their multi-reserve study on what actually reduces poaching. From aerial patrols, drones, and canine units to the controversial dehorning strategy, they discuss what works, what doesn’t, and why ...

Special Episode — Recorded live at the Oppenheimer Research Conference 2025. What does it really take to make wildlife land use financially sustainable? Veterinarian and impact-investing specialist Dr. Susan De Witt explores the economics behind conservation, from private conservancies to community lands. She explains how revenue models (photographic tourism, hunting, live sales, and wildlife meat) interact with property rights, wi...

Join Samuele tini as he walks listeners into the heart of the Silicon Savannah, tracing a personal journey from London to Nairobi with Ben Hyman, CEO of Talent Safari. Through candid storytelling, Ben reveals the messy, human side of hiring in fast-moving startups — the missed connections, the rare self-starters, and the small bets that turn interns into founders.

Along the way, they untangle practical strategies for founders hunti...

Special Episode 3 — Recorded live at the Oppenheimer Research Conference 2025. South Africa needs more clean energy and raptors need safe skies. Raptor biologist Merlyn Nomusa Nkomo lays out practical ways to make wind farms wildlife‑smart without stalling the transition. We cover how risk mapping keeps turbines out of migration corridors, why blade painting and shutdown‑on‑demand (triggered by radar or trained observers) can cut c...

Special Episode 2 — Recorded live at the Oppenheimer Research Conference 2025. In Kenya’s Amboseli ecosystem, people and wildlife have shared space for millennia. Conservation leader Dr. David Western explains how that coexistence works today: mirrored migrations between herds and wildlife, community scouts complementing state rangers, and “parks beyond parks” where tourism outside gates pays landowners to keep habitat open. We dig...

Special Episode 1  — Recorded live at the Oppenheimer Research Conference 2025. A scabies outbreak among mountain gorillas sparked a new way of working.  Dr. Gladys Kalema‑Zikusoka tells the origin of Conservation Through Public Health and how a One Health approach links gorilla protection, community healthcare, and livelihoods. We discussed  Village Health & Conservation Teams, why tourist masking remains standard to protect g...

Electric buses are not a pilot anymore. As Dorcus Wanjiru Kamotho explains, BasiGo already has ~100 e‑buses on the road across Kenya and Rwanda, with hundreds more reserved. The unlock: a Pay‑As‑You‑Drive model—lower deposit plus per‑km fee that covers charging and service—paired with night‑time charging on Kenya’s largely renewable grid. We dive into local assembly with KVM (Thika), the new King Long platform to scale production, ...

Dr Anyse Pereira grew up in Cabo Verde, trained as a scientist in Europe, built programmes with the UN and Mercy Corps, and the corporate world—bringing a data‑driven, project‑management lens to sustainability. In this candid conversation, she explains the compliance–value–values triad, how to speak numbers to numbers people, and why purpose can beat budget (including the €5 “Science Parliament” that moved a nation). We dive into c...

What does it take to comply with the EU’s deforestation rule and create value for farmers and brands? Alessandro Chelli from Trusty explains how his team built a mobile‑first, offline data stack that gets plot‑level evidence from smallholders, validates claims with certifiers , and writes the results to an audited blockchain—so it is proof, not promises. We cover the EUDR baseline (plot mapping + due diligence), the shared‑cost mod...

How far can a story travel — and how much can it change? In this episode, Bridget Deacon, Managing Director of Shujaaz,  Emmy Winner and leading B Corp, explains how youth‑first storytelling moves beyond entertainment to shape behaviour, unlock livelihoods, and shift social norms across Kenya. From radio, print and TV to social media and an AI‑enabled chatbot, Shujaaz meets young people where they are, surfaces their lived realitie...