Most Powerful

• #1 Robert Mugabe
  Zimbabwe Party State ControlPolitical Cold War and Globalization State Power Power: 100
  Robert Gabriel Mugabe (21 February 1924 – 6 September 2019) was a Zimbabwean revolutionary and politician who led Zimbabwe from independence in 1980 until his resignation in 2017, serving first as prime minister and later as executive president. Emerging from the nationalist struggle against white minority rule in Rhodesia, Mugabe became the dominant figure in the ruling Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU‑PF) and built a governing model that fused party structures, security institutions, and state control over land and key economic levers. His administration expanded education and public services in the early post‑independence period but became associated with repression, contested elections, and severe economic decline, including hyperinflation and mass emigration. Mugabe’s long tenure, dramatic policy shifts, and eventual removal through a military-backed political transition have made him one of the most debated post‑colonial leaders in modern African history.
• #2 Strive Masiyiwa
  AfricaUnited KingdomZimbabwe TechnologicalTechnology Platform Control 21st Century Technology Platforms Power: 80
  Strive Masiyiwa (born January 29, 1961) is a Zimbabwean businessman and philanthropist best known as the founder of Econet, a telecommunications group that helped expand mobile connectivity and related digital infrastructure across parts of Africa. He is associated with Econet Global and Cassava Technologies, groups that have included mobile network operations, fiber connectivity, data centers, and technology services. Masiyiwa became prominent not only for building telecom assets but also for a prolonged legal.
• #3 Paul Le Roux
  PhilippinesSouth AfricaUnited StatesZimbabwe CriminalCriminal Enterprise Cold War and Globalization Illicit Networks Power: 62
  Paul Le Roux (born 1972) is a Zimbabwe-born programmer and criminal organizer whose career revealed how digital expertise, offshore finance, and old-fashioned coercion could be fused into a modern transnational crime empire. He first accumulated major wealth through online prescription-drug operations and related technology infrastructure, then expanded into narcotics trafficking, arms transactions, precious-metals smuggling, timber extraction, and murder-for-hire schemes across multiple countries. Le Roux is historically significant because his organization did not resemble a traditional territorial mafia. It operated more like a private clandestine corporation, with encrypted communications, compartmentalized teams, shell companies, and outsourced violence. His 2012 arrest in a U.S. sting and later cooperation with authorities exposed a criminal model in which software skill and global logistics became force multipliers for organized crime.