Today we’d like to introduce you to Gabriel S. Shumba.
Gabriel, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
My journey out of poverty was long. I was born during Zimbabwe’s liberation war, and my family was exiled to Zambia.
I watched my parents suffer the pains of war and eventually our family separated. Left with nothing, my late mother did not give up on life. With help from her, my siblings, and sometimes strangers, I rose from the jaws of poverty to become a highly sort after Private Equity Investor and advisor to pension funds, private and public investment funds, business ventures and financial inclusiveness organizations around the world.
I credit my success to the foundational principles I learned through my exposure to different mentors, and to radically different methods on managing finances. I strongly feel that the time has come for hard working people to encounter a paradigm shift, to adopt a completely different way of thinking when it comes to overcoming financial hardship.
I spent over 17 years consulting with Investment Bankers, Hedge Fund Investors, Angel Investors, Entrepreneurs, Philanthropists and Fortune 500 business executives, learning how they go about creating and growing wealth. My ultimate goal is to help people fulfill their financial destiny, using the same principles, methods, and tools that millionaires and billionaires use to accumulate wealth and transfer it.
Has it been a smooth road?
The road to entrepreneurship has not been straightforward for me due to many reasons. My first set of challenges emerged during my schooling days. I changed schools 9 times before graduating high school. During that time I had to learn four new languages in order to fit into the new environments I had been introduced to. Fast forward to my working days, I started by pursuing my passion in architecture, and failed to be accepted by a single college I had applied to despite having a full scholarship from a local company in my hand.
Then came the move to the international business scene, although I was very good at what I did, the move to the USA from Zimbabwe was a big change for me. It meant that I had to start afresh in building a network of enabling relationships, and that took a long time. I knew from the beginning that I needed a mentor but mentors where very difficult to come by and extremely had to develop trusting relationships with once engaged. 2008 was another big dent in my economic life. I lost almost half a million of my own money in real estate due to credit crunch events.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
My passion is changing lives by effecting upward financial mobility for the workforce globally. In order to do that efficiently, I operate from two closely linked entities.
Group Shumba, LLC, is a private equity and investment advisory firm with interests in emerging markets in financial services, mining, energy and real estate. Group Shumba is the vehicle we use to raise capital from institutional investors for placing in the above asset classes. Through Group Shumba we have been able to invest in Africa, South America and the USA. Additionally, we have been advising private funds, sovereign funds and investors wishing to enter the impact investment arena.
However, I am most proud of the work that we do at Waterhole LP. After publishing my widely read book, “The Waterhole Millionaire”, I began to pursue solutions on financial inclusiveness. and that lead to the birth of Waterhole. Waterhole LP. is a grassroots, impact investment, and financial empowerment vehicle. Our Tribe investing program has been extremely popular in North America, Europe and Africa. Through Tribe investing we help ordinary people learn how to setup micro-funds and learn to invest profitably like private equity investors. The ultimate goal is to increase the percentage of upward mobility in target countries.
A Stanford University Research published the percentage of people born in the low-income category that end up making it to the high net worth category during their lifetime from several countries. Here is an extract of some of the top countries: USA = 7.5%; Canada = 13%; UK = 9%; Denmark = 13.5%. It almost seems as if a person has twice the chance of becoming successful in Denmark or Canada than in the USA. The fact is that mobility from low to high net worth is primarily through the working track; whether as an entrepreneur or as an employee, It is precisely this problem of low upward mobility that we are set to solve at Waterhole.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Metro Dallas is a great place to live and do business. Since most investors are moving into the DFW area, it is a very positive environment for what we do at Group Shumba and Waterhole. However, the environment is more conducive to mature businesses and is set to open up for startups in the same way as Austin has.
The city of Dallas and the surrounding community could increase the number of programs that support new and young businesses. For example; programs that support startup incubators, initiatives like the “Tribe Investor” program we are running at Waterhole and more in the area of incentivizing smaller businesses in much the same way they incentivize big businesses that come to the DFW area.
Image Credit:
Mamoyo Photography
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