As the media industry evolved through digitalization, the career paths of exceptional next-generation executives took on a different format. Perhaps the example of Ryan Solovei will serve as inspiration for tomorrow's new leaders.

With 20 years of experience as a broadcast media professional, Solovei is just as passionate about his work as the day he started. Unlike most people, who spend their early twenties partying and trying to find some direction, he was already building his first telco company at just 21 and went on to develop it over the next nine years – successfully exiting his first business venture at only 30 years old.

The journey of Ryan Solovei through telco, media and beyond:

Over the course of his career, Ryan has worked in many facets of the telco, media, and production industries. His focus has been primarily on executive-level team management, product and business development, content productions and blitz scale in emerging markets within the OTT and TMT spaces. His broad expertise in content acquisitions, coupled with a deep understanding of the relationship between engaging content and consumer segments of the market, has allowed him to deliver successful content value propositions time and time again.

After the sale of his telco business, Ryan went on to pursue a variety of mostly-successful media and communications entrepreneurial projects. He took the challenges and lessons learned along the way to propel his next idea, moving on to bigger and better things. By 2013, he had set his sights on creating, and successfully scaling to profit, an OTT service across the expansive and underdeveloped markets in his home continent of Africa and beyond. Through this pursuit, Ryan was brought on by Econet Media Group.

Econet is a technology-focused group, led by Founder and Executive Chairman Strive Masiyiwa, with an entrepreneurial spirit. The company’s mission is to empower Africa – in particular sub-Saharan Africa – with technology for economic prosperity, and they have been doing just that for almost a quarter of a century.

During his time with Econet, Ryan worked intimately with Strive in the role of Executive Vice President of Econet Media, a media broadcasting company and subsidiary of Econet Global Ltd. He held an executive management role in the company and also sat on the board to oversee all video streaming-related activities, both technically and commercially.

Ryan Solovei
Ryan Solovei Ryan Solovei

Under his leadership, a host of successful products and services were developed. The first was an advanced Content Delivery Network (CDN), which launched across multiple countries. Ryan worked with an expert in-house technical network team to not only build but also to deploy the service in Kenya, Zambia, and Rwanda.

His next launch was a video streaming service called ipidi, which made its debut at AfricaCom. The SVoD/TVoD service was released as a downloadable app on both iOS and Android, as well as being available on the ipidi video streaming player. In order to run the relevant VoD/TVoD services, he then led the development of a Linux-based consumer streaming player. The Linux-based hardware device could exclusively stream the ipidi service and offered multicast capabilities as well.

Ryan’s most significant project with Econet was the negotiation of an exclusive distribution deal to enable Econet Media to represent Roku in Africa. Through this collaboration, a co-branded ‘Roku-Powered’ device was created to deliver the worlds’ greatest video and music services at an extremely efficient yet affordable price point. This device was subsequently branded as Kwese Play when the streaming service expanded in 2016.

Right around this same time, Ryan single-handedly negotiated and secured the exclusive rights to distribute Netflix for the first time in South Africa. This was launched along with the Roku platform. With his sound legal understanding of the various content rights and broadcasting regulations across the African continent as well as the technical requirements for the delivery, encryption, and curation of content on OTT services Ryan was able to provide a strong foundation for these growth initiatives. In his own words, Ryan explains:

“My proven ability to build and hold key technical and strategic C-level relationships with African technical and content partners, as well as mobile, telco and bank partners has enabled me to conclude numerous content and distribution partnerships across most aspects of the OTT value chain that would typically require commercial deal negotiations and legal deal structuring in addition to overseeing full technical integrations.”

Although Ryan left Econet Media in 2018, he continued to work towards his dream of creating, and successfully scaling to profit, an OTT service across the expansive and underdeveloped markets in his home continent of Africa. In fact, he went on to work with VIU PCCW Media Hong Kong and was actually the founder of VIU Africa. Soon after its launch, VIU became the most respected brand in the AVOD media business sector and, as of 2021, the SVOD sector as well. With a combination of a well-defined and executed strategy, along with major content licensing deals and co-production initiatives, VIU has become a household brand and the most successful OTT service in the market used daily across the African customer base.

But is it all about media skills? In the case of Solovei it is clear that a multitude of attributes are required. He seems to be a highly efficient, assertive and results-driven executive leader whose ability to grasp client needs, deliver effective solutions and build strong partnerships and management teams - which generated exceptional revenues. With a deep understanding of the many facets of media and communications, his perspective and knowledge are highly valued. Add to that his ability to navigate and work with the big personalities of this industry and it seems there is nothing Ryan Solovei could not accomplish to date.

Final take:

As the global media landscape changes, it is unlikely that even the top five business schools in the world have a single career path that matches the wide range of skills of well-known leaders in this sector: leaders like Mark Cuban, Ryan Solovei, Forrest Li and yes, even Rupert Murdoch. One might argue that this is indeed a rare glimpse into the journey to distinction.