Bethlehem will be honored alongside Mo Ibrahim, Alek Wek, Femi Kuti and Masai Ujiri the other icons named as FACE Award winners in their respective fields.
In 1970, Richard Branson and Nick Powell founded Virgin as a small music shop in London. By the year 2004, just 34 years later, Virgin Group had grown into an international conglomerate, with interests ranging from banking to film to airlines to mobile phones to commercial spaceflight. In 1976, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak founded Apple Computer in a garage in California, building handmade computers in wooden boxes. By the year 2012, just 36 years later, Apple inc. had grown to become the most-valuable company in history.
Following in the footsteps of these companies is soleRebels, an eco-friendly footwear company based in Ethiopia. soleRebels is Africa’s success story, and behind this magnificent topiatry is an incomparably talented and determined woman: Ethiopian businesswoman Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu.
What is in a name? Does the identity of an entity flow from its name or does the name of an entity spring from its identity? In the case of soleRebels, with its immediately catchy motto, “walkNAKED,” and visionary founder, Bethlehem Tilahun Alemu, it is most certainly the latter.
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