Storytellers
The Ghanaian business landscape in 2025 was defined not just by new products, deals and policy shifts, but by a radical change in how business knowledge was distributed. A handful of audio and video platforms emerged as the de facto “alternative business school” for entrepreneurs, replacing generic Western advice with hyper-local context. Five podcasts—Building Bytes, Family Business Diaries, The Pesewa, Konnected Minds, and The Startup Leap— caught our attention.
Building Bytes
Building Bytes distinguished itself in 2025 by prioritizing depth over breadth while simultaneously breaking into mainstream media. Hosted by Yaw Antwi Owusu, Akweley Abena Okai, Caleb Lamptey and Poga Kuofie, the show leveraged a strategic distribution partnership with the Ghana Hubs Network to launch the Ghana Innovation Tour in June, physically mapping innovation centers like Duapa Werkspace in Takoradi. To amplify their reach beyond their 2,130 digital subscribers, the team signed a landmark media distribution partnership with MX24, successfully bringing their technical conversations to a national television audience. Crucially, they sustained this momentum with Demo Fridays, a program that offers a consistent stage for local founders to live-demo their technology. Their influence was further cemented in September with the announcement of the Ghana Digital Product Awards, which established a new benchmark for product excellence, celebrating local model companies like Hubtel rather than imported Silicon Valley metrics.
Family Business Diaries
Family Business Diaries offered listeners rare access to the historically private world of Ghanaian family-owned businesses. Hosted by Mary Asante-Asamoah, a second-generation executive at the family-owned mining group Barbex Africa, the podcast featured guests who unpacked the distinct challenges and opportunities inherent in family enterprises, including succession planning, governance, and long-term continuity.
With over 5,380 dedicated subscribers, Mary Asante-Asamoah built a strong digital audience around these themes. The podcast’s sustained focus on succession and governance resonated with high-net-worth families and next-generation leaders, leading to the August launch of NextGen Connect, a peer network designed specifically for second-generation leaders of family-owned businesses. Episodes featuring figures such as Dr. Sangu Delle served as practical governance case studies, helping frame conversations around transitioning family businesses into enduring institutions.
Konnected Minds Podcast by Derrick Abaitey
The year’s undisputed mass-market leader was Konnected Minds, which Spotify officially ranked as the Number 1 Podcast in Ghana for 2025. Host Derrick Abaitey moved beyond general motivation to dissect the operational mechanics of Ghana’s industrial heavyweights. The season was defined by raw technical breakdowns, such as Felix Afutu of McPhilix Foods revealing the 20% margin buffer required to survive plantain price surges, and Dr. Charles Yeboah of ICS explaining how he lived in rented homes for ten years to channel four million dollars into his school’s infrastructure. Episodes featuring billionaire Dr Daniel McKorley (McDan) and Hon. Ken Agyapong debunked the “overnight success” myth, focusing instead on the agonising “infant stage” of business, where principles must take precedence over profit.
This shift to hard-hitting business education culminated in the Success Code live event at the British Council, where the digital audience converted into a physical network of ambitious operators.
The Peswa
Rounding out the focus on local operators is The Peswa Podcast, hosted by tech entrepreneur Bill Fosuhene Cobbinah. With a more than 5,100 subscribers, the show positioned itself as an intellectual reference point within the ecosystem, prioritizing depth over celebratory success narratives.
The 2025 season was defined by extended, unsparing examinations of failure and resilience. In an August episode, Prince Kofi Amoabeng offered a rare post-mortem on the collapse of UT Bank, detailing not only the institutional breakdown but also the psychological toll of losing a financial empire. The show continued to challenge the myth of “overnight success” through conversations with Barnabas Nomo of Goliath Robotics, who unpacked the engineering realities of building Ghana’s first locally manufactured wheelchair factory after losing his legs, and Agyeman Prempeh, who traced the supply-chain logic behind his transition from JP Morgan banker to founder of Adinkra Republic, now the country’s leading premium sock brand.
Cobbinah delivered the kind of operational clarity and hard-earned insight sought by serious founders focused on building durable businesses.
The Startup Leap Podcast
The Startup Leap Podcast served as the critical bridge between local realities and the global technology stage. Co-hosted by Yvonne Bajela, the Ghanaian venture partner at LocalGlobe, and Maria Rotilu, the Nigerian investor at OpenseedVC, the podcast offered a masterclass in scale that the other platforms lacked.
The Startup Leap brings a global perspective to conversations on scaling, growth, and execution by interviewing founders globally—from Silicon Valley to London—to extract universal lessons on starting and scaling. In 2025, they used this global mandate to tell African success stories like Miishe Addy of Jetstream and Dare Okoudjou of Onafriq with global titans like Ida Tin (founder of Clue) and Dhiraj Mukherjee (co-founder of Shazam). By juxtaposing these narratives, Bajela and Rotilu effectively served as the school for local startups ready to graduate to the world stage.
