When he graduated in 1978, he travelled back to Rhodesia, intending to join Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo's anti-government guerrilla forces.

He worked briefly in the computer industry in Cambridge, England, but returned to Zimbabwe in 1984, hoping to aid the country's recovery following the end of the Rhodesian Bush War and universal franchise elections in 1980.

[20][21] In September 2014, the Chair of the African Union (AU), Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, asked Masiyiwa to help mobilise resources for Africa's response to the Ebola outbreak.

The donations enabled The AU to deploy the largest known contingency of African healthcare workers to combat the spread of the deadly pandemic.

[35] For the second time since 2017, Masiyiwa was named by Fortune Magazine in 2021 on the list of the World's 50 Greatest Leaders for his work with the African Union leading COVID response and vaccine acquisition in Africa.

[37] In April 2023, Masiyiwa was elected an International Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences that was founded in 1780 `'honoring excellence, innovation, and leadership and recognizing a broad array of stellar accomplishments`'.

[42] The emergence of mobile cellular telephony led him to diversify into telecoms, but he soon ran into major problems when the Zimbabwean government of Robert Mugabe refused to give him a license to operate his business, known as Econet Wireless.

[44] Masiyiwa listed Econet Wireless Zimbabwe in July 1998 on the local stock exchange as a gesture of thanks to reward the thousands of ordinary people who supported him during his long legal battles against the Zimbabwean government.

[47] In March 2000, fleeing persecution from the local authorities, Masiyiwa left Zimbabwe, never to return to the country, and moved first to South Africa, where he founded The Econet Wireless Group, a new and completely separate organisation to the listed Zimbabwean entity.

[citation needed] One of Masiyiwa's most successful ventures is the London-based privately held Liquid Telecom Group (now Liquid Intelligent Technologies) Africa's largest satellite and fibre optic business spanning the continent with more than 100,000 kilometres of cable from Cape Town to Cairo and also connecting through many countries from east to west Africa.

[54] Masiyiwa has also been involved in supporting a diverse range of health issues including campaigns against HIV/AIDS, Cervical Cancer, malnutrition, EBOLA, and more recently, COVID-19.

[57] Upon the cholera outbreak which happened in Zimbabwe in 2019, Strive Masiyiwa together with his wife donated a total of US$10m to fight against the disease.

[61] The two also started a non-profit organisation, Higherlife Foundation, which empowers disadvantaged children through education and creating opportunities for highly talented young people.

Masiyiwa agreed to pay each doctor a subsistence allowance of about $300 (£230) and provide them with transport to work, through a fund he set up.

[64] Masiyiwa owns two adjacent apartments atop the 29-storey Eldorado Tower at 300 Central Park in New York City, bought for US$24.5 million in 2016.

[65] In October 2024, Masiyiwa became the first black billionaire to enter the Sunday Times Rich List with a net worth of US$3.1 billion.