The best long-distance runners in the world are African. Kenyans, Ethiopians, Tanzanians, Ugandans and other people from the continent win everything, from the “major league” competitions to those in peripheral markets like Brazil.
Until then, snow died. What you may never have considered is the existence of an African performance brand taking advantage of this formidable forge of champions.
And, yes, Kenya has had it since 2017, and in April it arrives in Brazil. Enda (something like “Bora”, in Swahili) launched the Iten as its first running shoe, named after the mountainous city where the country’s main champions come from.
Then came a model for long training sessions, the Lapatet, and another for trail riding, as well as “casual wear”. With some good – or bad – will, it is possible to see in the logo’s arrowhead the idea of movement also present in Nike’s.
Corporate storytelling is beautiful. Kenya is not an entrepreneurship paradise, especially for women. And it was a woman, Navalayo Osembo, a Kenyan trained at the London School of Economics, who created Enda, with the desire to nationalize all stages of production and make it zero carbon.
Osembo dreamed big, he aimed to make the brand one of the three biggest in the world in the segment, but two years ago he ended up selling it to Ghanaian Nana Baffour. She now runs On on the continent.
With Baffour, Brazil enters history. He has brands and companies here, such as NVH Studios, owner of the brands Zeferino and Twins for Peace. He is also co-founder and chair of Qintess, a transnational digital innovation consultancy. In 2023, it faced a strike by its 2,600 employees in Brazil.
Baffour usually discloses to investors and “stakeholders” data from the UN (United Nations), that Africa will have a quarter of the entire world population by 2050, and the youngest of all continents, manna for any holder of means of production.
Brazilian minds are now thinking about the internationalization (and greater Africanization) of Enda. There is room to grow where the brand already operates, such as Kenya, Nigeria and the United States, and in virgin markets, such as Angola.
Baffour called coach and “influencer” from São Paulo Ademir Paulino to be responsible for the actions in Brazil. More than an “ambassador”, as Ademir was for Olympikus until December, he will work on product development and creating a “community around the brand”.
This means forming groups of promoters and runners, curating athletes and choosing races to sponsor. “Nana talks about creating a marathon in Angola, a country where a lot of people run”, says Ademir.
Ademir says the quality of the shoes “is good”, suggesting there is room for improvement. He makes constant trips to Kenya and Ethiopia, taking Brazilian amateurs for immersions in training camps in those countries. And what he has seen on the feet of Africans is in a way a metaphor for the capitalist system itself, unequal and crooked and never stopping to perpetuate itself.
“The main brands in the world, Nike and Adidas, for example, develop their prototypes with the runners there, who are full of models to run in, but there are a huge number of Kenyans who don’t have a single pair, they have to borrow them.”
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