Zimbabwean tycoon and founder of pan-African telecoms heavyweight Econet Group Strive Masiyiwa has taken a board seat at Netflix, underlining the Silicon Valley giant’s ambitions on the continent of more than 1-billion people.

Masiyiwa, who fought murky politics and a legal jungle to win a licence to set up a mobile phone network in the country of his birth in 1998, is the first African to join Netflix’s highest decision-making body...