Been out for a while now battling with all the documentations and lectures that come with an orientation week. Its been a truely aha experience and there is just so much I could talk about but let me stick to the one just fresh from the oven.
We had the introduction to general management class today which spanned about 9hrs and was taught by a strategy professor who formerly taught at Wharton. It was the first time I had a real case study class and really, what can I say? It was inspiring!
While my heavy lunch made me occassionally drowsy in the afternoon, I was able to immerse myself in the real life experience of a company which has gone bankrupt now. Well, not that I can now stop a company from going bankrupt but Ive seen one way to and not to approach a tough business challenge. I hope the momentum continues like this.
On a lighter note, some days ago, I was in the mrt; the doors close automatically without the option of opening manually from outside or inside. Then came along this woman with her todler son, dashing towards the door to get in before the door shuts. As soon as she got to the door, she shoved the boy in and bam, the door shut and the mrt moved. The boy was crying inside and the mom was screaming outside as she watched the mrt take her son away. And I thought – this could never have happened in Nigeria! We would have shouted the molue or danfo to a halt and gotten the boy back:) Anyway, her boy was dropped with the security at the next station.
I am the author of Scaling for Success: Empowering African SMEs. I am a Partner at Sahel Capital, a food and agriculture-focused private investment firm in Sub-Saharan Africa. Sahel Capital manages the Fund for Agriculture Financing in Nigeria (FAFIN) and the Social Enterprise Fund for Agriculture in Africa (SEFAA).
I co-lead SEFAA, an impact-first fund investing in agribusinesses that provide direct or indirect benefits to smallholder farmers across 13 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. I also lead investments and portfolio management for SEFAA and manage FAFIN portfolios, two of which were recently exited. I am a director on the board of one of the portfolio companies and serve in advisory roles for several startups and SMEs.