3-Events Series by Africa Finance Corporation, Invest Africa, and Capital Club Dubai
There is no single narrative that fits.
And just when you think you’ve got it, it’s something else.
As you break it down, measure it, explain it… it changes.
All the cliches and paradoxes dance in the shadows of what’s true but not quite the whole story.
We present the Africa series.
Because we want to truly understand the continent unfiltered.
We will hear from entrepreneurs, policy makers, investors, corporates, and civil society.
We will share the Africa solutions.
Africa Shaping Africa’s Narrative: Empowering Future Leaders
Event 1: 24 November 2022
There are a considerable number of businesses, financial institutions, government agencies, investment funds, and wealth advisors who are based in Dubai and cover the African markets. However, the African region is not understood well. Significant reluctance, hesitation and incorrect risk perceptions continue to be an obstacle. We would like to bring together, the decision-makers of Dubai as well speakers from Africa, to deepen understanding, and harness opportunities and collaborative solutions from Africa
Paul Bugingo, Partner, Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle LLP
Uche Orji, Former Managing Director & CEO, NSIA: Nigeria Sovereign Investment Authority
Seshni Samuel, EMEIA Managing Partner, Talent, EY
Moderator: Sanjeev Gupta Executive Director, Financial Services, Africa Finance Corporation
Sanjeev Gupta: We will be talking about issues that plague the African continent. Issues like perceptions, prejudices around risk, corruption, lack of skills, and credit worthiness of institutions. Why is the continent still struggling and what will it take for Africa to truly prosper?
The speakers were all born and grew up on the African continent. They studied and started their working lives on the continent. And then they went global, but their ties in Africa are strong. For this first event of the series, we are going to explore the issue of skills and people, and how we can harmonize, channelize, and develop Africa for tomorrow.
Uche Orji: I studied chemical engineering at the University of Port Harcourt, a provincial town, in Nigeria, but after graduation, I could not get a job in this industry. Everybody was moving out of engineering, into accounting and finance since those were the only jobs available during the period 1985 – 1990. A professor advised me to join an accounting firm, and I started my career at Price Waterhouse in Lagos. After a stint at Harvard Business School, I worked with Goldman Sachs Asset Management in London in 1996, and interestingly covered the chemical sector and later technology. Next, JP Morgan hired me to run their semiconductor research team, from where my career took off and I become Managing Director in 2001 for six years before moving to the USA with UBS to run their research team globally. One day, I got a call from the Sovereign Wealth Fund organization of Nigeria, who enquired about my interest to become the CEO. My initial response was to decline, and after some convincing, I accepted and built up the organization.
Seshni Samuel: I grew up in apartheid South Africa, during the time when non-white South Africans did not have opportunities to dream of careers like the one I have now. They went to school, and even though many were extremely intelligent ended up doing nothing much with their lives. But I was fortuitous that the year after I finished school, Nelson Mandela was released from prison. Universities across the country opened to all races and I received a scholarship the following year. I graduated with an IT degree in South Africa and joined Unilever. I am thankful that some big corporates do choose to establish businesses in Africa, because it gives people opportunities. But it is a tug of war because a lot of the money ends up going back to the European headquarters. Later I joined Price Waterhouse and went to Europe for about four years, and then came back to join Ernst and Young to build their implementation assurance business across Africa. The next promotion was as EY’s Head of Talent for Africa and then Head of Talent for Europe, India, Europe, Middle East, based in Dubai.
Paul Bugingo: My career journey is a bit more unplanned and was driven by adversity having been born in Uganda. I think my first venture outside Uganda was when Idi Amin rose to power and within a year of my birth, I was sent to the Soviet Union by my parents, and then to Kenya for education, and then to the UK for A-Levels. I was then nudged into studying law, though I wanted to study politics and international relations. I got a job in Guernsey Channel Islands, and they kept me there because I completed a statistic. I was the only Black person on the island. Next, I was poached by Dentons in London, who said they were quite interested in ‘this place called Africa.’ So, I started up the Africa practice at Dentons in 1998, and later moved to Dubai with them, trying to integrate the entire East Asia and Asian practice – in effect, acting for international investors going into Africa. I moved to Simmons next, where I was ahead of everybody else in understanding ‘this place called Africa’ and built their energy practice in Africa. And now finally, I am at a firm called Curtis Malley.
Sanjeev Gupta: Can you share your experiences of perceived and real prejudices that you faced and how you overcame them?
Uche Orji: One of my bosses, when I joined Goldman Sachs Asset Management, helped me with his understanding that people will not always be comfortable about who you are. Everything you do will be exaggerated. If you do well, you need to do very well to be recognized. If you do badly, whatever you do, no matter how little, it will be extrapolated, and you will look like you killed someone. So, learn to manage risk. This is something that only a friend will tell you. He was a mentor to me and went on to explain that in the banking world at the time, they saw Africa as one asset class. There was no difference between different countries within the continent, or between Africa equities, debts, commodities, or currencies. It was seen as one asset class. “If it goes out of favour, your career is done,†he told me. Take on the most challenging thing that no one else wants to do and do it. This led me to tech and semiconductors, which was and still is exceedingly difficult. It built in me capacity and endurance.
Seshni Samuel: There’s a wonderful TEDx talk on the danger of a single story. We do not have enough narratives around African success, around women’s success or whatever we are talking about that create multiple stories so that they are alternatives to cliches. And so, you have this effect of either the magnifying glass or the megaphone. Everything is either scrutinized or exaggerated. It creates an amplification effect that is not normal. It is a challenging situation. I remember one session where I was the only female, the only person under forty and the only Black person in the room. I delivered my presentation and thought it had gone well. My boss apologized calling it a ‘blood bath’. But I did not perceive it like that because this had become a very normal way to me.
Sanjeev Gupta: What are your thoughts about the next generation?
Paul Bugingo: I think that if focus too much on prejudice and hurdles, you will get nowhere. In my first job, out of one thousand lawyers, there were three Black people from Africa. To become a recognised trainee lawyer, we had to do three nights in a row! You must find your own path, and craft your own way to make yourself valuable.
Sanjeev Gupta: Is there a proper structure for recruiting African talent? Is there a brain drain or are they coming back?
Uche Orji: I was incredibly lucky to have a sponsor who saw potential in me and helped me find a career path. In fact, at every stage, I found someone who guided me. The world is more connected now. Even Harvard Business School, has gone from a handful of us to many dozens enrolled from Africa. I must give credit to many corporates who went that extra mile to establish roles. I never thought I would witness the appointment of a Black CEO at Credit Suisse.
Sanjeev Gupta: By the next decade, there will be around two billion African people and 70% of them will be around 20 years old. It is one thing picking talent that you need for your own plans in Africa, but quite another for global companies to see it as a talent pool. Do you see that thought process? That it is not about Africans for Africa. It is about talent for the world.
Seshni Samuel: Yes, by 2030, I think around 42% of the global youth are going to come from Africa. The average age of an African is twenty-five compared to forty-eight from Europe or Japan. And these markets are declining, and they will be relying more on automation. I do not think young Africans need to rely on corporate opportunities or same universities anymore. These are being democratized like never before. People can learn themselves. They are not waiting to go to Harvard before they start their businesses. And even if 10% of that population has the grit and determination to succeed, they are going to do it. The startups in Africa are leapfrogging in terms of technology and innovation. It is time for African countries to start collaborating, connecting, and thinking differently. We have the people, resources, a temperate climate, and geographical location – these are all in our favour and could be a huge advantage. It is not anymore about extracting resources but thinking strategically about Africa.
Sanjeev Gupta: Stop looking at Africa as a problem child, but as a solution to many the world’s problems. This change in thinking is crucial.
Audience 1: We have eight offices across Africa and about five hundred staff. We have a strong retention rate at the more senior level. But at the more junior level, we have an exceedingly difficult challenge with competition for talent. Staff are being captured from Canada or U.K. and we are struggling to retain the more junior staff who will be top talent and evolving talent for the organization. Any advice?
Seshni Samuel: The reality is that people will work for you for a few years, get trained and move on. And you are investing in people who go on into the African diaspora and may return at a later stage. However, you do need to continuously invest, especially in the graduate recruitment programmes and scholarships. We work on an 80% retention rate with expectation and are prepared for 20% of our people to leave us annually. We would run into financial difficulties if we do not prepare in advance for this reality. You must embrace this and figure out how to keep the pipeline going.
Uche Orji: My perspective is slightly different. I expect and want my staff to move and gain more experience and learning. This is a good thing for everyone, in the long-term. They shape the changing narrative. It encourages everybody to aspire.
Sanjeev Gupta: What are your thoughts on the education institutions in Africa?
Paul Bugingo: They are fine and churning out more graduates than there are jobs. This is the challenge. The world is not ready to embrace the talent coming out of Africa. Having said that, people need to also look at opportunities within different African countries itself.
Uche Orji: We realised one of the investments that is especially important is in education. One of the investments that has been extremely successful is using technology to educate poor children who cannot afford good schools. The centralized curriculum is sent from Washington, D.C., and every teacher has a smartphone or iPad, and they teach the same curriculum to children of domestic workers. The results have been great. And we are hoping more technological solutions are available. We also encourage the alumni to come back and help the schools that they graduated from. Recently, my high school alumni came together, and we raised funds to rebuild the entire school. We took it out of the hands of the government, the alumni invested, hired a principal from South Africa and teachers from outside the country. People are also self-training using technology and attending open universities.
Audience 2: How do we manage the narrative and make people hear and understand the opportunities?
Seshni Samuel: One alarming trend is that many countries are closing their borders and trying to recruit only people from within that country. This is dangerous because it is the diversity of talent that drives innovation. When they return, they come back with more experience and knowledge which will enrich the teams in Africa. African countries need to accept people from other African countries and strengthen that collaboration. So that is the first barrier that needs to overcome.
Uche Orji: We must accept that there will be a gap period between talent get trained and ability to replace them. It needs to be seen as an investment in people that will develop the greater ecosystem.
Paul Bugingo: Employers are looking for people who can do things. They are not some kind of charity. The big challenge is who is going to invest in the training. For example, it takes about four years for us to turn a graduate into a profitable lawyer. One way is to lock in people for a set number of years. Many of my clients are government, and we nudge them to take graduates locally and push them into organisations around the world so that they gain experience.
Seshni Samuel: There is a substantial number of talented African youth, who can be a fantastic opportunity or problem, not only for the continent, but for the world.