These days I’m teaching a course on Managing Corporate Growth in IESE’s Executive MBA (EMBA) program. One of the issues we’ve discussed is international expansion. We touched upon the difficulties of getting data in the African context. We discussed the shortcomings of official statistics — if you follow this blog regularly, you may know that […]
Partnerships for Growth
Last week, we welcomed at IESE a group of top executives from Kenya. They are participants in the Advanced Management Program (AMP) at Strathmore Business School. A one-week module at IESE is part of this program. I had the opportunity to share with them two sessions about alliances and acquisitions as external growth options for a […]
Facebook, Google and Connectivity in Africa
Before I visited his country, a colleague from Nigeria described to me how an up-and-coming Nigerian youth shared the same interests as youngsters in developed countries: they want to have i-pads, use social networks, and so on – as everybody else. Yes, I’m aware that this is just one part of the Nigerian society. Not […]
Technology and Financial Inclusion
A former student used to work for a microfinance institution in Kenya. He quitted: he wasn’t comfortable with the high rates and fee charges of traditional microfinance loans (37 % average). Meant to promote financial inclusion, these loans may end up making borrowers poorer than they were. At the same time, the super-high interest rates […]
Strategic Agility
My last visit to Nairobi was right after Brexit. As everywhere else, this was a major topic of conversation. In a casual chat with a group of CEOs, we talked about the uncertainty that the British move has created, and we went on discussing other factors that create uncertainty. I ventured that African companies may […]
