I’m a humanist. I love people. I celebrate any type of progress that contributes to an improvement in people’s lives. To the extent that through their work they contribute to such an improvement, I celebrate the progress of women business leaders — such as those portrayed in a recent article at The Africa Report (“Star […]
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 […]
African Investment – Strategic Sectors
The CEO of an important financial institution in Kenya told me once, “If the head of the family isn’t well, then the whole family stops to look at this guy who isn’t well. Now if he isn’t well then the kids are not going to school, and if they aren’t going to school then their […]
Patient Capital
In an earlier post, I talked about a Kenyan bank that began operations in South Sudan in 2006. At the time, the country was just emerging from the war, and no bank operated in the country. The perspective of making profits in South Sudan was in the distant horizon for the Kenyan bank. But the management team […]
Doing business in Africa: some practical advice
Last week I heard a talk by a consultant from Roland Berger who specialized in Sub-Saharan and Southern Africa. He offered some practical advice for doing business in Africa. This is what he said, and some of my experiences of how it holds true: 1. Take market intelligence and customer understanding seriously: product-oriented companies won’t make […]
