Economics, African Leaders, Global thinkers

1. while in sub-Saharan African
motivation is highly depend-
ent on financial benefits and
position, their developed
counterparts seek for self
discovery and eventual con-
tribution of self to service, it
might take them years to
come up with discoveries of
revolutions in health, educa-
tion and technology, they do
not feel deterred, they pur-
sue result. What we face
today among emerging busi-
ness leaders is lack of vision,
not for profitability, but of
selfishness and negligible plans
for sustainability and retainer-
ship of legacy. Emerging busi-
ness leaders should look
beyond profit and commit to
seeking long term pursuit of
innovative contribution,
which would lead to a great
consequence of balance and
stability. Tony Elumelu of
Tony Elumelu Entrepreneur-
ship foundation who recently
launched the pilot phase of
his incubator program to fund
ten thousand (10, 000) Afri-
can start-ups in the fifty four
(54) countries with $100
million over a period of ten
(10) years, which would pro-
vide one (1) million jobs
across Africa and contribute
at least $10, 000, 000, 000
annual revenue growth across
Africa.
Introduction
Leaders of the future will face challenges which will make their jobs
more complex. This presentation will take on some of those key
challenges with practical information and best practice examples to
guide participants through the leadership development process re-
quired to build sustainable values in individuals who would eventually
subject their innovation to creative problem solving, to benefit their
communities and eventually create global brands.
The Innovation Challenge
Entrepreneurship and Innovation are important engine of growth, employ-
ment and social cohesion in Nigeria. However, similar to the innovation
experience globally, it continues to face harsh environmental conditions.
Small businesses face different challenges, an MSME (Micro Small and Me-
dium Entreprise) study in 2014 which covered over 3,000 entrepreneurs, 18
banks and government/ multilateral agencies, discovered in their findings the
top three critical challenges faced by this segment, as: non- conducive ena-
bling environment (80%), inconsistent government policies (56%) and lack of
access to finance/ capital (45%).
Enabling environment is a combination of the following factors: quality of
infrastructure, access to market, access to modern technology and low in-
vestment in research and development.
It is important to note that enabling environment and favorable government
policies have a direct impact on the ability of Small Businesses to access
finance.
Nigeria’s Makeup of Business Leaders
Nigerians are very entrepreneurial. According to the 2013 Global Entrepre-
neurship Monitor, 41 percent of working-age Nigerians were involved in an
early-stage business in the preceding three and a half years, and 81 percent
of Nigerians surveyed see entrepreneurship as a desirable career choice.
Nigeria ranks in the top ten countries for these measures. Government
programmes aimed at supporting entrepreneurship have proven very popu-
lar. For example, the Youth Enterprise with Innovation in Nigeria (YouWiN)
programme received about 60,000 applications, provides training for 6,000,
and mentors 1,200 young entrepreneurs each year.
Nigeria’s Emerging workforce population
Many aging advanced economies, particularly in Europe, face the prospect of
slow growth due to flat or declining populations,
but Nigeria and other devel-
oping economies have large
and growing working-age
populations, which can be
drivers of growth. Nigeria
already has the ninth-largest
working-age population in the
world, and by 2030 the num-
ber of Nigerians of working
age (15 to 64) is expected to
be 50 percent higher than
today.
SELF AWARENESS
“A man with formal education is
not good enough, one with fi-
nancial education is not good
enough, another with vocational
education is not good enough, a
man with self-awareness is good
enough”
We have examined some of
the brick walls to innovation
and entrepreneurship, how-
ever, most of them are only
contributing factors, a lot has
to do with individual makeup,
belief, philosophy and motiva-
tion. Abraham Maslow’s hier-
archy of needs explains that
at the bottom of the ladder is
the craving for survival, while
at the top, craving is for self
actualization. Most youths in
developing nations strive for
survival, while their counter-
parts in developed nations
strive to contribute to their
economy. There is a sharp
difference in attitude of
youths in different climes,
PROMOTING ENTERPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION IN BUILDING ECONOMIC LEADERS FOR TOMORROW
3rd & 4th August, 2015
YOUNG NIGERIAN CEO’S CONFERENCE

2. sulted in big skills gaps
between upper manage-
ment and the workforce.
African business leaders
not only need to be role
models in executing pro-
jects; they also need to
mentor their teams to
apply these disciplines and
cascade them further
down the company.
In addition to these solu-
tions, pioneering compa-
nies have discovered that
winning in Africa requires
an entrepreneurial mind-
set, allowing them to easily
adapt to unexpected road-
blocks and opportunities,
take higher risks than else-
where and follow gut-level
instincts to make less-
informed decisions. To
win in Africa, you don’t
need to throw out every-
thing you’ve learned, but
you do need to foster a
culture of boldness, agility
and resourcefulness.
_________________
“When you are young,
work to learn, not to
earn”
Robert Kiyosaki.
Thank you.
This is what sustainability and service means to an average entrepreneur in
pursuit of innovation and wealth creation.
LEADERSHIP SKILL FOR TOMORROW’S LEADERS
Promasidor’s creative infrastructure solution: product inno-
vation.
An African dairy, beverage and food enhancement company, devel-
oped Cowbell, a milk powder packaged in small sachets, in which
they replaced the animal fat with vegetable fat to give it a longer shelf
life, thereby diminishing the dependency on a cold supply chain. Afri-
can children put the powder directly on their tongues, to overcome
obstacles about finding sanitary water. Promasidor now is a leader in
Nigeria’s powdered milk market.
Indispensable skills for future leaders
To drive their companies’ long-term growth in Africa while also
achieving quick wins, business leaders need several specific skills. I
would highlight three
1. Critical thinking is crucial for innovation and for sustaining Afri-
can resources for the generations to come. Managers who can ana-
lyze and evaluate differing views could make the difference between
success and failure for a business in Africa. They are most likely to
learn these skills on the job and at business school, given the poor
state of many African countries’ primary, secondary and higher edu-
cation systems. Top executives in African enterprises also need to
encourage critical and collaborative thinking among employees who
have less privileged educations. This is not an easy task but it could
be the difference between a company’s success and failure.
2. Expecting the unexpected is skill number two. Managers in
Africa must be able to deal with disruption—not only from competi-
tors, but also from political uncertainty and social unrest. Businesses
pretty much anywhere in the world have a yearly budget and a plan
for the next three to five years. African companies have these too,
but their leaders also need to have additional scenarios for when
external events don’t go as planned.
They must be aware of
social, political and eco-
nomic trends in each
country and try to antici-
pate events and risks that
could affect business per-
formance. This requires
talented leaders with very
deep knowledge and un-
derstanding of the realities
around them. This leader-
ship style is not always
understood outside the
continent, and there are
sometimes tensions when
a multinational firm’s head-
quarters asks an African
subsidiary to follow stan-
dard procedures without
taking local or regional
realities into account.
3. Developing execu-
tion capabilities is be-
coming increasingly impor-
tant. Managers everywhere
need to identify problems,
decide on a possible solu-
tion and put this into prac-
tice. The specific challenge
for business leaders in
Africa is ensuring that
plans get executed from
top to bottom within an
organization. This is no
easy task, since poor edu-
cation systems have re-
Emmanuel Otori is a Public Speaker, Author and Trainer on Leadership, Business and Management. His emergence
into National prominence is a result of the delivery of highly inspiring speeches in Conferences, Master classes
and on the Media. He is the Chief Executive Officer of Market Advantage Consulting ,and Co-founder, Business On
Webs, LLC. He is reaching his audience in the Corporate and Non-corporate world through his high tension mes-
sages in his Live Full Magazine series. He resides in Abuja, Nigeria.
View his expert’s profile via fb.com/otori.emmanuel
Email: emmanuelotori@zoho.com
Phone Number: 0803 505 1994