Africa Business Conference
2101 HBS Student Mail Center
Boston, MA 02163

© 2008 ICG Link, Inc.

The New Face of Entrepreneurship in Africa

Moderator: Mukti Khaire
Coordinator: Akintunde Kehinde, Hafeez Giwa, Taire Avbovbo

	Obinna Ekezie Founder and Managing Director, Zeep Travel Network Ltd. Obinna Ekezie was born on August 22^nd, 1975. He attended the University of Maryland from 1995-1999, where he played college basketball and studied Mechanical Engineering and Business. After graduating from college, he played professional basketball in the National Basketball League (NBA) for several years with teams such as the Atlanta Hawks and Los Angeles Clipper. He also played for several professional teams in Europe including Lottomatica Roma and Dynamo Moscow. Obinna is currently the Managing Director of Zeep Travel Network Ltd. (ZTN), a company he founded. ZTN provides complete travel solutions for the travel industry. ZTN has developed www.zeeptravel.com (B2B) for corporate and agent bookings and www.wakanow.com (B2C) for the U.S-Africa travel sector and Nigeria outbound sector. Obinna was recently profiled on NBC’s Dollars and Danger: Africa, the final investing frontier, a documentary about the risks and rewards of doing business in Africa.

	Bruce Ayonote Chief Executive Officer, Suburban West Africa Mr. Bruce Ayonote was born on the 15^th of April 1974 in Lagos Nigeria. He is the Chief Executive Officer and a founding member of Suburban West Africa, the largest privately owned IP backbone network in West Africa, with head quarters in Nigeria and operations in Europe and USA. Suburban West Africa is a group of five companies with individual core competences in various segments of the telecommunication and ICT value chain. The Group has successfully acquired a premium and long-term customer base comprising of Africa’s Largest Mobile operators, Internet service providers, Enterprise and SME’s. Mr. Ayonote has over 11 years of international business experience and exposure within the telecommunications industry and manages a strong work force of over 150 employees and a list of international partners and affiliated companies. He is responsible for driving the group’s advanced technology strategy which has given Suburban its unique advantage in the Telecommunications market. Under his leadership the group has successfully deployed various projects that have led to the social and economic development of West Africa including the first Regional Inland fibre Optic network. This network has covered a historical gap that lasted for over 50 years as the French speaking West African countries had to route Voice and Data through Europe to communicate with their English speaking neighbors. Suburban West Africa has become market leader in Next Generation Network NGN technologies and applications such as Telemedicine, Content Delivery Network (CDN) services, Wi-Fi and WIMAX. Mr. Ayonote holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Politics and Public Administration from the University of Maiduguri and has received the British Telecom (BT) Diploma in Telecommunications Management Studies from Hull Business School in the United Kingdom. He has also attended several courses at the London Business School and is an Alumnus of the Harvard Business School. He is a regular panelist at the International Telecommunications Week (ITW) held in Washington DC annually, and has been a panelist at the Harvard Business School African Business Conference 2006 and London Business Schools’ African Club Conference. Mr. Ayonote is a devoted Christian and is happily married with 3 children. He spends his spare in a number of recreational activities which include playing soccer and racket sports. He also devotes his time to mentoring entrepreneurs and start up businesses .Mr Ayonote is a member of the board of directors of Anabel Mobile ,the first local smart phone manufacturer in West Africa and EWT Micro Finance Bank.

	Peter Mombaur Partner, Africa Holdings Peter is a Partner in Africa Holdings, the Oppenheimer familie’s (DeBeers, AngloAmerican) investment group for Africa. Africa Holdings intends to invest in a broad variety of sectors like FMCG, agriculture, logistics, manufacturing, financial services, media and technology. Different from traditional Private Equity, it does not leverage up capital but rather aims to combine true long-term investments and active hands-on business building in order to create superior financial and non-financial returns to all stakeholders. Peter has spent most of his professional life in Africa. He has been based in Nigeria for seven years, where he initially worked as an independent consultant in the retail banking, telecoms and FMCG sectors. Peter also served as the CEO of Emperion West Africa, a data telecommunications company providing Corporate VSAT and FWA solutions. Prior to this work, He was an Engagement Manager for McKinsey & Company, where he did project work in Europe, East-, West- and Southern Africa. Peter is also a founding partner of Lagos based Financial Advisory and Management Consulting firm MombaurMcCabe, where he now acts as a non-executive Director. He is also a co-founder of the cross-cultural leadership program ‘Global Leadership Adventures’ which operates in nine countries world-wide; and of the non-profit ‘African Leadership Academy’ which is based in Johannesburg, South Africa Peter is German citizen, living in Johannesburg South Africa. He attended University in Germany, where he received a Master’s degree with honors in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Aachen, an honors degree in Law from the University of Hagen, and a degree in Economics from the University of Bayreuth.

	Chukwuka Monye Founding Partner, Ciuci Consulting Chukwuka Monye is the Founding Partner of Ciuci Consulting, a business consulting and human capital development firm in Lagos, Nigeria. His passion and belief in Africa’s human capital led to him founding Ciuci, a firm that leverages its knowledge of the local environment to provide world class business advisory services to its clients. Prior to starting up Ciuci, Chu kwuka had garnered a wealth of experience at other consulting and financial institutions. He worked as an analyst at Salomon Smith Barney, Citigroup before working as an Associate Branch Manager of a Credit Union in Florida. Despite his financial services experience he returned to Nigeria to follow an alternate path – providing advisory services to businesses particularly as it related to marketing strategy, a functional area that comes very natural to him. Some of his accomplishments include: providing business development support to a number of ICT firms such as SocketWorks, operationalizing The Suburban Group’s Commercial Unit and participating in the development of Etisalat’s market entry strategy. Chukwuka obtained his degree in Business Management from Warner University, Florida USA (Honors) and has also attended courses at other institutions such as Harvard Business School, USA and INSEAD, France. He is also a motivational speaker, business trainer and youth mentor.

	Lawrence Achigbu Chairman and CEO, Chimons Group Lawrence C. Achigbu is the Chairman and CEO of Chimons Group, the parent company of Chimons Gas Limited and Chimons Ventures Limited. Chimons Gas is a company operating in the downstream sector of the Petroleum Industry in Nigeria, and is one of the six lifters of Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) selected by the Nigeria LNG Limited to handle all domestic marketing and distribution of LPG in Nigeria. With a vision to extend gas distribution across the coast of West Africa and indeed the African continent, Chimons Gas is currently developing an ultra modern LPG terminal in Nigeria which will act as a hub of LPG activities within the region. Chimons Ventures Limited handles EPC contracts and other support services particularly line pipes, casings and tubular goods to Major Oil and Gas companies in Nigeria. Engr. Achigbu has served on different Boards in the government of Imo State, a confirmation of his astuteness and commitment to creating an empowering Nigerian system. He served as Chairman, Board of Directors of Standard Shoe Company, Owerri, Imo State, Nigeria from 2001 – 2004, a position that led to the rehabilitation of the company and re-positioning for effective production after fifteen (15) years of redundancy. He was also appointed as the Chairman, Board of Directors of Imo Marketing Company Limited in 2006, an appointment that also gave him the opportunity to lead the turnaround of the company from a loss centre to a profit centre. Engr. Achigbu obtained a Masters Degree (MPA) in Public Administration majoring in Political Economy in 1997 from the University of Lagos, Nigeria. He has been a leading member of Nigeria’s elite Political Party – Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) since then. Engr. Achigbu had his early education at Ngwa High School, Aba in Abia State, Nigeria where he won the school’s award as the Best Student in Science as well as the Best All Round Student in Academics. Thereafter, he proceeded to the Federal University of Technology Owerri Imo State, a pioneer University of Technology in Nigeria where he studied Petroleum Engineering and graduated as the best Petroleum Engineering student in his graduating year. An alumnus of Harvard Business School, Boston, Engr. Achigbu is a member of the Nigerian Society of Engineers and a recipient of the Distinguished Alumnus Award for Outstanding Contribution and Performance in Petroleum Exploration of the Federal University of Technology Owerri, Imo-State Nigeria. He is married to Nkolika Uchenna Achigbu and they both have three children, Tritima, Hansel and Helga. He enjoys playing Tennis and meeting people.

	Mukti Khaire - Moderator Assistant Professor, Harvard Business School Mukti Khaire is an Assistant Professor at Harvard Business School. She teaches the required first-year MBA course, “The Entrepreneurial Manager.” She has also taught in the HBS Executive Education programs, including custom executive education offerings, the preMBA, and START. Mukti currently serves as the Faculty Co-Chair of the School's 2+2 initiative. Mukti received her PhD in Management from Columbia Business School. Her dissertation explored how intangible resources such as legitimacy and status help new ventures grow despite their inherent financial constraints. She studied young ad agencies in New York and Chicago and examined how they overcame financial constraints and the problems associated with founder departure. In addition to quantitative analysis of longitudinal data, she interviewed several ad agency founders to understand how new ventures whose products are direct manifestations of their founders’ talents or abilities cope with expansion and founder departure. Mukti’s research interests lie at the intersection of entrepreneurship, intangible or social firm resources, and creative industries. She explored new ventures’ heavy dependence on their founders in an earlier paper (with Heather Haveman, Columbia University) on the early magazine industry in USA. In other research, Mukti has explored the mutually reinforcing interaction between wineries’ reputations and the reputations of their chief winemakers (with Peter Roberts, Emory University), and the attitudes of founders towards venture capital-funded growth (with Rachael Elwork, Columbia University). She has recently initiated a project to study the evolution of the nascent fashion design industry in India. In this project Mukti will explore how entrepreneurs in new industries handle the double uncertainty inherent in being an entrepreneur in an industry that has still to establish itself. Mukti's case-writing focuses on the challenges faced by founder-centric ventures, growth issues of ventures in uncertain or new markets, and entrepreneurship in creative and cultural industries. Mukti received an award from the Eugene Lang Center for Entrepreneurship at Columbia Business School for her research on entrepreneurship in the advertising industry. Her paper, “Great Oaks from Little Acorns Grow: Strategies for New Venture Growth,” based on her dissertation is included in the Best Paper Proceedings of the 2005 Academy of Management Conference. Her papers have been accepted at various conferences including the American Sociological Association Conference, and the Organization Science Winter Conference. Her paper with Heather Haveman (on founder ideology) was included in “Columbia Ideas at Work” which showcases cutting-edge research at Columbia Business School which has practical applications. Mukti’s research has also recently featured in the Entrepreneurship section of HBS Working Knowledge. Before Columbia University, Mukti got her Masters in Management from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay. For her B.S and M.S. from the University of Pune she received the Sathe Memorial Award and the Joshi Memorial Award for the top-ranked graduate. She worked as an environmental management consultant before IIT and co-founded a non-profit venture for enabling grassroots level biodiversity conservation. Mukti currently lives in Cambridge. She and her husband Samir Patil are foodies and enjoy independent films and traveling. Most recently they visited Italy.