After graduating from the University of Ghana in 2001, I joined a software house in Accra and developed an interest in accounting software. I soon realised that I had to improve my technical understanding of accounting, so I enrolled with ACCA.
I was employed by Millicom International Cellular, a major telecommunications company, as a financial systems analyst in 2002. By 2006 I had gained my ACCA Qualification and was appointed CFO for a Millicom subsidiary in Sierra Leone. Between 2006 and 2016, I served as a CFO across three African countries.
Then, after a spell as CEO of Tigo Rwanda, another MIC subsidiary, I was appointed managing director of Vodacom Lesotho in 2018. I became CEO of service provider Busy Internet in my home country, Ghana, last October.
A CEO must be able to blend resources to achieve results in a highly constrained environment
Chance led me to the corporate world. In Ghana, every graduate must do national service, and I happened to be posted to an IT company, where I fell in love with financial software design.
A CEO is more generalist than specialist. The key thing is understanding issues from a strategic perspective and having a growth mindset. You need to see the bigger picture and be able to blend resources to achieve results in a highly constrained environment.
Continuous professional development is essential, so I have an MBA in finance and a master’s degree in law. Delegation is also vital but, above all, people selection and development processes must take centre stage.
Ghana has achieved a lot in telecommunications with high voice connectivity penetration, but more acceleration is required on internet connectivity. The government understands the strong correlation between broadband penetration and GDP growth, so much is being done in terms of policy and regulations to aid growth in the sector. There are various initiatives under the Ghana Investment Fund for Electronic Communications, which aims to connect all rural communities to the national ICT hub.
If I had law-making powers, I would make internet access a human right
Busy Internet Ghana is taking advantage of these policy initiatives to accelerate the development of broadband connectivity in Ghana and to grow the company’s business-to-government strategy. Our partnership with the Ministry of Education connects all secondary schools, the ministry’s offices and libraries in Ghana, and is boosting Ghana’s fixed wireless broadband.
I enjoy doing something that enhances human growth and development. People online have higher potential for economic success than those offline, so I feel elated every time my impact as CEO brings another person online.
If I had law-making powers, I would make internet access a human right, irrespective of where anyone lives. It would be part of a universal basic utilities right, which the state would guarantee to every Ghanaian household.
In my career I became a CFO at just 32 and 10 years later became a CEO. However, my biggest achievement is the number of people I have helped connect to the internet. At the GSMA Mobile World Congress in 2016, I was part of the team that pledged to accelerate the internet connection of more than three million people within the East African corridor by 2021.
If I didn’t work in finance, I would have loved to be a lawyer. Law fascinates me and I always feel obliged to defend the defenceless and underprivileged.
In my spare time I love listening to jazz music. I also like reading – everything from archaeology to zoology.
