Good news here – my Harvard Business Review (HBR) editors have approved the proposed work on the Igbo Apprenticeship System (IAS). I will get to work on it, and see how we can document an African business framework in the world’s finest business publication. #IAS2HBR
More so, I also celebrate my 10th year of writing in HBR.
The operating budget may be low but teams must still be prepared. Consider Tekedia Mini-MBA for Corporates. We are working with companies to nurture internal innovators and project champions that would help unlock the promises of the future.
Tekedia Mini-MBA for Corporates is a customized version of the general Tekedia Mini-MBA. It is designed for private and public institutions where cases and labs are developed around the institution and its sector. It focuses on the same theme of innovation, growth and digital execution. But unlike the 4-month general Mini-MBA, the Corporate vision goes for 4, 6, 8,10 or 12 weeks. It has a weekly live session, via Zoom or Teams, and is priced affordably. We have a brochure to share with your organization.
How can you find opportunities in this age of immense economic paralysis? How can you sharpen your antenna to anticipate opportunities before they happen? How can the evolving redesign of market architectures be captured for growth? The world of business is changing on Form and Space. To unlock that redesign, we have Tekedia Mini-MBA for Corporates. Working with us, together, we will architect a new future for your business. By the time you are done, you will have a Playbook for Growth.
Tekedia Mini-MBA for Corporates is a customized version of the general Tekedia Mini-MBA. It is designed for private and public institutions. It focuses on the same theme of innovation, growth, and digital execution. But unlike the 4-month general Mini-MBA, the Corporate vision goes for 4, 6, 8,10 or 12 weeks. There would be scheduled webinars but no physical contacts.
When you sign-up, our team will schedule a meeting with you, discuss your business frictions, and during our program, we will work with your company to find solutions to those frictions, even as they learn. The outcome of the process has been amazing: internal innovation at scale.
We are helping companies to make their workers to become better strategists, analysts, researchers, and innovators. Yes, your staff would go through a methodological process to think of solutions for the business.
With our class notes, videos, live sessions, and cases, your team will have the right tools to produce that FUTURE for the business. You already have a great team, make them BETTER.
Let us serve you as an Innovation & Growth Partner, and using your team, you will find a new nexus to innovate, grow and advance the mission.
Tekedia Mini-MBA for Corporates is on-demand which means there is no scheduled start time; we are ready once a client is ready to start. It will be online, and fully on a secure dedicated digital board only your staff will have access for the innovation & growth training.
The engagement begins with a Zoom call where we spend time to understand what HR, Strategy and Executive Management want to accomplish. Then, we will design a program, looking at the market, the company and other factors. This is a management program prepared for your company!
At the onset of Covid-19, we updated Tekedia Mini-MBA syllabus, on the fly, to incorporate courses on how to manage and mitigate the paralysis. Many of our learners appreciated the redesign, and most used the playbooks to win awards and promotions in their firms.
As the drumbeats of sub-optimal relationships between founders and investors in some companies in Africa, sound louder, we are updating the current editions on the fly. On Monday, two faculty members will discuss commercial law, contracting, agreements, and IPs. Mr. Chukwuemeka Mbah (LLB, BL, LLM) holds a postgraduate degree in European and International Business Law. Jeff Chineme Maduka (LLB, BL, LLM) holds a First Class Law degree in Nigeria and Harvard Law in Banking, Corporate, Finance, and Securities Law.
Before you sign that agreement, have you asked a sharp-minded lawyer to review it? At Tekedia Mini-MBA, our vision is to empower and nurture innovators across many domains.
A few weeks ago, Nigeria secured a landmark victory in its bid to overturn a $10 billion arbitration judgment award against it in the P&ID case. Previously, Nigeria was required to put a $200 million security on that sham award execution. But good things happened after the favourable decision. Besides this $200M, “The court also awarded a £70,000 cost in favour of Nigeria in addition to an earlier award of £1.5m.” Yet, with all these goodies, Nigeria is getting into a trap if we do not offer our best moves.
It is a miracle: P&ID which felt it could pocket more than a third of Nigeria’s budget has been asked by an English Court to pay Nigeria “£1.5 million within 21 days to cover legal costs the FRN incurred as part of their successful application for the extension of time to challenge the arbitration award and procedural hearing earlier in the year”.
If the UK court rules against us when it matters most – dismissal of the $10 billion sham award -, Nigeria will lose the moral standi to claim unfairness. So, nothing has happened and everyone must work hard to ensure total victory especially at the end. This could be a trap: make them feel the system is fair, only to unleash surprises! Yes, people, hold that celebration!
That said, it seems this particular UK court is truly fair unlike what we have seen in the ones trying Malabu and other cases across Europe. In those ones, they convict the oil majors, fine them for crimes in Nigeria, but ask them to send the fines to their own treasuries with nothing for the Nigerian people. Largely, they come to Abuja, select the right cases, try them in Europe, and make money with no compensation to the people directly affected, with full understanding that Nigeria’s government is weak to do anything.
These companies have one thing in common: investor-founder relationship is sub-optimal, BusinessDay notes.
The situation is also extended to the health sector. PathCare, founded by Richard Ajayi, a renowned Lagos-based medical doctor, was acquired by Europe’s largest lab operator Synlab in 2017. Synlab, owned by private equity firm Cinven, did not publicly announce how much it invested in PathCare, which, as of that time, was Nigeria’s largest private pathology laboratory company.
However, Ajayi had said the company bought back a 26 percent stake held by PathCare South Africa, its former parent company, year before the Synlab deal, according to a Reuters’ report.
I help founders with clarity and visibility to navigate the challenging waters of venture capital and private equity worlds. Under our private client services, we provide that leadership. Founders, you need experienced and sharp minds, with a core entrepreneurial antennae even though they may not be heavyweights in the home soils of moneymen.
As you sell part of your company and the investor brings the funds, unless there is a clear understanding on the values derivable, bad things will happen. Yes, after the press statements and media interviews, companies have to be built. So, as you rush to declare a new fundraise, remember that by next quarter, you MUST answer what you did with that money. If not, there would be trouble.
While it is easy to think the investor is a bad guy, always be reminded that the investor is just doing his or her work. Yes, most times, they raise money from others to invest in companies. In other words, investors are also companies who have to answer to their limited partners.
What is it the venture capitalist or the private equity firm bringing to that business? Do you know that investor very well? Have you done your due diligence? Note this: some of the draconian terms and clauses in that document is because the investor is trying everything possible to protect his or her “money”. That does not make him or her bad. It is your responsibility to explain and provide assurances so that both can attain a better equilibrium with lesser stress.
As this happens, I call on the Federal Government of Nigeria to develop a mechanism to ensure that close to N10 trillion we have in pension funds can be used to support growing startups in Nigeria. Yes, if we commit just 5% for credible growth startups in Nigeria, the pressure to raise foreign funds, at all costs, will go since there would be an alternative capital within Nigeria.
Sure, we need to make sure we do not play the lottery with pension funds. Yet, Nigeria must work out a way to change the funding climate.
At Tekedia Mini-MBA, we are preparing project champions and founders on ways to avoid founder-investor frictions by nurturing them on the legal mechanisms of markets.
Next week in Tekedia Mini-MBA, we will be looking at Business & Commercial Law, and Contracting, Negotiation and IP by two legal minds: Chukwuemeka Mbah (LLB, BL, LLM) and Jeff Chineme Maduka (LLB, BL, LLM). After the courses, they will return for Tekedia Live. I invite you to pass through Tekedia Mini-MBA as you build. Early registration has started for the next edition.