Our Managing Partner &CEO, Edwin H. Dande, trained Masters students at the University of Nairobi - Chiromo Campus on Entrepreneurship and Innovation. The training sought to enlighten the students on the basic considerations to note when starting, operating and growing a business.
"If you want to build a business, you must find a pain point. Something that society really wants to be improved. It cannot be about you, it has to be about society," Edwin stated at the start of the session. While largely drawing from the success stories of popular brands like Equity Bank, Uber and Safaricom’s M-PESA, he challenged the students to back their decisions to venture into business with sound market research.
Edwin also drew from his personal journey, and how together with 3 other partners, they were able to come up with the Cytonn brand, focussed on offering alternative investment solutions to investors in the market. "It's very hard to start, run a business and succeed without a team to support you," he said. "But if you have the right strategy, the right team and execute like hell, then you will succeed in whatever business you set your mind into," Edwin added
During the Q&A session, participants showed interest in learning more about Corporate Governance and how it affects business performance. Edwin responded to this by giving examples of business entities that have faced turbulent times, while explaining how the highest standards of corporate governance were lacking for each case. "When you look at most troubled brands, the problem stems from lack of professionalism. You must have the right corporate governance structure if you really want to succeed," he noted. “To govern a company, it is essential to ensure diversity in the governance structure, whether in terms of gender, ethnicity, or expertise, and basically make every effort to ensure the success of the company,” he added.
Our host, Prof. Edward Odundo closed the session with a vote of thanks to Edwin for honoring his invitation, and also challenged the students to take in the lessons learnt to improve themselves and their businesses.
