Patricia Jumi
Patricia Jumi’s desire for change and her belief in seeing the huge possibilities available for youth and women in terms of job creation and alleviation of poverty made her wade into this seeming impossible situation to seek to solve the challenges entrepreneurs face in building successful organizations.
The Uganda born high-flier has lived most of her life in Kenya. She has a Bachelor in Business Administration and a Masters in Business Administration from the prestigious Copenhagen Business School.
Over the years, Patricia has grown to be an astute business woman of international repute. She is presently the Managing Director of Growth Africa, a company she joined as a co-partner in mid-2002. Upon her joining Growth Africa, they soon started helping to facilitate partnerships between small business entrepreneurs in Africa and International Companies.
Patricia Jumi is the first of altogether eight young businesswomen to get a scholarship from the Danida-supported Emerging Leaders Program in which she bagged an MBA from Copenhagen Business School.
Patricia believes that the next level of change in Africa is coming from Youth and she has a clear vision of being a role model to young business women in Kenya
Q: You were the first African woman to participate in the Danida-supported Emerging Leaders Program at Copenhagen Business School. What was this experience like for you?
Words cannot express it but it was a very humbling and exciting experience. I was glad that I was able to study at the Copenhagen Business School, and it availed me with so many eye opening experiences that I believe I would not find anywhere else. The focus was mainly on Scandinavian leadership development and it made me adapt a different way of thinking when it came to empowerment and running a company. I was in a company of 33 people all from different countries and nationalities, so it was a fuse of different cultures, ideas and experiences and to date it has stayed that way as I built a very strong network out of this that is still running to date.
Patricia Jumi and a friend at an event
Q: Upon your joining Growth Africa in mid 2002, the company started helping to facilitate partnerships between small business entrepreneurs in Africa and International Companies. What challenges do you face in helping facilitate these partnerships?
The challenges are different every time, but the major one is trying to enforce a mindset change amongst some African businesses that a partnership is not all about financial assistance but could be knowledge transfer where both parties (African and European companies) have something to offer to each other. Also trying to get the expectations of each company clear from the very start in order to ensure that both companies benefit greatly from the partnership and record some form of growth.
Q: From your experience, what would you say are the important ingredients of success in growing a business in Africa?
I would say passion from the owners/entrepreneurs’ of the business to see their businesses grow to a point of outliving them, creating a legacy. A concrete vision of making a change , the business needs to accommodate more than its owner, it needs to make a difference in people’s lives. The problem most businesses in Africa are facing, is an owners/entrepreneurs’ individual mindset- where the owners/entrepreneurs’ only cater for their own individual needs and most times this is the motivation for starting their business to provide for their family. So when the children are all grown up and have completed school, then there is no motivation to continue the business and this is one of the reasons businesses remain small or collapse.
Training in financial knowledge and business knowledge. It’s amazing many budding entrepreneurs and businesses think they need financial capital yet in most cases its other forms of capital that is needed(Human Resources, Marketing etc)
Honesty and truthfulness both to themselves and also to the people they are serving. We take these 2 things for granted. However, a person without integrity cannot keep going for a long time. There is no quick fix or get rich fix, so businesses need to understand this and create structures that will ensure the profitability of a business.
Well this is a rare one but businesses need to continue dreaming big and ensuring they are not complacent, because complacency makes one mediocre. Businesses need to continue leaving their mark and they can only do this by watching out for the market and what is needed.
Q: We are in the midst of global economic crises and many businesses have not been as profitable as they used to, what would you advise entrepreneurs to harness the situation and what solutions would you proffer to it?
Well, there is no given solution, but one thing I know for sure is that even in a crisis there are many opportunities that are available. So the key here for entrepreneurs is to change their thought process again and think of what they can offer their markets instead. For instance with this crisis a lot of entrepreneurs have fallen into a debt trap and are struggling to come out and we have seen many organizations introducing training opportunities to guide entrepreneurs’ on how they can repay back their loans while keeping their businesses afloat. So in the same way entrepreneurs can devise services and products to suit their target audience during this crisis. Crises most times bring out the best opportunities.
Q: Many African Companies collapse after the visionary is dead, in your opinion, what could be the cause of this?
This is a big problem and most times it is because as I said earlier, the visionary sits with the vision, the strategy and all future plans to do with the business. Normally many do not share this and do not groom a successor to take over the business. It even gets worse if the visionary’s children refuse to take over the business. The problem is not having a legacy and not having the proper setup in a company to think beyond family and look at a business as an individual in its own right. However, it will soon change and because now there is an aggressive push from many key players in the different industries coming up with tools and solutions to make business owners view their businesses differently and give them the training and knowledge to enable them look beyond themselves and see the potentials of their businesses and employees to ensure the business survives on its own.
Patricia Jumi (L) and some members of the African Youth Panel
Q: We often hear the slogan, “it is a man’s world,” how best would you advise young women in business to be able to thrive in this world?
Well, it’s not really a man’s world per se. I believe that the same skills and techniques necessary to survive and thrive in this ‘’man’s world’’ are available to women as well. However, perhaps women need to be more aware of where they can get these skills, techniques and resources from, to ensure that they are competing favorably too. In addition, women have to also learn to be more assertive in what they do and try not to look at some of the setbacks as something that is gender related, because most times it is easier for young women to convince themselves that it’s because of their gender they cannot get access to finance or training or a promotion etc. This is not true.
Q: Getting starting capital is a major challenge for many budding entrepreneurs as banks are often callous in their assessment of entrepreneurs especially if they have no hard collateral. What advice would you give to an entrepreneur who is in need of capital to float his business?
Its true many conventional banks will require hard collateral, however, things on this front are changing and many players in the market are looking at soft collateral. Overall, though my advice would be 3 fold.
- The entrepreneur should ensure that they fully understand their business and have ample knowledge on what is going on with their business and the sector they operate in , the risks associated , their peers and competitors.
- They should be able to keep tab of where the money is. That is, how much money is coming into the business and going out of the business. This is very easy if they keep records. These records do not have to be sophisticated, but they must have records showing the income and expenses of the business. They need to maintain a healthy cash flow because at the end of the day its cash that will make the payments.
- They need to know their market very well and be able to adapt to the changes in this market.
These 3 things coupled with a good character, which is built from ensuring personal bills and other business bills are paid on time. A bank statement show casing how one transacts business can show this. Also how much capital an entrepreneur has invested in a business.
I mean at the end of the day the hard collateral is mainly to secure the loan, but the above factors and other factors are what really convince banks and other financiers to lend. So entrepreneurs should focus on developing all the other soft skills and they will have a strong position to put forward to financiers
Q: How do you plan to expand your organization beyond the borders of Kenya so that African entrepreneurs in other countries can benefit from your services?
We are looking more into partnerships that will create a lot of synergies and we are on the lookout for people and organizations that are thinking in the same direction as us.
Q: What are your projections for the future?
Continue with what I am doing now but move more into creating a hub for entrepreneurs where they will take their businesses to the next level.
Looking into venture capitalism in Microfinance.
Q: What would you want to be remembered for?
That I changed entrepreneurs’ mindset and that I gave small businesses an opportunity to grow themselves to the next level, effectively changing the lives of many because they developed their businesses to cater for their cities and their nations and not only for the owner’s individual family unit. Mainly that I was a burning and shining light to small businesses.
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Great inspirational story….. am sharing to as many young women leaders as possible to share it to as many networks as possible.Many thanks to this platform ….Rotimi Great job done.