Overview
The tech ecosystem in Africa is growing fast. Yet Venture Capital funding has slowed as investors return to capital markets that have moved to strong positive yields from the negative yields of the past, which drove capital into tech venture funding.
In the past, the seamless availability of investor capital could cover the inefficient running of tech start-up businesses. The situation has changed as investors expect tech startups to run professionally, efficiently, and sustainably with a clear path to profit. This makes imperative, the building management capacity of tech startups in Africa more strong, especially those in growth to scaleup phases, many of whose managers’ backgrounds may be in tech/ engineering with minimal business experience.
While skills could be transplanted from traditional businesses to tech start-ups, it comes with a challenge that managers of traditional industries may struggle to fit into the agile, fast-paced, rapid scaling and experimentation nature of the tech startup. This program helps founders and senior executives of startups to build the required general management capacity needed to continue to scale and build more resilient and sustainable tech startup businesses.
Learning Objectives and Benefits
Tech StartUp Founders and Executives tend not to have a business background. A significant part of their experience is in technical and engineering functions. As they scale their business as growth startups, it becomes imperative to run resilient, sustainable business operations that continue to scale, and build a deliberate path- profit while leading their mission-driven agile organizations.
Venture Capital Funds inflow to Africa has become significantly moderated making it imperative that startups run more efficiently, use capital well, and scale with a clear path to profit. Participants in the program will learn
- Choosing Scalable Markets for Long-term Success of tech business
- Scaling the Tech Start-up and Building Resilient Operations
- Understand Financial Management, Unit Economics of their business, and building an accelerating path to profit
- Managing and leading agile mission-driven startup teams
- Understand the imperative of good regulatory and compliance management for business sustainability.
Who should attend
Growth Stage to Scaled Tech StartUps who have passed the Minimum Viable Product (MVP) stage and are Scaling and Consolidating their Business.
Specific Target will include:
- Founders
- Senior Executives in Tech Startups
- Venture Capital/ Investment Firms Mid-Level Managers and Business Analysts.
Structure and Curriculum
Managing the Tech StartUp Business is proposed to have the following sessions
Session 1: Fundamentals of Disruptive Business Innovation
- The session would provide the theoretical foundation for the innovation strategy of most tech startups. There will be discussions on the contrasting incremental and disruptive innovation and implications for commercial strategy. The session will also include discussions on why incumbents struggle with disruptive innovation and the opportunities its presents for startups with disruptive innovation strategy.
Session 2: From Founders Vision to Scale Up Success- The Moniepoint Story
Session 3: Lessons in Business Scaling: Market Selection, Mission, People, and Other Essentials
Session 4: What determines Startups that Scales or otherwise:? A Portfolio View and Lessons from Venture Capital.
- Should also include learning from tech startups that have struggled and failed. What are the learnings from the vantage perspectives of Venture Capital?
Sessions 5 and 6: Scaling Fast and Building Resilient Operations (2 sessions)
- The Fluttwewave Story
Sessions 7 and 8: Scaling and building a resilient path to profit- a corporate finance and financial management perspective
Fundamentals of Financial Management and Corporate Finance
- A quick overview of financial management to make it accessible to non-finance executives and lay the foundation for practical life financial cases, issues, and discussions in Section 8
- Financial Reporting and Financial Statements, Working Capital Management, Cashflows, Runways and Going Concern,
Scaling and Building Path to Profit Funding; Path to Profitability, Unit Economics and Profitability; Equity, Debt and Other Funding for StartUps, time desirability and context; Managing Currency Risks and Investor Returns/ Expectations; Capital Raising and Seed Stages and Valuation; Treasury Management
- Start-Up Valuation in VC Markets and Valuation in Conventional Markets of a more mature business. Where do VC market valuation and Open Capital Market Valuation Meet, What are the Lessons for Start-Ups as they Grow
Section 9: Compliance and Regulatory Management in a Scaling Tech Start-Up Business
Sections 10 and 11: Business Ethics
Section 12: Leadership, People, and Performance Management in Scaling Tech StartUps
Admission process
Faculty
Academic Director
Olu Akanmu was until recently, President and Co-CEO of OPay-Nigeria, one of Nigeria’s largest fintech platforms with Unicorn valuation. He has an unusual, diverse C-level strategic leadership experience across several industries including healthcare, FMCG, telecommunications, banking, fintech, and non-profit industries with a track record of growing and scaling businesses successfully across these industries.
He was Executive Director of Retail Banking at First City Monument Bank; Chief Marketing Officer at Airtel, Nigeria; Managing Executive – Retail Banking at former Bank PHB; General Manager- Consumer Marketing; MTN-Nigeria and Client Service Director- Insight Communications (West Africa’s largest advertising agency). He was also Chief Operating Officer at the Society for Family Health and Population Services International (Nigeria and South Africa) and Marketing Manager at former Glaxo-Nigeria.
Kemi Ogunyemi holds a degree in Law from the University of Ibadan, an LLM from the University of Strathclyde, and MBA and PhD degrees from Pan-Atlantic University.
She currently teaches business ethics, managerial anthropology, and sustainability management at the Lagos Business School. Her consulting and research interests include personal ethos, work-life ethic, social responsibility, sustainability, governance, and anti-corruption risk assessment.
Kemi is currently a member of the European Business Ethics Network (EBEN), the Business Ethics Network of Africa (BEN-Africa), the Academy of International Business South West (AIB-SW), and the International Society of Business, Economics and Ethics (ISBEE). She is also a reviewer (ad hoc) for journals and conferences such as the Journal of Business Ethics, African Journal of Business Ethics, the Academy of Management, and the Academy of International Business.
In the course of her work, she co-developed the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) anti-corruption toolkit as well as a curriculum for teaching ethics and anti-corruption for the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI), Ghana. She has also co-facilitated several training events on corruption risk assessment for the private and public sectors, the most recent being that organised by (Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission) ICPC and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) for the Nigerian Aviation sector. In addition, she undertook the local impact evaluation for the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) anti-corruption collective action project early in 2015.
Testimonials
Upcoming Sessions and Contact
For more information contact
Afolabi Oyewuni
07086095794
aoyewunmi@lbs.edu.ng
Oluwakemi Mfon-Bassey
08086726686
omfon-bassey@lbs.edu.ng
Toba Olugosi
07080070553
tolugosi@lbs.edu.ng
