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Speaker 3: Tweet maybe you might be the best person to talk
Speaker 3: about this because you you're on both sides, on the
Speaker 3: American side, and so for people that have not been
Speaker 3: to Guan or not familiar. You know the reason why
Speaker 3: we personally, you know, invested our time, energy resources into Ghana.
Speaker 3: We just felt Gona had a few things that was
Speaker 3: in his favor. A it's safe, right, that's important. So
Speaker 3: from a security standpoint, you want to go to a
Speaker 3: country that you actually feel safe. And this is just
Speaker 3: anywhere in the world, right, So we've been all over
Speaker 3: the map and you know, you kind of know when
Speaker 3: you're in dangerous areas and you kind of know when
Speaker 3: you're in the area that's you know, you.
Speaker 2: Feel comfortable in.
Speaker 3: So ghan is a safe country and it has stable
Speaker 3: government and that's important too. Unfortunately, especially in Africa, you know,
Speaker 3: government has been a major issue and that's for a
Speaker 3: variety of different reasons. But be'st neither here nor there.
Speaker 3: But you know, gan is one of these countries that
Speaker 3: has you know, transitions of power. Right, they don't have
Speaker 3: like military coups happening in every three years, so that's important.
Speaker 2: Like, you know, you invest.
Speaker 3: Somewhere, you want you want to know that there's that
Speaker 3: at least you know that there's never gonna be a
Speaker 3: perfect government, but at least there's no you know, simple
Speaker 3: unrest that happens every other week. Right, that's something that
Speaker 3: is not sustainable for investment, especially for foreign investment, because
Speaker 3: you don't know what's going on.
Speaker 2: So that works in his favor.
Speaker 3: But you like talk about your transition as far as
Speaker 3: you know, an American going to Ghana even though you're
Speaker 3: from Ghana originally, but like because you know, the healthcare
Speaker 3: system all of that kind of just walking through your
Speaker 3: personal experiences.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, my experience.
Speaker 4: It's interesting because I sometimes tell people you get you
Speaker 4: get the culture shocked twice, right, Because I was born
Speaker 4: in the US and then I moved to Ghana when
Speaker 4: I was seven, Right, there was an adjustment. Even though
Speaker 4: I was Guinean by blood, there was an adjustment and
Speaker 4: just being American and now trying to plug into the
Speaker 4: to the Guinean kind of school system. And then I
Speaker 4: came back to the US for college, there was an adjustment.
Speaker 4: And then going back to Ghana. You don't realize like
Speaker 4: how much you kind of evolved doing your formative years.
Speaker 4: But it was an adjustment to start out, but tremendous
Speaker 4: amount of opportunity because you know kameit touched on the
Speaker 4: business environment. I actually moved back to Ghana in twenty
Speaker 4: nineteen to join a small holding company and at the time,
Speaker 4: like you know, we.
Speaker 2: Had three restaurants in our portfolio.
Speaker 4: Right fast forward to today, you know, five five six
Speaker 4: years later, we have upwards of one hundred and fifty
Speaker 4: where one of the largest franchisees for Pinkberry across the world.
Speaker 2: Right, and this is just in Ghana.
Speaker 4: And so very quickly I was able to kind of
Speaker 4: adjust to the dynamics of working and living in Ghana
Speaker 4: because although our institutions are nascent processes work, if you
Speaker 4: want to set up a company, there's a structure that
Speaker 4: you can follow to be able to do that, people
Speaker 4: to support and assist you all across the board.
Speaker 2: And then you know, from quality of.
Speaker 4: Life life standpoint, like quality of life in Ghana is
Speaker 4: really high, especially if you're you know, someone of middle
Speaker 4: income upper upper middle class, Like there's certain things you
Speaker 4: can have access to. You have, you know, additional support,
Speaker 4: whether it's you know, nanny's at home to kind of.
Speaker 2: Support with upkeep. The healthcare infrastructure is really strong.
Speaker 4: We invest the significant amounts of money the government private
Speaker 4: sector into enhancing our healthcare systems.
Speaker 2: When you look at Ghana from kind.
Speaker 4: Of a social perspective, like everyone talks about dirty December
Speaker 4: and like the year we go to party, but the
Speaker 4: social scene extends beyond that, right there's movie theaters and
Speaker 4: golf courses and pickleball and all these nice kind of
Speaker 4: restaurants that you can partake in. And then on the
Speaker 4: cultural side, you know, there's a whole bunch of natural
Speaker 4: kind of whether you want to go on hikes, or
Speaker 4: you want to go to the the Cacum forests, or
Speaker 4: you want to go to the Cape Coast castles, or
Speaker 4: you want to partake in in like a cultural dance trope.
Speaker 4: There's just so much richness to Ghana from a social
Speaker 4: standpoint that even goes beyond just you know, the parties
Speaker 4: that a lot of people will see on Instagram. And
Speaker 4: so for me, it was like that range just allowed
Speaker 4: me to kind of plug back in and really start
Speaker 4: to assimilate again. And I think you know, when people
Speaker 4: are thinking about Ghana as a place, can I live here?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 4: Like everything from our healthcare to education system, Like right now,
Speaker 4: from a tech standpoint, you got a lot of people
Speaker 4: working remotely out in Ghana because quality of internet is there, right.
Speaker 2: We have five G Internet in Ghana too.
Speaker 4: There's Elon Musk Starlink that you can plug in too,
Speaker 4: just to make sure you have access to your Zoom
Speaker 4: meetings and Microsoft teams.
Speaker 2: And so I think it's one of the things where.
Speaker 4: Like people feel like Africa can be distant in daunting,
Speaker 4: but stay connected to folks who've been there. Come as
Speaker 4: a tourist first, and you'll see that it's it's a
Speaker 4: high quality of life that you can easily assimilate well to.
Speaker 3: We talk about talk about your your specific journey as
Speaker 3: far as, like you said, you're one of the biggest franchise,
Speaker 3: you had one of the biggest you know.
Speaker 2: Food change in Ghana and the whole probably continent.
Speaker 3: So talk about like just talk about that as far
Speaker 3: as your entrepreneurial journey going there, Like what was the
Speaker 3: steps that you took to get up and run in
Speaker 3: like kind.
Speaker 2: Of walking through that. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So my thought process was I've always known that I
Speaker 4: was an entrepreneur at heart, you know.
Speaker 2: I was I was a kid in middle school in
Speaker 2: high school who you know, would sell back in Ghana.
Speaker 2: I would buy all.
Speaker 4: These us for roll ups, rice, Chrispy Trees, all these
Speaker 4: snacks and sell it to my classmates.
Speaker 2: So I've always had that entrepreneurial spirit.
Speaker 4: And so when I was started to think about going
Speaker 4: back to Ghana, you know, my preference was to do
Speaker 4: it through what's called entrepreneurship through acquisition. So I found
Speaker 4: a partner who had set up kind of a food business.
Speaker 4: They only had three locations at the time, and just
Speaker 4: started working together as partners and we said, hey, we
Speaker 4: want to stay opportunistic, right, and our thesis was literally
Speaker 4: gone as a very nascent market with a lot of opportunity.
Speaker 4: Sixty percent of our population is under the age of
Speaker 4: twenty five and the middle class is growing at an
Speaker 4: unprecedented rate, and so we knew people will always need food.
Speaker 4: So we started off in food service and really trying
Speaker 4: to scale kind of what is you know, quick service
Speaker 4: fast casual restaurants, And our thesis was, hey, we would
Speaker 4: get some of these Western brands and learn their processes
Speaker 4: and then implement it to scale up some of our
Speaker 4: local brands. And so now we have both, Right, we
Speaker 4: have the franchise for Burger King and Pinkberry, but we
Speaker 4: also have local brands and Domain Foods and Chickenman and
Speaker 4: selectively are are the largest restaurant operator in Ghana. But
Speaker 4: we've continued to stay opportunistic and now have a presence
Speaker 4: in actually fourteen different African countries covering food service. We
Speaker 4: also do financial services where you provide kind of small
Speaker 4: business financing for people at the bottom of the pyramid.
Speaker 4: We have a gaming platform that effectively provides software for
Speaker 4: media houses to run raffles. So we actually partnered with
Speaker 4: Alvin and Kwame to run one of our raffles kind
Speaker 4: of through their media house, and then and then real estate,
Speaker 4: so both commercial and residential, and so partner with Alvin
Speaker 4: and Kwame on Sambra to do to do on the
Speaker 4: residential side and then on the commercial side. We also
Speaker 4: have a bunch of properties in Tanzania, and so it's
Speaker 4: been interesting to kind of first come to Ghana but
Speaker 4: realize that the opportunity for growth extends beyond just Ghana
Speaker 4: and taking that risk going.
Speaker 2: To some of these other different markets, so across.
Speaker 4: West Africa, East Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, we're in Malawi, Mozambique,
Speaker 4: Sierra Leone, we're working on Senego and Guinea. It's been fun, man,
Speaker 4: and I always extend myself as a resource for people
Speaker 4: who are looking to navigate, because I think first you
Speaker 4: need someone who something to chase, or someone who's had
Speaker 4: the success you're looking for, and then just kind of
Speaker 4: leverage those partnerships to deeping your presence and figure out
Speaker 4: where you can also add value.
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