Lagos, Nigeria, May 10, 2017/–Ms. Parminder Vir is the CEO of The Tony Elumelu Foundation(TEF), She talks to Business Africa Online on the strategic steps being taken by TEF in accelerating empowerment of young African entrepreneurs. Achievements of the foundation so far, and plans for 2017.
Excerpts:
BAO: Can you give us a brief overview of The Tony Elumelu Foundation and what you do exactly?
Parminder: The Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) is the leading philanthropy in Africa championing entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs across the continent. The Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) was founded in 2010 by Tony O. Elumelu CON, a serial investor, financier, and philanthropist. Our long-term investment in empowering African entrepreneurs is emblematic of Tony Elumelu’s philosophy of Africapitalism, which positions Africa’s private sector, and most importantly entrepreneurs, as the catalyst for the social and economic development of the continent.
BAO: Is the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) focused on African entrepreneurs alone? What is the impact?
Parminder: The Tony Elumelu Foundation launched the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme on 1stJanuary with a US$100 million, decade long commitment to identify, train, mentor, and fund 10,000 African entrepreneurs. Through this investment, our goal is to create one million jobs and $10 billion in additional revenues across the continent. TEF Entrepreneurship Programme is the largest entrepreneurship programme on the continent, made in Africa, by an African and for Africans. With the programme, we are promoting a culture of structured philanthropy that is impactful and that delivers sustainable results.
Through the programme, we are building the future African business leaders who create jobs to support themselves, their families, communities and the contribute to the economic transformation of their continent. We are also formalising the MSME, as all the selected TEF Entrepreneurs on the programme must be registered as businesses to receive the training, mentoring and funding.
The purpose of the programme is the economic transformation of the continent and we seek to do this by institutionalising luck and democratising opportunity. African entrepreneurs, regardless of nationality, gender, religion, age, or sector who has a transformative and scalable business idea can apply.
Through the Programme, foundation is unlocking the obstacles that Africa’s entrepreneurs face as they grow their startups into small to medium enterprises (SMEs), their SMEs into national growth companies, and their national growth companies into African multinational. Within a space of 2 years of operation and with 2,000 entrepreneurs and counting we are on the right track towards that, across the continent several of our entrepreneurs have begun a massive drive of employment and business scale up.
We promote the business stories of the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurs on our website: www.tonyelumelufoundation.org and also The TEF Documentary https://youtu.be/lE2Tt-TfhJI which chronicles the first year story of the programme launched in 2015.
BAO: What are the challenges faced by the foundation? How are you overcoming them?
Parminder: Across Africa the challenge is to create an enabling environment for entrepreneurs to thrive. Beyond our work of training, mentoring and funding, the Foundation is leveraging its unique data base for insights and trends occurring in the African entrepreneurial ecosystem. The foundation is producing research and advocacy that informs policy makers, empowers entrepreneurs, and equips corporations, institutions and individuals with incisive analysis and timely information.
In July 2015, we launched Unleashing Africa’s Entrepreneurs Series focused on analysing key sectors of Africa’s economy that possess or are attracting a high level of entrepreneurial activity and innovation. To date we have produced two ground-breaking reports as part of this series: Unleashing Africa’s Entrepreneurs: Creating an Enabling Environment and Unleashing Africa’s Agricultural Entrepreneurs: Improving the Enabling Environment for Agriculture.
BAO: What strategic steps is being taken by TEF in accelerating the empowerment of young African entrepreneurs?
Parminder: The Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme is a holistic 12 month programme that strategically positions Start-ups to become viable businesses. The combination of all the entrepreneurship Programme modalities – The 7 pillars; the online live-learning support, web mentoring, immersive boot camp, resource library, global entrepreneurship forum, seed funding and membership of the alumni network provides a unique system of intensive and effective support for the start-ups. The end outcome being strong viable businesses, which go on to create new jobs, more new revenue and ultimately enlarge Africa’s private business sector.
With the strategic partnerships and engagement, we have driven in the past two years, the rest of the world has begun to pay attention – not just to the idea of entrepreneurship as a driver for development – but they’ve begun to acknowledge our entrepreneurship programme as a replicable model for addressing the world’s social and economic issues in a direct and sustainable way.
We are helping to educate on the role of entrepreneurship in African economic development by engaging African leaders, policy makers, stakeholders, and investors on the value of supporting African entrepreneurs. Since January 2015, our Founder has engaged Presidents and Ministers across Africa: Senegal, South Africa, Mali, Cote d’Ivoire, Cameroon, Uganda, Rwanda, Kenya, Zambia, Ghana, Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Algeria, Mauritius to name but a few, sharing the Foundation’s mission to empower African entrepreneurs and introducing the Tony Elumelu Entrepreneurs for face to face dialogue.
Through its engagement with global entrepreneurship forums, TEF is promoting the role of African entrepreneurs within the global supply chain and putting African innovators front and center on the global stage.
BAO: Would you say the foundation has achieved its sustainability development goals (SDGs) for 2016? What is the plan for 2017?
Parminder: Yes, the Foundation has and is achieving its sustainability goals. In 2015 and 2016, we have invested near $10 million as seed capital into 2000 entrepreneurs from 54 African to develop their businesses. These business in turn are addressing many of the SDGs. We also included a question in the application form, for the applicants to indicate SDGs addressed by their business idea.
BAO: What specific advice would you have for young African entrepreneurs?
Parminder: The advice to those selected and to those who did not make the cut in 2015, 2016, and 2017, I say never give up. Entrepreneurship is a long-term journey and as Mr Elumelu often says, “entrepreneurs never quit.” Reach out to those who were selected 2017 and those who have graduated from the programme in 2015 and 2016. They will be very willing to share their knowledge and experience of the 12-week Start-up Enterprise Toolkit, developing their business plans, attending the TEF Entrepreneurship Forum in Lagos. Sign up to the TEF, Newsletter, read Alumni Spotlight Stories, watch the TEF Documentary, read the Articles in the TEF Website,download TEF Research and Advocacy Reports and read TEF Impact Report to understand the work of the Foundation. Follow and engage with TEF on social media, on Face Book, LinkedIn, and Twitter, do the same for Mr Tony O. Elumelu. Follow the CEO on Twitter and LinkedIn for weekly articles on entrepreneurship. You must pursue your passions, apply your skills and knowledge to doing what you love, and what you’re good at. You must remain open to keep on learning, maintain that start-up spirit—where you’re forever young, and forever in crisis, outside of your comfort zone.
We have seen evidence that African entrepreneurs create solutions to problems. Where others see challenges, they continue to see opportunities to create jobs and generate wealth. Hold on to your passion, vision, creativity, and a sense of adventure.Always remember, as entrepreneurs YOU are essential in the transformation of the world we live in. By creating new businesses and new markets, you are the real change agents in your community, country, continent and the world.
Her Bio:
Ms Vir is the Chief Executive Officer of the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF). As CEO, she manages the overall day-to-day operations and strategic development of TEF, as well as the implementation of the Foundation’s key initiatives.
Under Vir’s leadership, the Foundation will continue its mission of empowering African entrepreneurs, and ensuring that entrepreneurship becomes the primary driver of Africa’s economic growth and social transformation.
Previously she was CEO of PVL Media, a specialist consultancy facilitating cross-border business development within emerging markets.
She is a commercially focused board level executive with broad international experience and particular expertise in media, entrepreneurship and business development. Ms Vir has worked in multiple sectors to deliver strategy, partnership development and marketing products and services for corporate and emerging businesses around the world.
Source: Business Africa Online
