Case Studies and Beer in Kenya

Today began with something we thought we had left behind in our past: a case study! It was about two local entrepreneurs; the discussion was lead by the Dean of Nairobi’s Strathmore Business School and one of the protagonists came to provide his personal account.

In the afternoon we met with the general management of East Africa Brewing Ltd, a beer/spirits company so large that it contributes almost 50% of the Kenyan government’s revenue in taxes every year! The management team—all locally educated—was incredibly sharp; we grilled them about their strategy, finance, and operations but they answered beautifully.

This meeting also included tours of both the glass bottle manufacturing plant and the brewery. Now I know why Guinness tastes different here; it is brewed here with local ingredients and the recipe is adjusted for local tastes. That’s too bad but at least I can say that I drank Kenyan beer without having to resort to the very light Tusker (also brewed by EABL) that seems to be the national icon.

Pictures are in my facebook album.

Povera Italia

Today’s theme was entrepreneurship, which naturally kept me very interested. We met with all kinds of Kenyan entrepreneurs, from locals pulling themselves up out of poverty to ex-pats riding the wave of growth to battered women establishing financial independence to members of the Diaspora making their prodigal returns. It was interesting to see how different Kenya’s entrepreneurial environment is than that of the US, but it was equally interesting to see how so many Kenyans found ways to succeed anyway.

We were given dinner off tonight so, after a run in a downtown park, a few of us followed a tip to a local restaurant for some Kenyan cuisine. After walking through some very sketchy areas, we found the place, which was definitely not much more than a hole in the wall—just what we were looking for. This hole in the wall happened to serve Guinness (which somehow tastes different here) and was showing the Italy-Spain soccer match. The chicken Zaire was very good, as was the conversation.

We returned to the hotel to watch the end of the soccer match. Although Italy lost, it was still a worthwhile viewing experience as I had the opportunity to teach everyone about real football and how it was ever so superior to soccer. I’m not sure they were convinced so I may just have to keep spreading the good word.

First Full Day in Nairobi

Today was a busy Saturday, packed with meetings with the Swiss ambassador to Kenya, the executive director of Climate Network Africa, and the Deputy Head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in charge of Kenya’s Diaspora. We were also due to meet with the Prime Minister, Minister of Trade, and former Minister of Finance, but they had to cancel at the last minute due to the death and funeral of another minister.

Each of the meetings was very interesting, although I didn’t like the one with Climate Network Africa. The presenter was full of climate change blame for the US/Europe, didn’t offer any constructive solutions, and demanded reparations for the damage that would surely come to the African environment. I found this unproductive for several reasons.

First, her supporting data were misleading. She drew facts and figures from several years ago, when the US and Europe were way ahead of everyone in carbon emissions. Don’t get me wrong; the US and Europe are still way ahead, but the gap is closing a little and the trends, which show developing nations like China overtaking them in the future, reveal that the problem must be addressed globally, not just in a few countries. She also used exclusively per capita carbon emissions statistics, which are irrelevant. The environment doesn’t care how many people are producing the emissions; it just cares that they are being produced! By her logic, the US could become a better global citizen just by increasing its fertility rate instead of reducing its emissions!

Second, she was all problem and no solution. Yes, we all know that the industrialized countries have been the greatest emitters, but it is unproductive to rehash this over and over and over again. Yes, we screwed up. No, we didn’t know the consequences industrialization would have until recently but yes, we accept responsibility for it. Now let’s stop playing the blame game and all work together to find a solution!

Finally, her antagonistic “The West is evil” presentation isn’t likely to motivate any action. I’ve blogged before about how a large organization exhibits a collective subconscious that behaves in a very irrational, human way. Attacking developed countries is likely to induce defensiveness, not action. A collaborative approach would be much more constructive.

Her presentation did motivate me, however, to think about a topic I often ponder: what IS the solution? Specifically, she motivated me to think about it in an African context. Africa has huge, open spaces with significant sun exposure so one idea might be to develop solar and wind farms there. In addition to generating renewable energy, this would create jobs on a continent that has major population growth and poverty. In fact, Africa could become a hotbed of renewable energy generation, producing even more than its current (No pun intended!) needs and exporting the surplus around the world.

The problem with such a plan is two-fold. First, these renewable energy technologies are expensive and the political climate in Africa is somewhat volatile. Investing in such projects is therefore risky. Furthermore, to export power—or even to distribute it around such a huge continent—would require major advances in transmission technology. Current power lines are very lossy, losing a significant percentage of the power transmitted over them over long distances. This is especially important for centralized solar and wind, which A. are usually located far away from power consumers (in areas with the least obstruction of their power sources) and B. are bursty—we can’t control when the sun will shine or the wind will blow. More efficient transmission (and storage, for that matter) technology would allow areas that need power, regardless of weather conditions there, to draw energy from areas where the sun is shining or wind is blowing around the world. This problem of energy transmission and storage is the main theme addressed by the vision of Nobel laureate (and Rice professor!) Dr. Richard Smalley. His proposed solution naturally uses nanotechnology, his principal area of research.

As I am no great nanotechnologist, this leads me to the fundamental question that drove me to IMD and that still drives me today: what can business leaders do to address this energy/environment challenge? We can certainly enforce responsible energy usage within our companies but that won’t be enough. It will barely make a dent in consumption and won’t address any other social issues. To effect more profound change, business leaders will need to invest (either by starting up new ventures or by launching initiatives within their own companies) in R&D of renewable technologies (reducing renewable production costs and increasing efficiency), R&D of energy transmission and storage technologies, and development of renewable operations in places like Africa.

These are just my initial ideas. What ideas do you have? How can business leaders change the world for the better? The answer to this question will significantly impact my thinking about how to shape my career post-IMD.

I’m in Kenya!

The day began ealier than usual; we all met at IMD at 4:45 AM to take a bus to the airport. Air travel was smooth and, before we knew it, we landed in Nairobi. To avoid evening traffic, which is abysmal, we had two meetings there at the airport. The first, with Swiss International Air – Kenya was about the challenges of doing business in Kenya. The second, with Kenya’s Airport Authority, was about achieving their strategy of becoming the dominant East African network of airports.

As we arrived at our hotel, our anxiety levels rose. The rooms are basic, to say the least, but that’s probably healthy for a bunch of coddled MBA students. 🙂 As we sat down for dinner, our apprehensions eased; the food was delicious (and plentiful!) and the hotel staff was incredibly gracious. If any anxiety was left at all, the gin and tonic forced it out. Yes, I do believe G&Ts will be my drink of choice here. Even though our altitude is high enough for mosquitos not to be much a risk, a little quinine won’t hurt!

Pictures so far are on facebook.

I will close with a valuable piece of advice I learned from Lisa, our expedition organizer: Don’t come between a hippo and the water! We may see hippos during our camping trip at Lake Navasha–I’m so excited!

1997

As my chronological journey through American popular music has taken me through 1997, the year I graduated from high school, I have stirred up many memories of my first semester at Rice University.

This was the year that Puff Daddy (Sean “Puffy” Combs, etc.) came up with the formula of old pop hit + increased base line + spoken/rapped lyrics == contemporary hit. Master P also entered the scene that year. On the Rice football team, we had a Master P of our own; that was the nickname of Michael Perry, halfback. Master P was one of our three thousand-yard rushers that season, along with Chad Nelson, quarterback, and Benji Wood, who started ahead of me at fullback.

It was a heck of a first semester. Football was awesome. I will never forget running out of the tunnel to the thunderous applause of 55,000 fans at our season opener against Air Force. Or our first away game against Tulane at the Superdome in New Orleans. Or barely losing to the University of Texas and Heisman winner Ricky Williams. John Heisman, for whom the trophy is named, actually used to coach at Rice.

The semester was about more than football, of course. It was also about romance, roadtrips (San Antonio, Dallas, and New Orleans), making lifelong friends, hard courses, and no sleep. Although it wasn’t really about partying for me, I could still hear the songs of 1997 through the walls while I was trying to study or sleep and the memories they incite are great ones.

Sigh

Just when it seemed that we were back in the CWS tournament, up 5-0 in the top of the 7th with our ace closer on the mound, it all came crashing down. 1 run in the bottom of the 7th, another in the 8th, and then four in the 9th to lose to LSU. Oh well, as the old saying goes, “I may not have been at the College World Series this year . . . but neither was the University of Texas!”

Now it’s time to look ahead to better times–and Rice football begins in just over two months!

Queen and Careers

Yesterday morning we had a Leadership class focused on careers and the characteristics that drive/motivate us. Based on a survey, we were divided into five groups, those who were looking for freedom, balance, security, interesting challenge, and advancement/accomplishment. Of course most of us were motivated by several of these, but we broke into groups based upon our highest scores. We then put together presentations about what we need from our supervisors, companies, and families, as well as which socio-economic factors might affect the value of our careers for each type.

It surprised me that my highest score was in freedom, not in accomplishment. Accomplishment was a very close second, followed by balance as a close third. Interesting challenge was a distant fourth and security was hardly represented at all. As our freedom group sat down to work, we felt “free” to turn on some music: Queen’s “I Want To Break Free.” At the same time the accomplishment group was listening to “Under Pressure” by Queen and David Bowie. During Q&A after the accomplishment group’s presentation, someone asked if they related to the Queen song “I Want It All (and I Want It Now).” The answer was yes, and lord knows I can relate.

While I am disappointed that the other groups didn’t independently come up with Queen anthems, I am glad to have had three Queen songs stuck in my head all day. Slightly less inspiring is “Looking For Freedom” by David Hasselhoff, which we played at the beginning of our presentation to get the class clapping. The music video featured scenes from Knight Rider–how can you beat that?

Rice Not Representin’

Ouch. Rice’s debut game in this year’s College World Series was abysmal: a 17-5 loss to Fresno State. We went through seven pitchers and gave up three home runs. Only late in the game did we mount any offense at all and, by then, it was too little too late. Oh well, as one announcer put it, perhaps Rice was trying to get all of its bad play out of the way in the opening game–this way we’ll play top-notch baseball all the way through the finals. I hope that’s the case!

It was a good weekend for Bulldogs as Georgia upset the #1 Miami Hurricanes. I’m sure my brother, who played baseball at Trinity University and is finishing his PhD in marine biology at the University of Miami, is hurting now as much as I am. For both of our sakes I wish both the ‘Canes and the Owls good luck in their losers bracket games this Monday and Tuesday respectively. Go Rice!

Mock Interviews

Yesterday we received our final grades for the “Building Blocks” (academic) portion of our year here at IMD. I did very well overall, but I am most proud of the improvment I deomonstrated in the areas where I came in with the least background. As I have written before, I certainly don’t know it all–if I did, what would be the point in sacrificing $200k+ for an MBA? The best that I can do is identify my areas for greatest improvement (and those of greatest interest) and work hard to develop them. Although grading is only one, imperfect way of measuring competency, it indicates that I have improved significantly in my weaker areas and exceled in those that I think are critical for my future career. This gives me confidence not only in my skills today but also in my ability to improve and grow constantly throughout the rest of my life, which will be crucial for my effectiveness over time.

Today we continued in the Career Services vein by practicing our interviewing and networking skills with IMD alumni. We were given the opportunity for one of three types of interviews: industry, consulting, or finance. I chose industry and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The feedback I received from my interviewer was very helpful (The areas for improvement, such as- making better use of silence–diplomatically put, are all areas I can improve with practice and preparation.) and the entire session was videotaped, so I will have the chance to review my performance next week.

The day finished with a party on the restaurant patio. There I met many other interesting, successful, diverse alumni and had a great time to boot. Several of our professors came too and it was fun to “party” with them now that grades were out of the way.

Luxury Disillusionment

Today was the official start of on-campus recruiting. Several companies made presentations throughout the day about who they were, what they did, what positions they offered, and why we should work for them.

Most of the companies participating in on-campus recruiting this year are outside of my target industries (technology, energy, space exploration, sports, and wine–very focused, I know!) so I will spend the majority of my job search pursuing opportunities off-campus. However, I was intrigued by two luxury brand conglomerates that presented today, one because it owned several wine brands and one because we studied one if its major acquisitions in Strategy.

I was curious to find out if these companies were really just about luxury and image or if they had more . . . “substance” to them. Did they offer anything of value to society or did they really just exist to fulfill the desires of the upper class? I asked the presenters questions about environmental and social responsibility but was disappointed in the responses. I’m sure their PR departments have good arguments but the fact that their recruiters didn’t know them indicated something about the cultures of these two companies. More pointedly it indicated that they weren’t places where I wanted to begin the next phase of my career and mission to change the world for the better.

I think this is the real benefit of on-campus company presentations: not helping you decide which companies DO interest you, rather learning enough about industries you don’t know well to decide firmly that they do NOT interest you. That is helpful to the students and to the recruiting companies.