News & Highlights

  • May 2024
  • FIELD Global Immersion (FGI)

Reception and Dinner with Prof. Hakeem I. Belo-Osagie in Nairobi

In May 2024, the ARC Executive Director joined Professor Hakeem I. Belo-Osagie, his students, and members of the Harvard alumni community at a reception and dinner hosted by the Harvard Club of Kenya in Nairobi. Professor Belo-Osagie and his students were in Nairobi for the FIELD Global Immersion (FGI), a first-year MBA course that enables students to learn about business in markets outside of the United States. FGI culminates in a one-week immersion in several emerging market cities around the world, including Nairobi and three other cities in Africa (Kigali, Accra, and Morocco), requiring students to build on and apply learnings from their first-year courses into real-world business problems. During the FGI in Nairobi, students engaged with business leaders, corporate leaders, and alumni to gain insights into the local business environment.
  • May 2024
  • ALUMNI EVENT

Alumni Event with Prof. Ramon Casadesus-Masanell in Johannesburg

The HBS Club of South Africa, in collaboration with HBS Executive Education and GIBS, recently hosted a successful networking event featuring a talk by Professor Ramon Casadesus-Masanell. The event coincided with Prof. Casadesus-Masanell's visit to Johannesburg for the Senior Executive Program-Africa (SEPA). Africa Research Center staff, SEPA Senior Director Philip Cacouris, and HBS Executive Education Regional Director Stephane Sinimale also attended the event.
  • May 2024
  • Executive Education

HBS Executive Education Senior Executive Program Africa (SEPA)

This year’s SEPA kicked off with a week-long session in Johannesburg from May 26th to 31st, 2024. The HBS program, in partnership with the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS), is designed to equip African business executives with skills to navigate the complexities of local, regional and global markets. Faculty co-chair Professor Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, SEPA Senior Director Philip Cacouris, and HBS Executive Education Regional Director Stephane Sinimale all participated in the program
  • March 2024
  • EVENT

Virtual Case Discussion: Sian Flowers: Fresher by Sea

In March 2024, the Africa Research Center hosted a virtual case discussion on Sian Flowers, co-hosted with Professor Willy Shih. The event, which invited participants from various African countries, saw over 60 attendees engage in a lively discussion on the case.

New Research on the Region

  • August 2024
  • Case

Quickmart: Sustaining Growth in a Challenging Economic Environment

By: Ramon Casadesus-Masanell and Kuria Kamau

In July 2023, Peter Kang’iri, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Quickmart, Kenya’s second-largest retail chain, sat in his Nairobi office reviewing the company’s first half financial results before the weekly executive committee (EXCO) meeting. The company was in the second year of its five-year plan, following its most profitable year ever in 2022. Quickmart’s five-year plan was to increase its revenues by 82% to $541 million by opening 50 new stores. It was targeting to have 105 stores in Kenya by 2026 and had opened three new stores in 2023 which increased its national presence to 58 stores in 16 counties by July 2023. However, Kenya’s challenging economic environment was negatively impacting consumer spending, and Quickmart’s growth plans were at risk. Furthermore, Kang’iri feared that Quickmart could face financial challenges as it increased its store numbers since other Kenyan retailers had failed after growing to 65 stores. Given these challenges, Kang’iri knew he would need to reconsider how best to meet the company’s ambitious growth targets.

  • Working Paper

The Returns to Skills During the Pandemic: Experimental Evidence from Uganda

By: Livia Alfonsi, Vittorio Bassi, Imran Rasul and Elena Spadini

The Covid-19 pandemic represents one of the most significant labor market shocks to the world economy in recent times. We present evidence from a field experiment to understand whether and why skilled and unskilled workers were differentially impacted by the shock, in the context of a low-income economy, Uganda. We leverage a panel of workers and firms, tracked from 2012 to 2022, including high frequency surveys over the pandemic. In 2013, workers were randomly assigned to receive six months of sector-specific vocational training, in one of eight high productivity sectors. We document that over the pandemic, employment and earnings margins follow V-shaped dynamics, whereby the outcomes of treated (skilled) workers are more severely impacted by lockdowns, they recover more quickly between lockdowns, and remain resilient to the shock as the economy recovers. Cumulatively over the pandemic, skilled workers spend 61% more time than controls employed in one of our study sectors, and their total earnings are 17% higher. We explore supply- and demand-side mechanisms through which the returns to skills are maintained through the crisis. We document that skilled workers are more exposed to the shock because they are more likely to be laid off during the first lockdown as firms respond to the rapid, severe and uncertain shock by immediately laying off higher earning workers. However, skilled workers recover quickly because of their greater accumulation of sector-specific experience pre-pandemic, and the certifiability of their skills that allows them to switch employers in the same sector during the crisis. Our findings have implications for understanding the returns to skills acquired through vocational training in good economic times and times of crisis.

  • May 2024
  • Case

MStudio and Djoli: Accelerating Startup Growth in Francophone Africa

By: Paul A. Gompers, Pippa Tubman Armerding and Temitayo Lawal

Djoli, a procurement platform, was one of the startups launched and supported by MStudio, a startup studio in Côte d'Ivoire, in 2023. After a year of operations, Djoli must look beyond MStudio, which had supported them financially and in kind in exchange for equity, for seed capital which they needed to expand. The options before them presented some challenges but they must make a decision.

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Johannesburg Staff

Pippa Tubman Armerding
Executive Director
→ Biography
Tafadzwa Choruma
Manager for Adminstration and Progamming
Maagatha Kalavadakken
Senior Researcher

Lagos Staff

Temitayo Lawal
Senior Researcher

Nairobi Staff