Africa

Johannesburg, Lagos

HBS continues its efforts to build a deep understanding of and expertise in global business practice and innovation around the world, including throughout Africa, a region that is assuming an increasingly vital role in the world economy. The school opened the Africa Research Center in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2017 followed by an office in Lagos, Nigeria in 2019. This center plays an important role in helping HBS develop and strengthen relationships with business and academic leaders across sub-Saharan Africa, while our Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Research Center based in Istanbul, plays this same role for North African countries. Support for HBS engagement and activities across the school are enabled by these locations. The School strives to deepen faculty's understanding of and exposure to African management issues, trends, and practices, as well as develop locally relevant case studies and course materials for use in business education programs around the world.

Locations

1st Floor Block C, Rosebank Office Park
181 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parktown North
Johannesburg, South Africa

Lagos, Nigeria

News & Highlights

October 2020
EVENTS

24 Hours of Harvard

Worldwide Week at Harvard showcases the breadth of Harvard’s global engagement through academic and cultural events with global or international themes. On October 7th-8th, 2020, Harvard broadcasted 24 Hours of Harvard, which featured 24 consecutive hours of around-the-clock and around-the-world events and activities. As part of this event, the Africa Research Center shared a live overview of its activities led by the Center’s Executive Director and team members followed by a pre-recorded session on Leadership in Uncertainty that was part of the webinar series COVID-19: Reflections, Challenges and Next Steps, organized by the ARC. The session focused on leadership lessons for African businesses in the context of the coronavirus pandemic and how to thrive in this new world. The HBS professors shared their relevant research while the African business leaders provided local context and discussed the steps leaders on the continent can take to adapt themselves and their businesses to these unprecedented times.

October 2020
MBA EXPERIENCE

MBA Perspectives: Abena Nyantekyi-Owusu, MBA 2021

MBA Perspectives is a collection of HBS student profiles that highlight student experiences across different geographies and industries. These profiles provide prospective students with insight into life at HBS. In this article, Ghanaian student Abena Nyantekyi-Owusu (MBA 2021) describes how she wanted more exposure to people from all over the world and how that led her to HBS. Abena wants to be a leader developing technology solutions that are good for Africa and create go-to-market strategies – in education, fintech, agriculture, or health care – designed specifically for the continent.

June 2020
EVENTS

Africa Webinar Series - COVID-19: Reflections, Challenges and Next Steps

In June 2020, the Africa Research Center hosted a four-part webinar series titled COVID-19: Reflections, Challenges and Next Steps. The series brought together alumni and friends from across Africa and provided the opportunity to get to know HBS professors who are doing work related to the continent. HBS professors John Macomber, Mattias Fibiger, Hakeem Belo-Osagie, Shikhar Ghosh, Anywhere (Siko) Sikochi, Laura Alfaro, Euvin Naidoo and Suraj Srinivasan shared insights and discussed how to respond to the global pandemic. The series attracted over 4,000 attendees from 50+ countries.

April 2020
MBA EXPERIENCE

MBA Perspectives: Brice Fodoup, MBA 2021

MBA Perspectives is a collection of HBS student profiles that highlight student experiences across different geographies and industries. These profiles provide prospective students with insight into life at HBS. In this article, Cameroonian student Brice Fodoup (MBA 2021) describes his experience that led him to HBS and his plans to work in consulting before bringing his expertise back to Africa to start his own company.

New Research on the Region

January 2021
Case

Andela: Africa’s AWS for Talent

By: Caroline M. Elkins, Tarun Khanna and Joyce J. Kim

Five years after the company’s founding, Andela, a company that built and trained remote engineering teams, became arguably Africa’s greatest technology unicorn. By January 2019, Andela raised $100 million in Series D funding. As Andela looked to scale in an increasingly competitive landscape, its goal was to democratize trust and become an “Amazon Web Services” (AWS) for software engineering talent. With their windfall investment and the advent of COVID, Andela had to figure out their “2.0 model” to permit scaling. How would Andela stack up in a growing landscape of global remote talent companies? Could Andela become not just Africa’s, but the world’s AWS for trusted software engineering talent?

January 2021
Case

mPharma (A)

By: Rembrand Koning, John D. Macomber, Pippa Tubman Armerding and Wale Lawal

mPharma pioneered electronic prescriptions in Ghana, and aimed to increase drug affordability and accessibility in Africa, but the company remained unprofitable. Following investor concerns about mPharma's business, CEO Gregory Rockson considered alternative business models and services that could increase mPharma's profitability and impact.