All posts by rachel_eaton

The future of scandal-hit hedge funds

August 19, 2013 rachel_eaton

Sara Firouzyar

Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice indicted SAC Capital, the Connecticut based hedge fund with c.US$15 billion funds under management, of insider trading.

The indictment, and a related civil case seeking forfeitures and money laundering penalties, imperils the future of the hedge fund and adds to a recent string of high profile corporate scandals rocking the financial services sector.

The US government has accused SAC of presiding over a culture where employees not only flouted the law but were encouraged to tap their personal networks of contacts for inside information about publicly traded companies; all suggesting a chronic failure in the fund’s compliance function.

SAC Capital is just the most recent example of the cost of compliance oversights for global financial institutions. Even with the best of intentions, those that fail to undertake rigorous due diligence and embed a culture of compliance, lay themselves open to scrutiny from increasingly unforgiving regulators and markets.

In light of these recent scandals and with the chaos of Enron and Madoff not too far behind us, much has been said about what can be done to make compliance and ethics programmes more than just corporate window dressing. Some have argued for the creation of a C-level compliance officer: someone with the experience and mandate to actually make things happen in the organisation.

Gong’s client True Office argues that compliance shouldn’t be confined to a single individual or to boardroom strategy documents – it should be equally embraced by every member of an organisation. In a recent Wall Street Journal article True Office CEO, Adam Sodowick, believes this can be achieved through the tactical use of gamification. Gamified compliance training, he says, creates an authentic experience that employees can relate to and apply to their role; changing a mandatory task that is often perceived as dull into a thought-provoking and sensory, ‘play-based’ experience.

However you want to play it, one thing is clear – it’s time for companies, and policymakers, to reject a tick-box approach to compliance programmes, and get much more serious about ensuring that integrity remains at the heart of business.

Insight

Kickstarting Madagascar: Shining a light on Africa’s forgotten island

August 15, 2013 rachel_eaton

Sarah Nicholas

Freelance journalist and friend of Gong, Emilie Filou has set herself a challenge: to tackle the chronic under-reporting of Madagascar in the Anglophone press.

Madagascar sits between the African mainland, Indonesia, and the Indian sub-continent. While its neighbours tell a startling story of growth and attract ever increasing media interest, the fourth largest island in the world is often overlooked by the English-language press. Is the country an awkward anomaly in the ‘Africa Rising’ narrative, or a final frontier market waiting to sky rocket like its Asian neighbours across the Indian Ocean?

A quick search for ‘Madagascar’ throws up talking cartoon zebras and the occasional lemur, but next to nothing about the political vacuum of a country which has spent the past four years without a functioning government. Nor is there any mention of the huge potential of the island’s textile, mining, agriculture and tourism industries.

Emilie wants this radio silence to end.

She has launched a Kickstarter project to crowd-fund her way to Madagascar and report back in words and photographs, producing a series of dispatches to tell the world what is really happening:

When she came to see the Gong team this week Emilie told us, “After four and half years of political vacuum, Madagascar is now the second poorest country in the world. The economy has stalled because of international sanctions; foreign direct investment has all but dried up; and tourism has slumped. This is all the more tragic because the country has everything it needs to succeed: a young population, a wealth of natural resources (minerals, oil), a relatively well-educated workforce, unique biodiversity and outstanding natural beauty, and huge tracts of fertile agricultural land.

“I need your help to finance the trip – I work freelance and don’t have the support of a big news organisation. Kickstarter funding will allow me to travel to Madagascar for three weeks in September to gather material needed to shine a light on the plight of the Malagasy people and the fantastic potential of the country.”

Emilie wrote the Lonely Planet Guide to Madagascar and since her last trip there in 2011 has written regularly about the country for The Economist, BBC Travel and the Africa Report. She has now exhausted what can be done remotely. This fresh batch of articles will be published in the Anglophone press over the course of the autumn; any unpublished material will go on Emilie’s website.

You can pledge your support via Kickstarter, in return for reports, insights and photos from Emilie: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1624070979/shining-a-light-on-madagascar

Insight

What are the advantages of choosing a public relations boutique in Africa?

August 6, 2013 rachel_eaton

Isabelle Alenus-Crosby

At Gong we work with companies in Africa, across a range of sectors, to raise their business profiles beyond local markets. In parallel, we position investors, focusing on Emerging Markets, at the forefront of international business reporting. We are a trusted partner that delivers high-quality news coverage, marketing materials, websites, advertisements, and content, resulting in excellent return on investment. However, we believe that the Top 3 advantages of working with a boutique agency are:

Personal touch – you’ll be working with a select, very carefully chosen team whose raison d’être is to get the job done.
Know your client – the team that pitches a piece of new business to you is the team that you’ll be working with when you become a client.
Well connected– a necessity, because the world is changing so quickly. At a boutique agency, your team is always very flexible, nimble, and in the know.

If we look at the statistics for Africa, we can see that it is taking off much like China and India were a couple of decades ago. Africa’s collective GDP was USD 1.6 trillion in 2010, roughly the same as Russia, and by the end of this decade it will have grown by another trillion dollars (IMF).

Every other statistic is improving and increasing too: stability, consumer spending, discretionary income, urbanisation, population. PR professionals need to be able to take on the world at a moment’s notice. We bridge the gap between client and public by continuously keeping up with new trends and developments. The spending power of the newly emerging middle-class affects all companies in Africa, and it is important to know how to communicate to an audience that is becoming more sophisticated by the minute.

In newly emerging economies, the companies we work with are often setting the example: They are the trend-setters of a brand-new age. Often, they are playing catch-up, and in order to compete globally, with the ever increasing importance of the internet and social media, they need an experienced partner keeping all their fingers on every pulse. Ever since public relations agencies came into existence, boutique firms have had to cope with fewer layers of bureaucracy, and therefore move deftly through the phases of a brand-new campaign, providing services at a better price thanks to lower overheads. Need we go on?

Insight

Google sets its sights on Africa

July 23, 2013 rachel_eaton

Isabelle Alenus-Crosby

Google’s announcement to expand mobile broadband in Africa could revolutionize life on the continent. In the developed world, Mobile Web connectivity is such a part of everyday life that we take it for granted. This is not the case in Africa at all, but might be about to change. Google stated recently that it aims to dramatically improve Internet access on the continent by 2015.

The Internet in Africa still has a very low penetration rate, and measurable parameters such as overall number of hosts and available bandwidth indicate that it is very much behind the “digital divide“. Within Africa itself there is an additional divide, with most infrastructure concentrated in South Africa, Morocco, Egypt, Mauritius and the Seychelles. The Internet’s full potential therefore remains largely untapped in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Today, broadband penetration is still very low compared to regions of similar income, and although 15% of the world’s population lives in Sub-Saharan Africa, only 6% of the world’s Internet users do (Google). The telecommunications market in Africa is one of the fastest-growing in the world. Since 2000, mobile telephony in Africa has been booming and has become substantially more widespread than fixed line telephony.

Telecommunication companies in Africa are already looking specifically at Broadband Wireless Access technologies as the key to make Internet available to the population at large. The importance of this cannot be overstated. Internet is after all a tremendous, undisputed force for economic growth and social change.

On top of bringing people together, it also provides an outlet for new forms of innovation, entrepreneurship and social good. It is a dynamic tool for stimulating economic growth and has the ability to bring news and markets to even the remotest of populations. Fernando de Sousa, General Manager for Africa Initiatives at Microsoft, stated that by 2018 Africa will have a workforce of 500 million people. A big part of them will probably be entrepreneurs and will come up with new ideas, which can be turn into real projects and businesses.

It is therefore crucial that they have access to the necessary tools!

Insight

Reinforcing North-South Trade

July 18, 2013 rachel_eaton

Isabelle Alenus-Crosby

At a time when South-South trade is becoming a force to be reckoned with, the North is jumping into action. Is it too late? In this global and growing world, there might just be room for everyone, and I expect that both the US and the EU will regain some footing in Africa in the years to come.

Power Africa, President Obama’s initiative to increase access to low cost energy, and Trade Africa, the initiative to boost trade with and within Africa, have both been written about extensively since Obama’s visit to the continent recently.

President Clinton’s African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) however seems to have been ignored somewhat. And yet, the 2012 Presidential Directive on Sub Saharan Africa, talks about a new and enhanced AGOA, with the potential of making the U.S./Africa trade relationship as significant as the one between the U.S. and the European Union. (The Africa-EU Partnership has also announced that they are entering into “a new phase” with an increase in Trade agreements).

Next month, Washington D.C. will host the 2013 U.S.-Sub-Saharan Africa Trade and Economic Cooperation Forum in Addis Ababa. Trade and investment-related issues are top of the agenda and it is expected that the “new and improved” AGOA will finally be revealed in all its glory.

I guess we should therefore expect extensive (although belated) coverage soon.

Insight

Power for Africa

July 8, 2013 rachel_eaton

Isabelle Alenus-Crosby

Until recently, Africa had a small, very wealthy top, a broad base of poverty, and no middle market to speak of. Today the continent is developing into one of the largest mass markets in the world.

However, many Africans are still trailing behind. The new $7 billion “Power Africa” initiative, that President Barack Obama announced on June 30^th, could contribute significantly to push the lower class towards the middle. Increasing electricity production and distribution throughout sub-Saharan Africa is undoubtedly crucial to the entire continent’s success. The fact that Obama put emphasis on “Green Energy” (Solar, Hydrogen and Wind in particular) was very much in line with the rest of his statements that day, which brimmed with clear insight into Africa’s lingering issues.

I have transcribed my three favourite parts of his (now famous) speech and would like to share them with anyone who might have missed this.

“I am proud to announce Power Africa – a new initiative that will double access to power in sub-Saharan Africa… And in partnership with African nations, we’re going to develop new sources of energy. We’ll reach more households not just in cities, but in villages and on farms. We’ll expand access for those who live currently off the power grid. And we’ll support clean energy to protect our planet and combat climate change”.

“Look at Zimbabwe, where the promise of liberation gave way to the corruption of power and then the collapse of the economy. Now, after the leaders of this region brokered an end to what has been a long-running crisis, Zimbabweans have a new constitution, the economy is beginning to recover. So there is an opportunity to move forward — but only if there is an election that is free, and fair, and peaceful, so that Zimbabweans can determine their future without fear of intimidation and retribution. And after elections, there must be respect for the universal rights upon which democracy depends.”

“In much of Africa you see women doing work and not getting respect. I tell you, you can measure how well a country does by how it treats its women.” President Obama also emphasized that Mandela’s values are Africa’s future and that African youth had to seize a “moment of great promise”. Only the current Zimbabwean government lashed out at Obama following the Cape Town address. I guess that in itself is quite meaningful.

Insight

Obama’s African visit

July 2, 2013 rachel_eaton

Isabelle Alenus-Crosby

President Obama’s long-awaited trip to Africa is coming to an end, and he didn’t manage to hide the real reason he was there.

Many Presidents are visiting the continent these days, but the fact that Obama is half white American and half black African means that, in Africa itself, his visit has generated a lot more interest than when (for instance) China’s new president embarked on a trip less than two weeks after taking office earlier this year. What also differentiates Obama from the others is that he makes great speeches, and I especially liked his ideas for a “Power Africa” initiative and “sustainable” African energy strategy.

All through his trip, the President has looked happy, relaxed, and “at home”, despite all the security that he has surrounded himself and his family with. What seems to have been most significant to those he went to visit is that, in all three countries (Senegal, Tanzania and South Africa), Obama emphasised that he welcomes world economies turning their sights to Africa. However, as his trip matures, his real views are increasingly being felt.

African leaders should “pick their international partners carefully”, and “push back against countries that bring in their own workers”, a clear criticism of China. Another clear criticism of China was Obama’s “wildlife and importance of tourism speech”, condemning illegal trafficking. The White House has already issued a statement this morning regarding the launch of a new anti-poaching initiative in Tanzania as of next month.

From the cheers heard yesterday in Dar es Salaam however, it is clear that the word “partnership” is the magic word in Africa these days. When Obama said the West’s goal is to “partner” with Africa, the crowds went wild.

It is important to note that both the USA and Europe are home to large communities with strong African heritages and that Africa and America/Europe often share a common language, making training and technology transfer much more straightforward. Africans know this, and they clearly want it. We also have a common history, for better or for worse. It is Europe’s common history (mostly violent) that unites them now within a European Union that, even though it is still in its infancy, seems to be doing alright despite some teething problems.

The younger generation in Africa, Europe and America have a lot in common through a shared history, that we are coming out of together, and the significance of this cannot be trivialised. This does not mean that partnerships with China are a bad idea. In fact, Africa has already partnered successfully with many countries in Asia, forming the bulk of the South-South trade. Obama’s words should however be a warning to China, one that I’m sure they’ll heed given the investments they’ve made on the continent in the last decade.

The bottom line is that the whole African continent is full of promise. I would therefore like to reiterate what I wrote in my previous blog: A united Africa will be stronger, but I agree that it must choose its partners well. Yesterday afternoon, Obama revealed a venture, dubbed ‘‘Trade Africa,’’ that aims to increase the flow of goods between the United States and sub-Saharan Africa. The initial phase will focus on East Africa — Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda, and Tanzania — and in a couple of years, the phase will be extended to the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa.

Let’s hope that this will be a partnership made in heaven, and just one of many.

Insight

The United States of Africa?

June 25, 2013 rachel_eaton

Isabelle Alenus-Crosby

Gaddafi’s dream might live on through an “undercurrent” that seems to be uniting Sub-Saharan African countries

I have just returned from Ghana, the 30th country (or so) that I have now visited in Africa. Even though I was only in Accra, Ghana’s capital, I completely understand why the Ghanaian diaspora is so keen to return home.

Ghana, like many other places in Africa, is buzzing. As I was walking around the city centre, a thought suddenly occurred to me. Now that Africa is increasingly hailed as the “rising continent”, those in the West who are keen to stand out as “experts”, insist on shouting from every rooftop that “Africa is a continent, not a country”. I don’t know who their audience is, pre-teens who opted out of Geography perhaps, but even though I would never claim to be an expert in anything except daydreaming about the beaches of Mozambique, I can’t help but notice increasing similarities between Africa and America.

As a child, when I lived in Tanzania and my parents and I would drive to Kenya (for shopping) or to Zambia (to visit my sister), each country seemed quite different. I don’t feel that way anymore. In my gap year, back in 1996, I drove across the whole of North America (petrol was cheap then), and even though I found the United States to be very diverse, from Alaska to Louisiana, I always knew that I was in the USA. Yet, as soon as I entered Canada I felt that I was in a very different country. Some “undercurrent” seemed to unite all the States I visited, yet it wasn’t present in Canada. I am starting to feel the same way about North Africa/Sub-Saharan Africa. North Africa is significantly different to its neighbours in the South, but driving around Accra last week, I could easily have been in Kampala or Nairobi. The billboards, buildings, street sellers, all have the same “feel” that you simply don’t find in North Africa or anywhere else in the world.

Africa has many languages and cultures, yes, but I am writing this blog from Belgium, a tiny county where 60% of the population speaks Dutch, 38% speaks French and 2% German. The Dutch is divided into hundreds of Flemish dialects that could easily be mistaken for different languages as they don’t even sound the same (don’t get me started on the cultural differences here). Yet every city is similar enough for me to know that I haven’t crossed any of the country’s borders. Europe is very much a continent, united mostly by an agreement between 27 countries not go go to war anymore. 10 minutes into France and you are definitely no longer in Belgium. Even the petrol stations are different by the way they look, the items they sell in the store, and the lavatories. Countries in Asia and Latin America differ as much as those in Europe.

In Sub-Saharan Africa however, petrol stations are quite similar, just like in the US they are quite similar in all 50 states (including Hawaii). This brings me to President Obama’s upcoming trip to Sub-Saharan Africa (which merits a blog of its own – watch this space) on June 26th. He will be visiting Senegal, Tanzania and South Africa, 3 of my favourite countries on the continent. He intends to focus on economic cooperation and I believe that he might expand the African Growth and Opportunity Act, the Clinton-era legislation that provides Sub-Saharan countries with duty-free access to America’s markets for almost all products (except sugar, dairy and peanuts). To Americans, their President will be doing business with “Africa”, plain and simple. While Obama has devoted significant time to emerging economies in Asia and Latin America, he has spent just one day in sub-Saharan Africa since taking office (a 24-hour visit to Ghana in 2009).

I hope that his upcoming visit will give American citizens an updated view of Sub-Saharan Africa, as once the continent becomes more “united”, a process that seems already underway, not only by my humble observations, but also through trade barriers being dropped and increasing political and economic cooperation, it will certainly be a force to be reckoned with. A more united Africa will certainly be able to meet the challenges of globalisation. And America best take note.

They know better than anyone the strength that lies in unity.

Insight

Africa invests in Africa

June 4, 2013 rachel_eaton

Isabelle Alenus-Crosby

A growing number of African countries are rapidly joining the ranks of prominent investors across the continent.

According to the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the rate of FDI projects from emerging markets has grown at a healthy compound rate of over 21% since 2008 (triple the amount from developed markets). The top investors were still India, the United Arab Emirates and China at the start of 2013, but intra-African investment has become very impressive since then. Nobody knows Africa better than Africans, and continued political stability across the continent is making them trust their own. The beauty is that increased economic stability and growth is allowing them to help accelerate the African success story through rapidly increasing cross-border investments.

SA has been at the forefront of the growth in intra-African trade but Kenya, Ghana and Nigeria are also investing heavily this year. From 2014, it is expected that countries like Angola and Mozambique will join their ranks.

The star performers, so far, in 2013, are Ghana, Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia, Mozambique, Mauritius, Ethiopia, Namibia, Botswana, Angola and South Africa.

THE World Bank’s investment arm will increase lending to sub-Saharan Africa by up to a quarter in 2014 as private sector companies continue to flock to the region. The IFC is expected to make new investments of USD 5bn and Japan will provide USD 2bn worth of financial support over the next five years to back Japanese-owned development projects on the continent. Europe and the United States are also expected to increase their investments dramatically according to the World Bank, which sees Sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP accelerating to almost 6% over three years, driven by investment and commodity prices.

Roughly half the IFC’s annual lending in the region goes to financial markets and institutions to help improve the flow of credit to smaller businesses, which employ most of Africa’s workers. Another third goes to infrastructure projects and natural resources investments. The expanding sets of SMEs is bringing real economic diversification and are giving rise to internationally competitive companies, thereby providing access to global markets, and consequently higher wages and salaries. This, in turn, leads to the rapid growth of the middle-class and further political stability.

Even the most cautious investors have to admit that all the excitement surrounding Africa is grounded on solid analytical soil. The evidence might be that within a decade Africa will be its own biggest investor. I honestly cannot wait.

Insight

Leading from the Frontier: The 5th Oxford Africa Business Conference

May 20, 2013 rachel_eaton

Sarah Caddy

This weekend saw our dedicated Oxford Business Network Gong team (Tom Griffiths, Sarah Nicholas and me) at the Said Business School, networking amongst 389 delegates incorporating presidents, academics, business leaders, media – and the odd egg-bearing political protestor.

The conference marked the fruition of a six month-long relationship with the business school’s Africa group, sparked during the research we undertook with Jacana Partners, which found that 70% of African MBA students would like to return to Africa to work after studying. Of that number, over half intended to start their own business.

Business was the theme of the day, with Dr. Mthuli Ncube, Vice President and Chief Economist of the African Development Bank, opening the morning’s keynote with the forceful affirmation that: “Africa is a place where business can be found”. He continued by calling for the unleashing of “a class of African entrepreneurs” through joint ventures with foreign investors that would build business and place Africa firmly at the forefront of solving the global economic crisis.

Supporting the endeavours of those entrepreneurs who responded to the Jacana survey, Andile Ngcaba, Chairman at Convergence Partners advised Said’s MBA students looking for jobs in the African technology industry to go and create their own businesses across the continent. In his call to action, he said: “Entrepreneurship is in the mind. Embrace failure; don’t let it punish you.”

Fortunately, the OBN Africa MBA students had no ‘failure to embrace’; the conference, which featured H.E. Paul Kagame, President of the Republic of Rwanda as keynote speaker, was a raging success.