On the weekend of 29th to 31st March, our EMBA Cohort 4 took the Entrepreneurship module with Dr Magnus George. This module allows you to consider the question, ‘how are you entrepreneurial?’ It presents an overview of the main concepts relevant to entrepreneurship across diverse contexts, and encourages entrepreneurial thinking, and considering entrepreneurial solutions to challenges that are big and small.
One of the unique features of our Executive MBA is that in connection with the modules our students study, local and international industry professionals are invited on campus to lead Masterclasses providing practical experience related to the theories learnt. On 29th March, Mr Edward Effah, Chairman of Fidelity Bank Ghana Limited and Unilever Ghana Limited led our Masterclass with the topic ‘Building A World Class Business – The Story of Fidelity Bank’.
During this class Mr Effah shared details on his career journey and also spoke on what it takes to build a world-class business. Mr Effah shared the following essential things to take note of when starting your business:
– A clear vision of what you want to do: this requires reading and research. Mr Effah shared how before he started Fidelity Bank, he spent a considerable amount of time doing research and visiting local banks, as well as some international banks in Nigeria, Kenya, the United Kingdom and India. He also shared that the vision for Fidelity Bank was to create a world-class bank. Locally, with a better understanding of the Ghanaian economy, and in a better position to adjust accordingly. Mr Effah stressed that vision is a compass for the direction you want to go into. He stated that one of the main visions for Fidelity Bank was to contribute towards the socio-economic development of Ghana.
– Three Main Pillars on Which A Good Business is built: these are People, Processes and Technology. “You need to be rigorous about your people strategy, especially if your business; success depends heavily on people, which is the case in banking”, he said. Processes includes the systems and methods of delivering good service to your customers, and Technology is a very strong pillar considering the age we live in. Mr Effah stated that Fidelity Bank had set out to be a technology driven bank, and aimed to make business transactions as easy and convenient as possible for their customers.
– Integrity – “In your business you need to build a culture with high integrity. If there is the right culture, even if you end up hiring the wrong people, they will not be able to survive for very long in the environment you’ve created. It is also important to build a culture of execution. At Fidelity Bank we set targets, and monitor them periodically, and this shows whether we have the right team.”
After Mr Effah’s address there was a question and answer session where the students were able to get answers to all their questions.
