STN Ghana selects 20 young entrepreneurs for apprenticeship programme

The entrepreneurs are expected to receive practical tips and direction on how to make their budding businesses successful and sustainable

The Stanford Seed Transformation Network (STN) Ghana has selected 20 young entrepreneurs for an apprenticeship programme to improve their business skills.

The entrepreneurs were selected after STN organised an online mentorship programme in Accra where top Ghanaian Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) mentored 300 young businessmen and women.

A statement copied to the Ghana News Agency said the business leaders and CEOs, who would receive mentees in their companies, were members of the STN Ghana.

It said the CEOs would provide one-on-one as well as hands-on sessions with the mentees during the apprenticeship period and also provide practical tips and direction on how to make their budding businesses successful and sustainable.

At the mentorship programme, it said insights and real-life business examples were shared by the CEOs to help the mentees appreciate the critical needs and actions required to strengthen and empower them to effectively grow and achieve business successes.

Linda Yaa Ampah, president of STN Ghana, said navigating through the business world could be a very tough endeavour without insights into how businesses succeeded.

Hence, the network had developed a mentorship programme to bring veteran business people and upcoming entrepreneurs together to enable the young entrepreneurs to learn from the experience of successful business people to encourage them to succeed along their chosen paths.

Sammy Appenteng, CEO of Joissam Group, who spoke on “Entrepreneurship: What It Means and Needs,” said it was important for entrepreneurs to build technical and business knowledge in their areas of work to lay a strong foundation for their business.

“Just image and facade without knowledge does not make a successful entrepreneur. Having a clear appreciation of the business with the needed personal and business skills can help entrepreneurs succeed and sustain their businesses,” he said.

Romeo Bugyei, CEO of IT Consortium, who spoke on the “Do’s and don’ts of Entrepreneurship” advised the mentees to endeavour to undertake research in the business they sought to undertake before plunging into it.

Research, he said, was critical as it enabled entrepreneurs to know what existed in their chosen industry and the problems customers faced to enable them to begin finding and offering solutions that would translate into businesses with long term prospects for them.

“While in business, also remember to be socially responsible by paying taxes and honouring all other statutory obligations,” he said

Elikem Commey of Stanford Seed, speaking on “Human resource needs of entrepreneurship,” highlighted the need for entrepreneurs to have realistic and strong Curriculum Vitaes (CVs).

She advised them to make a conscious effort to avoid the online template type of CV that did not help to reflect their true capabilities and offered to assist them to structure their Cvs.

“Develop your CV on what you can offer rather than replicating online CV templates that everyone is using and does not help show who you are,” she said.

Commey urged the mentees to build credibility and business reputations based on integrity and honesty as the values could help them succeed and get to the top.

Theresa Ayoade, CEO, Charter House also shared her entrepreneurial journey with the mentees, emphasising on building a career that one could transition into a business.

She said it was important to have a passion for what one did to be able to successfully build a business out of what was loved.

Ayoade, who addressed the topic, “Building a positive and productive career,” expressed concern about the current disconnect between academic curriculum and industry, which created a difficulty for students to transition from school into the world of work.

She charged the young ones to research and find a passion and interest to learn more about and develop businesses out of.

Madam Barbara Obeng Kamara, speaking on personal branding, said she had observed that people now lived in aesthetically literate times which demanded good presentation and branding.

“Branding is a process and it takes time and practice to become noticed. Confidence is an asset but one needs the substance to walk the talk,” she said.

Coby Asmah, CEO of Type Company, who spoke on “Building an efficient team for my start-up”, said workers of entrepreneurs were key players in ensuring successful and sustainable businesses and encouraged young entrepreneurs to take good care of their human resource.

Gustave Nii Ayi, a manager at Fidelity Bank, one of the sponsors of the mentorship programme, said the bank had set up a Young Entrepreneurs Fund to support new businesses to scale up.

He advised the mentees to build positive characters and integrity which were important in attracting financial support from financial institutions.

The Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies (Stanford Seed) is a Stanford Graduate School of Business-led initiative that is working to end the cycle of global poverty.

It partners entrepreneurs in emerging markets to build thriving enterprises that transform lives.

Ghanaian past participants of Stanford Seed constitute the Seed Transformation Network, Ghana, and over 100 Ghanaian entrepreneurs have so far benefited from the training.

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