Dr Patrick Awuah, President of Ashesi University, cherished members of the Board of Trustees, Provost Angela Owusu-Ansah, distinguished guests, parents and family and the Class of 2022, Ladies and Gentlemen; I would like to congratulate the Board of Trustees, the executive management committee and the Academic Faculty of this august body of powerful minds, for your recent Times Higher Education Impact Rankings as the most impactful University in this country and indeed, as one of Africa’s leading contributors of knowledge capital towards the achievement of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.
I would particularly like to recognise the vision of Dr Patrick Awuah and his classmate Nina Marini who amidst great skepticism saw the opportunity and the value of a core liberal arts education in Ghana and made great personal sacrifices to bring this into reality. Good institutions are built on solid foundations; and it takes a dream, sacrifice, time, and perseverance to achieve results; the story of Ashesi University has been and still is a living testament to those values.
The Founders of this institution can be truly proud of how much has changed in those years from that very modest rented facility in Labone with a graduating class of about 30 students to this impressive world-class campus and full-fledged university we see here today. Also, they have every reason to be proud that from those humble beginnings, Ashesi has now emerged as the most impactful University in Ghana. Today, Ashesi is consistently recognised as one of the most innovative, forward-thinking universities in Africa. For all of these to happen in a space of just 20 years is truly remarkable.
We are all very proud of you and if I may say so, we admire hugely your unwavering commitment as you inch towards the reality of a new dawn. It is truly a privilege to be addressing you today on this 20th Anniversary of the school, having been associated with this institution right from its inception. In fact I recall Ashesi was generous enough to make me the first recipient of its honorary doctorate 20 years ago.
To the Class of 2022, the day you have always cherished and looked forward to so much, is finally here. Absolutely no one can deny you the power of this moment. With support from your parents, guardians and academic faculty at Ashesi, the work you have done over the past 4 years is finally being recognised today.
But before I go further, let me express my very warm compliments and congratulations to the parents and guardians of the entire student body of this University; you have made great sacrifices and toiled unceasingly through very challenging times and circumstances to keep the dreams and aspirations of many of these young ones here alive.
And now to you graduates.
Over the course of the last 4 years, you have immersed yourself in the grits of a liberal arts education; you have had the privilege of being taught by some of the best academic brains in our country and in Africa; and have enjoyed significant support from parents and family. Class of 2022, you have done it! This is your moment. Again, Congratulations! You have done so much for yourselves, and you have every right to feel that this is it. Unfortunately, I must disappoint you by telling you that it now that life is going to get real. Indeed, this is not the end of the road. Rather it is merely the end of an opening chapter. If you thought the hard work was over, then you are about to have a reality check.
When you entered Ashesi 4 years ago, each of you signed onto an honour code upon which you agreed to build your future on a set of values that have provided a foundation for your education. This school has challenged you, nurtured you; and taught you how to think freely and critically. And even more importantly, the school has given you the foundational tools to solve the problems that continue to persist in our society today; and it has done so on a paradigm-shifting bedrock of an ethical and accountable leadership matrix, which post- colonial Africa has lacked for a very long time.
Above all, you have learnt about the value and importance of teamwork. From your coursework and projects, you have been inculcated with a culture where every member of your team feels valued; and seeks to add value. You know how to work together. You have learnt about the power of value-centred recognition and affirmation through your relations with your lecturers and mentors in the school – and you have had the benefit of being mentored by some of the best faculty any university can boast of. But perhaps most importantly, you have been imbued with the discipline of cultivating meaningful relationships.
These are invaluable qualities that you are going to need if you want to not only survive but excel in the world you are about to move into, because that world, I’m afraid, will not always be what you expect.
First, transitioning into the world of work can be overwhelming. Luckily, Ashesi graduates do not suffer to get jobs. I’m told that 100% of those who graduated before you have found jobs or have been accepted into further studies within six (6) months of graduation. But with each workforce into which you are placed, given your idealistic sense of expectations of what is possible and your entrepreneurial can-do spirit, you are bound to face recurring struggles with the mundane, the mediocre, anxiety, exhaustion etc. Brace yourself, on this journey, you will have disappointments. You will have setbacks. Indeed, you will fail in some of your endeavours. It is a very cynical world out there; you will be made to doubt yourself.
Sadly, contemporary Africa is no exception; you may be defined by the ethnicity you belong to or the faith you practice. And you will learn soon enough that you must work with people from backgrounds and world views that are completely different from yours - people bristling with ambition and unmitigated prejudices. Don’t allow yourselves to be worn down by these and don’t throw your hands up in despair. Let me make the observation that you will meet good people too. Ashesi has prepared you to face that world. How you handle the good and bad people will determine your success or failure.
All this is best captured in the first and last two stanzas of the poem ‘IF’ by the famous English poet, Rudyard Kipling:
‘If you can keep your head when all about you…
Are losing theirs, and blame it on you…
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you….
But make allowance for their doubting too’.
“If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue;
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch;
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute;
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run;
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it.”
Let the uniqueness of your skin colour; the virtue of your ethnicity and the conviction of your faith be a source of confidence for you, but someone else’s burden. Use the integrity of your actions and attitude to manage the avalanche of challenges that you are bound to face. Trust me, the most potent weapons against prejudice are knowledge and competence. These harsh realities will be faced by all of you, but even to a greater extent by the ladies amongst you.
Unfortunately, the world out there has not fully appreciated the tremendous role our women play in society and therefore the women among you might face even more challenges. As Indra Nooyi, the famous former CEO of the Pepsi Cola Company aptly captured in her recently released autobiography; No matter what women do, you are never seen as quite enough. Indra is a living example of what is possible for a determined woman of destiny. She rose above countless prejudices and difficulties to become the Chair and CEO of Pepsi. As the first woman of color to lead a Fortune 50 company, Indra is one of the most consequential corporate leaders of the 21st century, having achieved an enviable shareholder return on investment of 162%; and by improving Pepsi’s revenues of $35 billion in 2006 to $63 billion in 2017.
Throughout the history of mankind, when it has mattered the most, women have offered a reliable pair of steady hands to steer the affairs of nations from critical downturns to turnaround success stories. Notable leaders in the last sixty years include Golda Meir of Israel; Winnie Mandela; Indira Ghandi of India; Margaret Thatcher of the United Kingdom; and Angela Merkel of Germany, to name but a few.
Coming closer home, in this country I have had the pleasure of working or striking close acquaintances with extraordinarily talented women; some of whom are now heading a select number of the biggest companies and public institutions in Ghana. These include Mansa Nettey of Standard Chartered Bank, Afua Kyei, the young CFO of Bank of England, Mimi Darko of Food and Drugs Authority, Patricia Obo-Nai of Vodafone Ghana, Patience Akyianu of Hollard Insurance, Lucy Quist formerly of Airtel Ghana and now Managing Director of Morgan Stanley in London, which is one of the biggest investment banks in the world.
And there is also my own wife who is here with me today, a uniquely talented and inspiring woman who conceived and built Africa’s first 5- star Marriott Hotel from scratch; not forgetting my daughter Tamara Jonah who after school chose the entrepreneurial route and set up what has become arguably Ghana’s biggest events management company. The uniqueness of these women is that they each rose to the challenge of leading great social reforms in their spheres of professional pursuit.
These are just a few of the women who have shown that prejudice cannot stop a person who is determined to succeed; and these are women who against all odds, have broken the glass ceiling for your generation to emulate and perhaps even surpass. These challenges which you ladies will face can be daunting but not insurmountable and perhaps the story of my professional career would give you some encouragement in facing them. In 1973, after my studies in the United Kingdom, I returned to Ghana to work for Ashanti Goldfields Limited, which had been in existence since 1895. It was a company largely run by whites and at the time, it had a horrible reputation for discriminating against black employees ; and even as late as 1973, almost 16 years after Ghana had achieved political independence, there were obvious no-go areas for blacks within the organization.
As a young employee of a predominantly white managed company, I was fortunate to have an inspiring father who would often remind me that, “working for a white man in a white man’s company, if you want to make progress, when your colleagues are sleeping you should be running”.
This became my personal mantra and I made a personal decision to challenge their prejudices through my performance. I would often stay at work much later than all my colleagues in management, to inspect work being done underground. In a nutshell, I decided very early in my career to let my performance speak for itself and whatever the monthly target ore production was, my team would produce more. This created a problem for management who could not ignore our performance when the time came for promotion. Similarly, just as my father inspired me to rise to challenges that I faced in my time as a fresh graduate, I would also like to encourage and urge you to have mastery of your craft, for that is the best assurance for progress in any environment, which even the biggest of all biases that you are set to encounter in your professional lives cannot defeat. Do not ever settle for the mediocre; and do not entertain complacency in your life.
And now back to all of you, men, and women alike; do not allow anyone to intimidate you or convince you that you have not earned your place at the table. Become the visionary leaders that you have been prepared to evolve into. I believe in each one of you and I am persuaded that you have what it takes to imagine and create a new era of unprecedented visionary accomplishments that will bring the needed transformation in Africa. With its enviable reputation, Ashesi University attracts people from all over Africa and the world.
For you, this offers a great opportunity for relationships and networking, and I want you to take that very seriously. It is not by accident that you have met all the people that you have studied with, played with and partied with over the last four years. It is a matter of destiny, and each positive relationship you have cultivated here is an enabler of that destiny. With a global reputation and graduates in top companies across the world – from the best banks to the most innovative tech start-ups - I can assure you that you have the network to draw upon.
So, as you move out of here, keep your relationships, nurture them, harness them. They may be the lifeblood of your career as you climb the ladder of life. Indeed, it is not by accident that you are here at this moment. Some of the biggest businesses you see today were built by classmates who kept their ties alive and who in time, tapped into each other’s knowledge capital and/or networks. A typical example is the PayPal Mafia – Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, Max Levchin, Andrew McCormick, Peter Thiel and others; a group of students, half of whom graduated from Stanford University and half of whom graduated from the University of Illinois, who founded PayPal and who have since founded and developed additional technology companies such as Tesla, LinkedIn, Palantir, SpaceX, Affirm, Slide, Kiva, YouTube, Yelp, and Yammer, adding billions of dollars to the world economy and creating millions of jobs.
This group of like-minded friends were able to climb up the ladder of life because they each realized the power of their respective gifts during their moments together. Some of us do remember with regret, the relationships we neglected or took for granted in our formative years that could have changed our destinies for the better through effective partnering synergies that would have endured the tides of time.
That stated, people in my generation can be excused if we put the burden of blame on the information, communication and technology limitations of our time. But your generation has no excuse. Your friend is only a zoom call away; and at the click of a button via, WhatsApp, Snapchat, or Instagram, you can share moments in real-time and at any time anywhere. At a click of a button, you do have the ability to make new friends and build new relationships outside of this school and across the world.
Always reflect on what has kept you and your friends together here: comprising the uniquely human attributes of empathy, kindness, compassion, and companionship. Tap into these attributes and use them as you create new relationships in life to maintain the bonds that you have created here. And for those of you who might be going out of the country to pursue new work opportunities or further academic studies, cherish your family and maintain its bonds and ties.
Ladies and Gentlemen, the unique focus of this school on ethical leadership is a great opportunity to cause significant transformation in the development of our nation Ghana and of Africa at large. Ashesi is perhaps one of the few, if not the only university in Africa that has developed such a conscientious honour code and policy of ethics and integrity which it deliberately and systematically seeks to instil into every graduate here and which will in turn foster an enduring principle of accountability, humanity, sacrifice and devotion.
As someone who has travelled widely and done business across several African countries, I see first-hand the gaps in governance and the difficult issues of development directly.
Undoubtedly, the post-independence aspirations for development in most African countries have not been realised. Poverty, infrastructural deficit, sub-standard education, and unemployment are creating an environment which is engendering a sense of hopelessness and despair amongst the general populace and especially amongst the youth. It is generally agreed that in a large measure, the problem has to do with a lack of ethical leadership at all levels of society manifesting in blatant corruption in many of our institutions; a judiciary which is perceived not to render justice, parliaments which for whatever reason are unable to keep the executive in check; the media which must keep governments in check but cannot do so because they are compromised.
Constitutions are changed to suit the whims and caprices of leaders. Accountability seems an alien concept and the culture of leaving legacies is absent. If indeed the African problem is a direct consequence of lack of ethical leadership, then is it not a shame that Ashesi’s graduates in whom the principles of ethics have have been instilled are not venturing into the one area where they can have the most impact? Ashesi graduates should not only be in industry and the private sector.
Dr. Patrick Awuah, Ladies and Gentlemen, as I have said repeatedly, I cannot be prouder of what Ashesi has achieved. When I visited the Ashesi website and saw the list of companies where Ashesi graduates are working at or have founded, I was immensely impressed but then it suddenly struck me that if this school has been producing all these ethically conscious leaders over the last 20 years, how come we don’t see your alumni in prominent places in the public service? When we talk about creating an enabling environment for businesses to triumph, we are talking about political leadership and the governance that goes with it. Africa’s problem is not a lack of entrepreneurship but the environment to nurture it. But how do we create that enabling environment if our best graduates, purposefully trained as ethical leaders are not venturing into public service?
My dear friends, whatever ideas you may have in mind; and whatever businesses you are likely to create or careers you intend to build; all of these will depend on the environment within which you will operate. If it be progressive, you will prosper. If not, you will get stunted. Unless you are ready to throw your ethics to the dogs in which case your years of training here would have been in vain. At the same time, none of you can live a life in isolation from the enduring impact of toxic environments in which mediocrity is an ossified norm. Do well to understand that no matter how well intended your dreams might be, you will ultimately be affected by an all-consuming stench of inertia that any abysmally decadent and corrupt society can infuse into the inner recesses of the inner man of your soul. I believe you are the refreshing, possibly incorruptible generation of change agents that Africa has been so anxiously waiting for.
You are the generation of ethical leaders Africa needs to inspire the reconstruction of its civil services. We need your ethical leadership in public corporations. We need your ethical leadership across Africa’s parliaments. We need your ethical leadership in Africa’s courts. We need your ethical leadership as Ministers of State; and we sure need your ethical leadership across Africa’s presidential palaces. The example of Wellesley College in the US comes to mind, a small but well known liberal arts college with educational philosophy and orientation similar to yours, has produced many graduates who have distinguished themselves in public service.
Wellesley College giving birth to a flourish of women leaders straddling all sectors of the society. These include Soong May-ling, who was a powerful former First Lady of China; Madeline Albright the first-ever American female Secretary of State; Hillary Clinton, the first woman to be nominated as a presidential candidate of a major political party in the United States of America; Diane Sawyer, an accomplished American broadcast journalist at the Disney owned ABC Television Network. The uniqueness of these women is that they each rose to the challenge of leading great social reforms in their spheres of professional pursuit. Without good governance enabled by ethical leadership, there is no viable ecosystem within which new sustainable businesses can be created which generate employment and create wealth.
This is a problem that many societies even from ancient Greece have grappled with. The great philosopher Plato advocated and urged that the most competent citizens and knowledgeable in society, must seek political office, otherwise this void will be filled with the morally weak and incompetent citizens. We urgently need to heed this advice if we are to overcome what I consider to be our continent's greatest challenge.
Thus, this is my challenge to each of you as you graduate today. Let the mighty stream of ethics overflow from your innermost being and flood Africa’s dysfunctional public sector thereby cleansing it of the plaque of mediocrity that has held the continent down for so long. Let it be said 20 years from now that Ashesi gave us that unique visionary leader that changed Africa’s destiny forever. Let me end with a quote from Kwame Nkrumah’s address at the opening of the Institute of African Studies in 1963;
“We must regard education as the "gateway to the enchanted cities of the mind," and not only as a means to personal economic security and social privilege. Indeed, education consists not only in the sum of what a man knows, or the skill with which he can put this to his own advantage.... The educated man should be so sensitive to the conditions around him that, he makes it his chief endeavour to improve these conditions for the good of all.”
My charge to you is to go out there and make the difference in society that you would want.
Class of 2022, if not you, then who?
As Nicki Minaj said in one of your favourite songs, “Starships are meant to fly.” You are the newly minted ethical “starships”; go and fly!
Thank you all for your attention.