Ashesi’s Center for Entrepreneurship co-hosted a Global Goals Roundtable with London School of Economics (LSE) Generate on how founders navigate growth, impact, and credibility when reliable information is limited.
The session brought together LSE alumni in Ghana with Ashesi students, faculty, staff, and alumni for a focused exchange on what decision-making looks like in practice, particularly in markets where formal data systems are still developing and much of business activity remains difficult to track.
Opening the discussion, Naa Akwetey, Chief Operating Officer of Ashesi University and an LSE alumna, argued for treating data as a strategic asset in venture building. “When it comes to entrepreneurship, we’re sleeping on the power of data,” she said, underscoring the need for stronger investment in data collection and interpretation as a basis for better business decisions.
To ground the discussion in practice, a panel of entrepreneurs shared how they apply data in their work. Speakers included Nelson Amo, President of Innohub and an LSE alumnus; Nana Pokua Boateng, founder of Wholly Ever After and an Ashesi alumna; Emmanuel Asaam, founder of Gamma Energie and an Ashesi alumnus; and Dr. Disraeli Asante-Darko, Head of Department for Business Administration and Director of the Ashesi MBA.
Across the conversation, one point became clear, that founders rarely operate with perfect information, but they are not operating without insight. Customer feedback, market observation, product testing, and lived experience often serve as critical forms of data, particularly when used with discipline.
Emmanuel Asaam reflected on the value of long-term experimentation, using his company’s charcoal product, Clean-Burn Briquettes, as an example.
“After a client’s feedback exposed our products’ weaknesses against imported alternatives, we went into research for about four years,” Asaam shared. “Today, we’re top two in our category in major retailers in Ghana.”
Dr. Asante-Darko drew out the institutional implication stating that over the next five years, the Ashesi Center for Entrepreneurship should build a more accessible body of research that entrepreneurs can use to make more informed decisions and pursue stronger breakthroughs.
Breakout discussions extended these themes, focusing on how entrepreneurs can access, interpret, and act on data at different stages of growth. It emerged that the challenge is not whether entrepreneurs value data, but whether they can access evidence that is timely, useful, and strong enough to guide consequential decisions.
This roundtable formed part of a broader LSE effort to deepen institutional exchange and strengthen the connection between research, entrepreneurship, and real-world application. It also created a platform to connect the Ashesi community with global networks and gain insights from founders, while contributing to a more evidence-based entrepreneurial ecosystem in Ghana.
