Page 23 - Future Leaders 2018-2019

ALUMNI 10TH
ANNIVERSARY
SPOTLIGHT

ALIEU FOFANAH Business & Finance

BUSINESS IS GLOBAL

Alieu featured in the 2010-11 edition of Future Leaders. Since then he has enjoyed a diverse,
career in which he has utilised his business degree, travelled extensively and furthered
some of his entrepreneurial aspirations here and across Africa and the USA. Here he details
his journey, including how taking an internship while at uni, was the starting point.

am the enterprise manager for a national After another two-and-a-half years, I left PWC
charity, The Foyer Federation, a network and launched my own consultancy fi rm called
I charity which supports other organisations Synergy and Partners, where we partnered up
who provide services for young people who with MBA schools such as Siad and LBS and
experience homelessness. In this role I am brokered a deal where a student would go to a
responsible for putting together strategy and country in Africa, where we had contacts, for
capacity to build corporate partnerships. a few months to execute a consultancy project
My journey since featuring in the magazine has as part of their MBA. The company paid us the
certainly been interesting. Once I graduated fee for the work the student did. We ran this for
I rejoined PWC – I had already done a just over a year, but the economic downturn in
placement with them while studying, working I joined a tech Nigeria meant it wasn’t sustainable. And now I
in audit. But, rather than accepting a role in start-up called am at the Foyer Federation.
audit I applied for a graduate position in their Bukit for Outside of my day job, I am also a trained
restructuring team – BRS (Business Recovery four months, leadership coach and my clients range
Services), part of their advisory unit. I was travelling, from someone on the executive board of
there for two-and-a-half years and in that time I from New York, the big four, to senior associate for another
worked on projects including Lehman Brothers Boston and organsation.
and I also qualifi ed as an ACA chartered To anyone reading this, doing a work
accountant. San Francisco’s placement while at university set me up
I then asked for a 15-month sabbatical. The Silicon Valley, nicely, as it meant I already
fi rst four months of that was spent travelling meeting had a year’s experience
across the US, to New York, Boston, San diff erent which was more than a lot
Francisco’s Silicon Valley, meeting different entrepreneurs of other graduates. Also,
entrepreneurs and investors and exploring and investors while studying, make sure
ways of raising fi nance for a start-up. I then you take on leadership
launched an initiative called GoGetters taking roles in societies and
everything I had learnt from the US and my extracurricular activities
work in the UK, to Africa. But fi rst I put together as this helped me a lot
a team 10 people, created a website and got when I started work.
PWC as backers and the African Foundation
for Development acting in an advisory role
to support the project. Then over six months
I travelled to Kenya, South Africa, Rwanda,
Ghana, Nigeria and Sierra Leone where I
attended a few high-profi le events, meeting the
likes of Richard Branson, Winne Mandela and
entrepreneur Muhammad Yunus. There were
also other events where presidents of some
African countries were in attendance. These
events were in the fi rst three countries – south
east Africa and then in west Africa myself and
my team organised our own events where
we bought in entrepreneurs, investors and
members of government to come in and speak
to young people.
When my sabbatical was over, I came back to
London and re-joined PWC, this time in their
Africa Business Group division, focussing on
how the UK fi rm could support and invest in
PWC Africa.

10 ANNIVERSARY EDITION FUTURE LEADERS 21
TH