While meeting with representatives of the Kenya Ports Authority at the Port of Mombasa, faculty members toured a bulk carrier ship off-loading grain commodities to Grain Bulk Handlers, one of the companies HBS faculty visited during the immersion. (photo by Shikhar Ghosh)

While meeting with representatives of the Kenya Ports Authority at the Port of Mombasa, faculty members toured a bulk carrier ship off-loading grain commodities to Grain Bulk Handlers, one of the companies HBS faculty visited during the immersion. (photo by Shikhar Ghosh)

In mid-June 2019, more than two dozen HBS faculty members arrived at Kenya’s State House in Nairobi to meet with the country’s president, Uhuru Kenyatta, as part of the School’s faculty immersion in Africa. “Business and entrepreneurship are ingrained in the Kenyan psyche, whether it is the billionaire or the hawker,” President Kenyatta told the visitors. “We are focusing on initiatives targeted to improve the economic prosperity of the people.”

The message resonated with the HBS group, who visited 20 companies in Nairobi and Mombasa, Kenya; and Lagos, Nigeria, ranging from a financial services operation to a global telecommunications firm to a solar power startup. In Lagos, they had dinner with Yemi Osinbajo, vice president of Nigeria. The immersion, which included faculty from nearly every unit at the School, was a weeklong deep dive and included meetings with business, government, and academic leaders, as well as exposure to local culture.

“We went to learn, to understand, and to see best practices,” says Srikant Datar, the Arthur Lowes Dickinson Professor of Business Administration and senior associate dean for University Affairs and co-chair—with Ramon Casadesus-Masanell, the Herman C. Krannert Professor of Business Administration—of the trip. “There is so much excellence, ingenuity, innovation, and ideas that we can tap into,” Datar notes.

The two professors are not new to the region: They serve as co-chairs of the School’s Senior Executive Program—Africa, an Executive Education offering they helped develop in 2016 that has been presented in South Africa, Rwanda, Ghana, and Mauritius. To organize the immersion, Datar and Casadesus-Masanell worked closely with HBS’s Division of Research and Faculty Development and Pippa Tubman Armerding (GMP 23, 2017), executive director of the School’s Africa Research Center (ARC) in Johannesburg. They also drew on the vast experience of Caroline Elkins, Harvard University professor of History and African American Studies and a visiting professor at HBS, and Hakeem Belo-Osagie (MBA 1980), chairman of Metis Capital Partners in Lagos, who became a senior lecturer at HBS in July.

“There was great excitement among the faculty. Everyone is interested in engaging more deeply with the companies we visited,” says Casadesus- Masanell, who has written four cases on Africa. Datar anticipates seeing the results of the immersion over the next year as faculty connections to the region—and to each other—grow stronger. “The trip was a springboard that will propel more scholarship, more collaboration, and more insight,” he says. Essential to this process will be the ARC, which will provide research and case-writing support to ensure faculty make the most of opportunities to better understand business in Africa. In November, the ARC expanded its coverage on the continent with the hiring of Wale Lawal, a senior researcher who will be based in Lagos.

Professor Tsedal Neeley spoke about the global digital leader during the HBS Fung Global Research Symposium in Lagos.

Photo credit: Kunle Ogunfuyi/GPA

Professor Tsedal Neeley spoke about the global digital leader during the HBS Fung Global Research Symposium in Lagos.

Photo credit: Kunle Ogunfuyi/GPA

Another important aspect of the faculty members’ time in Africa was the opportunity to share HBS research with local alumni and other leaders. On the first full day in Lagos, the School hosted the Fung Global Research Symposium and a reception for some 100 business, academic, and government leaders. Faculty members presented current research relevant to the region’s business challenges: Casadesus-Masanell explored competing through business models, Assistant Professor Reshmaan Hussam spoke about financial inclusion, Henry and Allison McCance Professor of Business Administration Amitabh Chandra shared his knowledge of health care innovation, and Naylor Fitzhugh Professor of Business Administration Tsedal Neeley discussed the global digital leader.

If the metric for evaluating the immersion’s success is faculty enthusiasm, by all accounts it was a huge win. “This was a weeklong drink from a fire hose,” says Chandra of his experience. “I learned more during this immersion than in any single one-week period in my entire life.”

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