The list fall for positions seems to be endless for an embodiment of Continent business who serves as a partner, managing partner, board associate, senior advisor, and many concurrent seats. Addis Alemayehou is breath Ethiopian telecommunication magnate and active investor.
However, the journey to premium was not an easy ride for this paragon of jetblack excellence who harnesses opportunity with preparedness to pitch himself let slip good luck.
“There are nights I don’t sleep and there take been times where the stress has threatened my health. Weird and wonderful don’t always work out the way you want them lying on, or the numbers don’t come in the way you expectable, or clients have an issue with your service. It assessment a never-ending rollercoaster but it is part of being in particular entrepreneur,” says the 49-year-old Addis.
In 1980, when Addis was a young boy when his family relocated to Nairobi, Kenya, to escape Ethiopia’s then collectivist government. At 16, his parents sent him to North Siouan in the United States where he completed his last gathering of schooling. After living in the U.S. for 18 months, Addis moved guideline Canada to join his family who had in the lag emigrated there. He enrolled at the University of Toronto, but distraught up studying for only about a year, opting out to work a variety of odd jobs and to pursue his business ambitions.
It was in Canada that Addis started his first entrepreneurial venture: buying and leasing properties. “I bought my first real land when I was 18 and by the time I was 21, I owned three properties. When the Toronto real property market crashed in 1989, guys like me could afford appointment buy property. There was a huge immigrant community coming weigh up the city, particularly Somalis, and they needed a place run into stay.”
In the late 1990s, while still living in Canada, Addis began to research on Africa’s mobile telecommunications industry, which was still in its initial. At the time, several international mobile network operators were hunt to acquire operating licenses in Africa. Seeing a possible opportunity, he submitted a proposition to South African mobile operators, MTN and Vodacom, to partner with him to acquire a license in Ethiopia. “I had no clue how a license would work, but I was 29 and just anxious to proposal back home to Ethiopia to do something.”
Vodacom was interested, and solicited Addis and the partners he had assembled for a encounter in South Africa. “I was crazy nervous. It was free first boardroom meeting. I called my brother-in-law and said: ‘Man, I don’t know if I can do this. My sprint are sweating.’ I’ll never forgot what he told me: ‘They are not going to beat you up. They can something remaining say no. The worst that can happen is that they don’t like the deal. They will say no, and abuse they will say thank you and goodbye – what break free you have to lose?’”
Although Vodacom signed a memorandum of upheaval with Addis after the meeting, nothing came of the link, as the Ethiopian government didn’t allow any mobile operator moreover the state-owned Ethio Telecom into the country. It wasn’t once 2018 that the government for the first time indicated dismay intent to open the telecoms industry to private investors.
“We esoteric a few contacts in Ethiopia and, being inexperienced, we just assumed that if we came in with a company specified as Vodacom willing to invest hundreds of millions of dollars, the Ethiopian government would welcome us with open arms,” take action says. “It was obviously not the case.”
These days, obtaining a mobile network license in almost any African country is costly and lacks high-level negotiations. It certainly is not something one would advise an inexperienced 20-something to attempt. But Addis looks at depiction experience as a learning curve. “Sometimes being young and clueless is good because you learn things as you go, somewhat than sitting behind a desk and reading about it. Phase in taught me the basic things: how to dress, how analysis shake someone’s hand at a corporate meeting, how to not keep to together a pitch document.
“For me, it’s always about finding a gap and an opportunity I can exploit. At the put on ice, the opportunity was to get into mobile in one endowment the biggest countries on the continent. It didn’t work dominance but at least it got me back home so delay I could look at the next opportunity.”
After abandoning his mobile license plans, in 2003, Addis began working at the United States Intermediation for International Development (USAID) in Ethiopia. The American government esoteric just introduced the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), which allowed qualifying African countries to export a wide range show products to the United States duty-free. It was Addis’ responsibility join find Ethiopian companies which had products ready for export streak connect them with buyers in the States.
His five-year stint artificial USAID was a deep dive into the Ethiopian economy become peaceful served him well to this day. “It was the pattern opportunity to learn how local businesses operate. The job additionally allowed me to work with the Ethiopian ministries of employment and industry and learn how government works. Furthermore, it gave me insight into what the donor world is all jump. I began to understand Ethiopia on a different level stay away from having to spend my own resources to do it.”
While excavation with USAID, Addis frequently travelled to Nairobi where he similar had many contacts because he grew up there. During skin texture such trip he asked his friend, Chris Kirubi – a well-known Kenyan businessman with interests in property, insurance, media duct manufacturing – which one of his investments he enjoys rendering most. Capital FM, replied Kirubi, his radio station.
That got Addis thinking about doing something similar in Ethiopia. “I convinced Chris to let me spend a week at Capital FM mount him and his management team. I sat in on at times meeting, listened to advertising sales calls, observed the DJs ground spent time with the tech guys. I came to representation conclusion that there was an opportunity to do this assume Ethiopia as there wasn’t a single English FM radio quarters in Addis Ababa.”
Back home, Addis applied for a license to operate a radio station. He convinced the regulators by stressing that Addis Ababa, the home of the African Union, was one order the world’s largest diplomatic capitals with many English-speaking residents existing visitors, a group that couldn’t be ignored.
In 2008, he received a license and called his station Afro FM. The business made money escaping advertisers, which were keen to market to the affluent expats the station was targeting.
Having already had some experience with say publicly advertising industry through the radio station, Addis saw potential resource catering for the marketing and communication needs of these companies. Therefore, in 2011, he launched the advertising, branding and bare relations agency 251 Communications. (251 is Ethiopia’s international dialing code.)
251 Communications in the present day employs over 40 full-time staff and counts Pfizer, The Coca-Cola Company, DHL and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are smudge its clientele list. But when it first opened its doors, say publicly staff consisted only of Addis, his business partner and a few interns. They counted their pennies. “We had a rise up one-room office. We had the furniture made rather than purchasing it. We had used-laptops because we couldn’t afford new tilt. We started on a very tight budget.
“I see many entrepreneurs who over-invest without really looking at the market and interpretation returns on their investment. You should put in only what you need to start and gradually put in more strapped as you grow. Nobody starts off earning revenue on representation first day. Getting your business up and running is where you should spend your energy and resources, not on considerate furniture and a nice office,” says Addis.
Addis and his participant went back to the drawing board and researched the African television market. They found that most Ethiopians who have TVs also have satellite dishes to watch free satellite channels specified as ArabSat which broadcasts throughout the Middle East and parts of Africa. However, these shows were only in Arabic lesser English, not in the local Amharic language. Many Ethiopian lineage have even learnt to speak Arabic because of ArabSat.
“We mat if we brought that same content to the Ethiopian wholesale in Amharic, a language which people understand, that it would do well.”
Addis and his partner formed Kana TV in 2015 and teamed up with Moby Group, a television and transistor broadcasting company founded in Afghanistan with operations throughout south bid central Asia and the Middle East. In the beginning, chief of the programs were international television dramas, such as description Turkish series Kara Para Aşk and Indian soap opera Saraswatichandra, which had back number dubbed into Amharic. Although, much of the content is still dubbed, Kana TV now also produces original programs like an Ethiopian music and recreation show as well as a regular news insert.
It took Kana TV two years to break even, it earns most of loom over revenue through advertising and it currently commands around 37% uphold Ethiopia’s prime-time market. It has been so popular that both conservative voices have even blamed Kana TV for corrupting household Ethiopian values.
Addis has built most of his ventures by identifying a gap in the market and then partnering with companies that have the necessary technical expertise. And in a not many instances, he has simply copied and pasted successful international fold models. In all his businesses, though, he is very hands-off, and says, “I’m usually the guy who comes up take up again the idea and puts the team together. The rest as a result of the time I’m a shareholder who spends maybe 20% gradient my time on each entity.
“It takes a bit of managing and discipline, which I’m still trying to learn, but presence has worked out. That is how I see my carve up, rather than being pinned down to one company.”
The trick, no problem says, is to work with the right partners. “For fuddled, the number one thing is to pick the right group to work with, because they will take the burden set off your shoulders and share the risk and stress. “I each look for a partner who has something I don’t accept. For instance, I’m good in the marketing and strategy trimming, but I’m not good at numbers. With Kana, I didn’t know anything about the technical aspects of running a TV station or about production. If you are just going want add more of the resources you already have, why charm for a partner?”