Ini's MUSE

The succession conversation in most African boardrooms is held annually, documented quarterly, and rarely prepared for. However, the actual transition data on the continent reveal that founder-led businesses still dominate private-sector activity in Africa, with many in their first or second generation. The boards governing them are often built around the founder rather than the institution, so much so that when the founder steps back, retires, or dies, the governance architecture often does not survive the handover. I have been here, so I know how it plays out. This is not a theoretical risk; it is an active failure mode across multiple African markets, concentrating economic damage in the worst possible places. Three patterns recur: The board defers succession discussions until the founder is no longer active. The implicit assumption is that succession is a future problem; however, the actual data on health, mortality, and unexpected exits suggest it is a present one. The succession ...

I have been thinking about the concept of the work before the work. Every major thing I have built - the consulting practice, the Africa CEO Roundtable and Conference on Sustainability and Responsibility (The ARCSR), the breakfast meeting - Sustainable Conversations, the CSRFiles publications, and the books I am currently writing- none of them arrived fully formed when I needed them. They were possible because of years of preparation that did not look like preparation at the time. The research done quietly. The relationships tended without an immediate agenda. The craft of facilitation refined across hundreds of rooms and thousands of hours. The intellectual frameworks developed not for a specific client, but because the questions themselves mattered to me. There is a version of ambition that is always in a hurry, always chasing the next opportunity, the next visibility, and the next launch. And I understand it. I have lived it. But the leaders I most respect are the ones who have buil...

Hello, my muses, It has been a while since I posted. I am back and better. Stay tuned