Africa-Press – Botswana. Southern Africa’s fifth cohort of the Stanford Seed Program which graduated this past week joined the world of business with top-tier entities set to strike sustainable impact across Africa and beyond.
In 2018, De Beers Group partnered with Stanford Graduate School of Business to bring a world-renowned entrepreneurship development program to Southern Africa, the Stanford Seed Program.
Speaking at the graduation ceremony held recently in Gaborone, De Beers Group Chief Executive Officer, Mr Al Cook, said this was a collaboration that supported entrepreneurs that would shape the future of the region, and it was another example of the long-term strategic partnerships formed to help deliver on ‘Building Forever’ goals.
Mr Cook said Building Forever was their commitment to leaving a lasting positive legacy that would endure long after the discovery of the last diamond.
He said entrepreneurship or capturing the creative energies of people in the region to build businesses that would deliver socio-economic growth, was a foundation of that lasting positive legacy.
“Entrepreneurship stimulates economic activity, spurs innovation and create jobs,” he said. “Entrepreneurship propels communities and countries forward.”
He said the Stanford Seed Program was designed to help experienced, committed entrepreneurs take their businesses to the next level by giving them the necessary tools to transform their operations. It covered all aspects of business management, and it coaches the founders and their management teams on how to grow resilient businesses and improve execution.
Mr Cook said since De Beers began its partnership with Stanford, the results had been very encouraging, including, compound annual revenue growth rate outpaced GDP growth in Botswana, Namibia and South Africa.
In addition, he said, 29 per cent average annualized job growth has been realized, outperforming local benchmarks, with 2076 new jobs created. In Botswana alone, Mr Cook said, the Stanford Seed companies had increased revenue by $27m, been able to raise $21m in capital, and created 450 new jobs.
Many have gone on to expand their operations outside the country, he said, citing that equally important to the growth of participants’ businesses, has been the growth of their business networks as alumni of the programme. From gaining access to different areas of expertise to finding new ways to expand a business to the sourcing of raw materials – as the group grows, and as entities network together, the entrepreneurial aspirations of southern Africa grow with it, he said. “De Beers knows that the diamonds we discover belong to the countries in which they are found.
And that is why we will continue to invest in the future of diamond countries with partners like Stanford,” he said.
Mr Cook said he looked forward to getting to know each business in the future as they work together to make producer country enterprises stronger to support sustainable economic development.
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