CAPEX 2018: East Africa’s Rising Finance Professionals Step Up to Mentor, Listen and Learn (Article 2 of 2)
This article is a summary of the event organized and hosted by I-DEV, EAVCA and Bowmans on August 30, 2018 at the Azure Hotel in Nairobi. CAPEX is the 1st conference focused on featuring the perspectives of young finance professionals in East Africa, and providing them with speaking, mentoring, and startup coaching opportunities.
Young Professionals Step into the Spotlight
CAPEX convened nearly 200 young finance professionals from across East Africa to share their perspectives on trends, as well as mentor startup founders and get some mentoring of their own from senior finance professionals. CAPEX was generously sponsored by key leaders in the SME and startup as well as investment ecosystem: The German Cooperation, GIZ, Africa Capital Digest, Village Capital, KFW/ DEG, MoveMeBack, responsAbility and KPMG. Many of these parties were also generous to offer career-building perks to the participants to help them on their career journey!
This article includes highlights and take-aways from the interactive mentorship and career coaching sessions.
Startup Founder Mentorship Matching
This event powered by GIZ was one of the most popular, allowing attendees to mentor startups on investment readiness and business planning in 20 min rotations. A few points that young finance professionals emphasized to local startup founders were:
Understand investor expectations including documents they’ll require and frequently asked questions on your business model now and in a 3–5 year time frame. For example, if there is a data play in your model, how will you monetize that?
Find the right investor-investee match. This is a complex and very real partnership. It’s important to understand the terms of the partnership and know that both parties can work well together, very likely over multiple years. Do you have common vision for the business? How will each party create value? Do you trust this person to take a decision-making seat on your board?
How to Succeed in Finance: Career Coaching
This session was organized by Vassiliki Daskalakis, Associate at I-DEV, and convened key senior professionals to share career and industry advice to young professional attendees. Senior finance professionals who gave their time included Kanini Mutooni, Director of Investment at the East Africa Trade Hub; Winnie Odhiambo, Associate Partner at I-DEV; Stephen Gugu, Founder & Director of ViKtoria Ventures; and Sarah Ngamau, Managing Director of CREADEV.
Some high level take-aways included:
Everyone’s path is different- for some traditional, others unconventional, though for most people it’s not as straight forward as we may often think.
Hard work and grit gets you to the top.
Always keep a genuine and committed interest in your work and analysis.
A great attitude goes a long way in growing along your career path.
The sector is small, so maintain strong and positive ties to rising and current industry champions.
Still, in East Africa, strong financial and technical skills are rare and a major asset if you possess them. Keep learning and challenging yourself, and begin to build your network of personal and professional advisors to champion your own unique professional experience!
What Participants Said About CAPEX…
From startup founders to young finance professionals and the senior professionals who mentored them, there was strong response and enthusiasm for CAPEX and its efforts to continue. We think their words speak louder than ours, and we look forward to CAPEX next year!
“It was a great learning platform and networking experience.”
“The one thing I didn’t like is that it was too short! It would be great as a two day event.”
“Incredibly useful for young finance professionals, as well as more experienced ones seeking peer feedback/experiences/learnings!”
For More on CAPEX or the Young Finance Professionals of Africa (YFPA) group:
CAPEX: Championing the African Professional Experience is a first-of-its-kind event that brings together voices of the investment ecosystem to foster collaboration, improve deal flow efficiency, and share best practices about finance in East Africa. CAPEX panelists included senior investment professionals, founders, and junior investment professionals that discussed relevant finance topics and received career coaching on how to have a successful career in Finance in East Africa.
If you’re interested in sponsorship or to be involved with the Young Professionals in African Finance (YFPA) group that launched to continue the efforts of CAPEX throughout the year, please contact us at info@idevinternational.com.
If you’re interested to sponsor or be involved with CAPEX 2019, please email us at CAPEX@idevinternational.com.
To read more on CAPEX 2018, visit the site!
