Bulls n Bears Entrepreneurship Zone :: Neither borders nor boundaries stop this executive from Senegal

[Bulls n Bears]

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Anta Babacar Ngom’s most unforgettable moment was not the day when she got
her dream job. It was the day she didn’t.

Anta Babacar had just returned to Senegal from Paris, where she was
studying at prestigious universities and working for a multinational
company. At the time, she thought that her experience abroad would help
build Sedima, her family’s poultry business back home. But a meeting with
Sedima’s general director – her father – ended unexpectedly. Instead of
being assigned a desk, she was sent to a farm to learn the basics of raising
chickens.

“I was really convinced I was getting an office job,” says Anta Babacar. “I
had an MBA, a master’s degree, I knew the business, was born with the
chickens. What else he could ask for?”

Six years later, at 33, she is the chief executive officer of Senegal’s
largest poultry company – and she understands her father’s reasoning. His
decision offered her the chance to gain knowledge of the business from the
ground up. That experience influenced her leadership style, building
decision-making skills that have demonstrated to others that she deserves
their respect as top executive. Under her management, several important
projects have come to fruition.

Anta Babacar’s leadership has positioned Sedima to expand operations and
enter new markets, this time beyond Senegal’s borders.

Anta Babacar is part of a new generation of African business leaders
reshaping the dynamics of the continent’s private sector. Sedima, which
operates the largest chicken-processing plant in West Africa, employs 780
people directly – and an additional 40,000 people across its supply chain.
It is now expanding into some of the world’s toughest markets – countries
affected by conflict or political instability. It is also venturing into the
fast-food chicken business.

“Today I know this company isn’t just a family company anymore,” she says.
“It must go beyond the country, it has to become a multinational. That’s why
last year we invested in Mali. We now have the hatchery there. We’re now
also starting to invest in two countries in Central Africa.”

Anta Babacar attributes her entrepreneurial success in part to the
trial-by-fire education she received upon her return from Paris. She recalls
her father’s words to her: “Now you start from the bottom. Nobody will
really care about how well you did in school unless you’re better than them
at their jobs. Then they’ll know you’re here not just because you’re my
daughter.”

He dispatched her to Sedima’s chicken-feed factory, where she was often the
only woman on the floor. “One challenge I remember was the chicken house,”
she says. “For sanitary reasons, you have to stay locked up in the house for
21 days after you get the breeders. Before your birds arrive, you prepare
your room, you set the temperature, you install the equipment. When (the
chickens) come… you literally you live with them in that house.”

Today, she says, a growing number of African women are investing in the
agribusiness sector. Thirty percent of Sedima’s clients are female and the
number’s growing fast. “It doesn’t seem to be a job just for men anymore
because they’ve seen women invest and succeed. We now see women growing
chickens in their houses, and a lot of them who have gone abroad choose to
come back and invest here.”

This article was originally published by the IFC.—Howwemadeitinafrica 

 

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