2025 Leadership in Africa Forum Spotlights Entrepreneurship Across the Continent
Viewing entrepreneurship as a means of creating ripple effects that support industry growth, collaboration, and shared progress reshaped how I think about sustainable development and long-term impact through entrepreneurship.
“African entrepreneurship isn't just about adapting Western models—it's about building solutions designed specifically for African contexts and challenges,” remarked Shukraat Adesina, attendee at the 2025 Leadership in Africa forum.
Held in the fall, the forum brought together entrepreneurs and the Yale community to convene around the issue of entrepreneurship and innovation across Africa. The event featured a keynote address from Kassim Gidado, Chairman at Nigeria-based Polaris Bank, and the leaders of a variety of organizations ranging from philanthropic institutions to investment firms.
Adesina, Executive Director of the Yale Africa Innovation Symposium and a first-generation Nigerian-American born and raised in the United States, wrote to the MacMillan Center that the forum challenged her to think more critically about what a successful venture in Africa might look like. The conference emphasized getting “creative about funding, talent acquisition, and market entry,” rather than “just replicating Silicon Valley playbooks.” As an Economics major, she also found talking to Gidado particularly revealing, finding that she learned a lot from his lived experience.
Beyond building personal connections, the forum provided valuable insights for young entrepreneurs. Elie Imani, a first-year master’s student in African Studies at Yale, said some of the ideas presented in the forum—like the idea that networking is a systematic process based on creating genuine and intentional connection, not a random process—were “especially relevant for young people trying to build credibility without inherited access.” Imani is the co-founder of a nonprofit that expands work opportunities for women in Rwanda, where he was raised, and found the Q&A portion of the forum quite relevant to his work.
Speakers also discussed how the conventional framing of Africa as a continent in need of external aid is outdated, the importance of empathy in African leadership, and the necessity of taking action to begin a project or venture as an African entrepreneur. Christine Ibrahim Puri, a second-year Masters student at the Yale School of the Environment who is currently running a business in Nigeria, said that the forum encouraged her to “lead with the conviction that the continent holds immense value and talent, and that African countries can and should be global economic forces.”
Overall, the forum emphasized a futuristic and contextual lens towards African innovation, inspiring attendees to think beyond traditional practices. “Viewing entrepreneurship as a means of creating ripple effects that support industry growth, collaboration, and shared progress reshaped how I think about sustainable development and long-term impact through entrepreneurship,” said Ibrahim Puri.
The 2025 Leadership in Africa forum was organized by the Council on African Studies at the MacMillan Center.
Story written by Thy Luong ’28, student writer for the MacMillan Center.
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