Course Title
Venture-backed Businesses in Africa: Doing Well by Doing Good? (project-based GIX)
Professor
Ramon Lecuona Torras, Assistant Professor of Business Administration
Date
March 2025
Destination City
Nairobi
Course Description
If you are interested in the following topics, this GIX is for you: venture-backed businesses, emerging markets (mainly Africa), and/or the tradeoffs between profits and social impact. More specifically, this GIX is about exploring the following thesis: in Africa, and more broadly in emerging markets, there is less of a dichotomy between economic profits and social impact. In other words, relative to developed markets like the U.S., in emerging markets it is more plausible to come up with business models that are highly profitable, and, at the same time, help address important social issues.
We are not going to take this thesis for granted, but rather scrutinize it to understand its boundary conditions. For example, maybe there is room for ventures to generate profits and social impacts in emerging markets with certain characteristics -e.g., in countries where economic and social constraints are not as strong. Maybe the complementarities between profits and impact are only present while ventures are growing and turn into tradeoffs as businesses mature. We will also take the perspectives of different actors: entrepreneurs, investors of different sorts, donors, government officials, and international organizations like the United Nations and the World Bank.
IMPORTANT: This GIX is structured as a ‘work trip’ and involves ‘hands-on’ learning. Students will be assigned a role and expected to produce specific deliverables throughout the trip. Participating students must be prepared for long days of work. There will be, of course, plenty of opportunities to relax and enjoy the company of peers.