Ayodeji Balogun is an emerging Africapitalist, lover of art and a nature enthusiast. He is also the Group CEO at ALEX – a Commodities Exchange whose mission is to build an inclusive and efficient market system for commodities in Africa. The ALEX platform delivers the ultimate trading experience for both retail and institutional clients, enabling traders to focus on their strategies rather than their tools.
In a recent post tagged Diary of a Commodity Trader, Balogun shares his personal thoughts on the necessity of doing well by doing good – that serving the interests of stakeholders, employees, communities and the broader public is not necessarily at odds with the imperative of profit.
This morning, I woke up with a thought on my mind. Probably a reflection of the last thing on my mind last night.
How do you choose to show up as a business leader? What is the cost of doing business in a way that creates better (positive) externalties, rather than cheat the system, make more money and power?
When I look at founders on the continent, and the effort and innovation put into building ventures, and the trials and challenges of fund raising 💼, building culture 🌿, regulators 🫥…
And on the other hand, I think of the past generation of founders on the continent, most of them, and how they created their wealth and built their businesses, lots of cronyism, rent seeking, oligopolies etc.
This is not a old vs new generation issue. It is what is good vs what is not.
In the past, there were good guys and bad guys, and today as well, we have builders and we have contractors. But I bet there is more building today than the continent has ever seen.
At the end of the day, it comes down to your guts as a founder. How does it taste?
When you think of your past decade, does it bring a bitter taste or do you think you did good? That is the ultimate test! Did you do good? To your team, to your clients, to the environment?
If you are asking what was on my mind last night 😁, yes, it was the Orange Street.
God bless Africa
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