Using the Best of Tech and Human Touch to Solve Human Capital Challenges for Businesses in Africa with Paul Breloff

[00:00:00] You're listening to the Unlocking Africa podcast.

[00:00:30] Welcome to the Unlocking Africa podcast where we find amazing people who are

[00:01:00] doing amazing things to unlock Africa's economic potential.

[00:01:05] Today we have Paul Breeloff who is co-founder and CEO of Shortlist,

[00:01:10] which is a company providing a range of talent services to impactful businesses across Africa.

[00:01:18] Welcome, welcome, welcome to the podcast, Paul.

[00:01:21] Thanks for having me. Great to be here.

[00:01:23] Fantastic, fantastic. So how's your day so far?

[00:01:25] It's going great. I'm here in sunny Nairobi. Things are good. How about you?

[00:01:30] I'm here in cold and rainy Liverpool and things are good,

[00:01:35] but I'm jealous that you're enjoying the nice weather.

[00:01:39] So I know you've listened to the podcast before.

[00:01:41] I have.

[00:01:42] Before we get started, introduce yourself and tell us a bit more about Paul Breeloff.

[00:01:48] Yeah, again, thanks for having me on.

[00:01:52] So I'm an American guy from a small town in Western New York,

[00:01:57] probably least likely to be living abroad and doing work across Africa when I was young.

[00:02:03] Didn't have a passport until I was 22.

[00:02:05] And then since graduating college, I've spent a lot of my career working overseas.

[00:02:12] I initially did a few things early in my career, advertising, corporate law,

[00:02:17] but really became enthralled with the potential for business, for profit business

[00:02:23] to try to address some of humanity's biggest challenges and see ways that business could be

[00:02:29] a force for good rather than a force for bad as it is in a lot of the world.

[00:02:33] And so that led me on a journey through social enterprise,

[00:02:37] spent many years working in microfinance and with a high growth microfinance institution

[00:02:42] in India, spent some time advising a number of financial inclusion organizations on policy

[00:02:48] and access to finance and some other issues, and then actually set up an impact investing fund

[00:02:55] investing in inclusive fintech startups around the world.

[00:02:58] This was in around 2011 when it was apparent that banks and telcos weren't going to be

[00:03:05] the ones innovating and that there was a space for startups to come in and

[00:03:09] really try out a lot of new ideas around how payments digitally enabled small business,

[00:03:16] finance, personal loans, insurance, how all that could be changed and improved

[00:03:23] with new technology and new business model approaches.

[00:03:26] So started a fund called Axiom Venture Lab.

[00:03:29] I've led that for about five or six years, invested in nearly 30 companies around the world

[00:03:35] and came to my current business of shortlist, realizing that as much as we would give these

[00:03:41] companies money, their biggest problems and biggest barriers to scale were often people

[00:03:47] and talent related. And whereas human capital and talents, the foundation of any business

[00:03:52] anywhere in the world, for whatever reason, we find that money tends to get focused on

[00:03:59] probably 50 or 100 times as often as talent is.

[00:04:02] And set up shortlist about eight years ago, trying to address that problem. Frankly,

[00:04:08] a journey where we weren't sure where we would end up, but knowing we wanted to address this

[00:04:12] issue of how can all of these high impact, high innovation companies working across Africa

[00:04:18] get access to the best talent in a way that's affordable and cost effective.

[00:04:22] Now it's what kind of has been animating our journey over the last eight years.

[00:04:26] Thank you for sharing that. So you mentioned after college, you spent a lot of time working

[00:04:31] overseas and saw how businesses can be used as a force for good, which has led you to what

[00:04:36] you're doing now. So you moved from the United States to Africa. So maybe we can touch on that

[00:04:42] in terms of what was the specific reason for moving to Africa?

[00:04:47] Yeah. And actually I would say India was the step in between. It was really during

[00:04:53] law school for me that I started to hear and read much more about stories of business models,

[00:05:00] particularly in the microfinance and financial services space being a power for good.

[00:05:06] I think before that time, I had this somewhat naive notion of capitalism and business as

[00:05:12] this destructive force causing a lot of the world's ills. But at the same time, you also

[00:05:17] know you can't ignore capital markets. You can't ignore business. It's such an important part

[00:05:22] of what shapes the world we live in. I had initially found a foothold here during law

[00:05:29] school working on setting up a U.S. focused, a U.S. centric community development bank

[00:05:35] providing small business loans, nonprofit loans, financial services to low income households

[00:05:43] in the state of Connecticut. And it was really that initial experience that got me interested

[00:05:48] in where these kinds of ideas might apply more broadly. This was in the years 2004 or five

[00:05:55] when microfinance was really on the rise. And so microfinance was that first step for me.

[00:06:02] I was fortunate enough to get a chance to go take an internship in India that actually

[00:06:08] evolved into a full time multi-year job, but got an internship at a company in India,

[00:06:16] just as India was kind of crossing this chasm from microfinance being a very nonprofit NGO

[00:06:24] type activity to actually becoming for profit regulated financial institutions taking on

[00:06:31] capital and trying to grow not just with good intentions, but with real capital and

[00:06:38] operations and discipline behind it as well. So it was really that initial

[00:06:43] jump into India, which then led to me also doing work in microfinance in East Africa.

[00:06:50] And then eventually as I mentioned, investing really actively across India, Africa,

[00:06:57] and a couple of other regions. So you've mentioned in terms of microfinance was the

[00:07:03] step that led you to Africa. If we look away from the perspective of shortlist

[00:07:08] what you do, how did you identify the need for this business and what is it specifically

[00:07:14] you aim to achieve? Yeah. I mean, what my co-founders and I, who we had all been

[00:07:20] working with social enterprises, startups in emerging markets in various ways. My co-founder

[00:07:26] Simon had focused primarily on clean energy startups across Africa and Asia. I had focused

[00:07:32] primarily on financial inclusion. We realized that the lowest common denominator of success

[00:07:37] or failure in these companies was being driven off people. And oftentimes we would come in at the

[00:07:42] level of money, we'd invest, we'd go to that first board meeting and then immediately all the

[00:07:47] problems were around team building. And that's up at an executive level all the way down to

[00:07:52] junior workforce issues. And as an investor, you're looking for solutions for your portfolio.

[00:07:58] And as we were exploring what was out there, we realized that this was still a very

[00:08:02] undeveloped sector. There weren't a lot of reliable, affordable professional services firms

[00:08:09] serving this segment. There weren't a lot of accessible functional software or technology

[00:08:15] solutions making it easier to get to know candidates. And so decided that this was an

[00:08:21] area that was going to be a big one to our overall mission of trying to make sure that

[00:08:27] businesses can be this horse for good that we want to see. The journey of what shortlist

[00:08:33] has become over time has of course changed. And I think this has been one of our strengths

[00:08:37] is we've always been loyal to the problem, not necessarily what solution we apply.

[00:08:41] Initially, the business we built was very software centric. We built a platform that

[00:08:47] focused on automating and engaging candidate screening in more effective ways. So we were

[00:08:55] building chatbots and skills assessments and different ways that we could collect information

[00:09:00] and assess candidates and be this intelligence layer sitting in between the chaos of job boards

[00:09:07] and actual precious time making hiring decisions. So we initially started there as our business

[00:09:15] has gone on and happy to get into it, we focused much more, we've realized that the need

[00:09:19] is a much more hands-on need. And so we've become much more of a strategic partner

[00:09:23] to our to over a thousand companies that we work with providing senior executive search services.

[00:09:29] But then we also think at a more systems level about where we can help unblock different

[00:09:35] workforce challenges, opening up economic growth and job creation in sectors like

[00:09:42] renewable energy, green economy, and the digital remote workforce, which I think

[00:09:47] can be a huge job creator for the African continent.

[00:09:51] Okay, so you mentioned something key that the success and failure of a business is driven by

[00:09:57] people, which is something that you're aiming to address. And as shortlist, you have two

[00:10:02] core offerings, which are shortlist search and shortlist future. Do you mind giving us

[00:10:08] a bit more information about each of those offerings?

[00:10:12] Sure. Where we started years ago was trying to build almost a one size fits all solution

[00:10:19] to address the human capital needs of all these different companies and nonprofits

[00:10:23] and organizations we're working with across the continent. Over time, we've realized

[00:10:29] that there's really two distinct problems we want to address. One is at a leadership level,

[00:10:35] we were noting that the highest leverage positions in organizations are often getting

[00:10:40] the right leaders in place at the critical moments in a startup's journey. So shortlist

[00:10:47] search, what we've tried to do is certainly build and design tech and candidate intelligence

[00:10:55] platforms that are taking advantage of the best tech available, but also just trying to build

[00:11:02] and learn from the most successful executive search models around the world and bring

[00:11:06] that and make it affordable to companies operating on the continent. So our exec search

[00:11:13] service, we've now got about 25 search consultants spread across Africa, working on at any given

[00:11:20] time, 80 to 100 senior leadership hires for a range of startups, investors, nonprofits,

[00:11:29] foundations, and a range of other impactful and innovative organizations across Africa.

[00:11:35] And that's a very hands-on process. Of course, we actively use our database, but it's really

[00:11:41] a hands-on professional service that we're providing that's not only finding the right

[00:11:46] candidates, but trying to feed in market intelligence, help our clients plan and

[00:11:52] understand where talent is going to come from, understand the demand dynamics and

[00:11:58] compensation benchmarking that might go into making a compelling offer and getting the

[00:12:04] right person and managing the overall process to get to a successful hire.

[00:12:09] On the other side, what we've realized is that there's a number of places where

[00:12:15] workforce challenges are holding back economic growth and potential for key sectors and also

[00:12:23] holding back the potential for the best kinds of job creation. So Shortlist Futures, we think

[00:12:30] of as a workforce innovation lab where what we're doing is trying to identify places where

[00:12:37] different workforce solutions could enable faster, better economic growth, faster, better job

[00:12:42] creation and with that higher social impact. So we have a cluster of activities and programs

[00:12:50] that we design and run with usually funders that are governments or donors or foundations.

[00:12:57] Clusters of activities around some of the key growth areas that we anticipate can fuel

[00:13:04] an exciting future for Africa's economies, but also create a lot of jobs. So the green economy

[00:13:12] and generally the green transition. So of course clean energy and renewables, but also

[00:13:19] areas around biodiversity and conservation and climate adaptation and other areas,

[00:13:28] e-mobility. And so we have a number of programs where we're raising awareness among young

[00:13:35] people about what job opportunities are there, preparing young people for those jobs,

[00:13:40] and then actually making the link and getting people into these new growing sectors so that

[00:13:47] they can have fulfilling careers and so that the green economic potential can be realized.

[00:13:53] On the other hand, we also have been doing a lot of work around the global digital economy.

[00:13:57] We do think that the opportunity for remote digital work is going to be a really big

[00:14:06] opportunity to fuel careers on the continent. I think in general, the potential for more and

[00:14:14] jobs to be created in the services sector is a really strong one. So we've been looking at

[00:14:21] a range of places where different functions in the global digital economy can be served by

[00:14:27] African youth from at the more entry level data annotation and data labeling up to more

[00:14:34] skills-based positions like software engineers, data scientists, and the rest.

[00:14:39] So we're running a number of programs trying to cultivate those opportunities for Africans,

[00:14:44] including trying to fill in some of where infrastructure gaps may be hindering the

[00:14:49] potential. So we actually run a laptop and remote work equipment finance initiative where

[00:14:55] we're providing laptops to people who are getting job offers but need to bring their own

[00:15:00] devices and don't have the money to go out and buy it on day one and then getting repaid

[00:15:05] their wages over time. So applying that to areas like laptops, power backups, things like that.

[00:15:15] It's safe to say there are quite a few talent employment platforms available these days. What

[00:15:21] would you say is shortlist value propositional or differentiates you from your competitors?

[00:15:29] It's a great question and I think it's different on each side of the business.

[00:15:32] On the shortlist search side, on the executive search side, I think our focus on candidate

[00:15:38] intelligence and our focus on client service I think sets us apart and the fact that we're

[00:15:44] local. The continent right now for exact search tends to be very fragmented with very small

[00:15:51] scale one-off consultants that you can find or you go to a big global organization who

[00:15:58] wouldn't have local context and are often too expensive for most African organizations.

[00:16:03] I'd like to think that we are kind of this Goldilocks sweet spot

[00:16:07] ambassador that's right in between that brings some of the best practices and the best

[00:16:12] technology and candidate intelligence from global markets, brings it to a global brand

[00:16:17] that when you engage shortlist you know there's a certain quality standard that we're standing

[00:16:23] behind but then is priced in a manner that's going to work and be balanced a bit more with

[00:16:28] what the local market expects. On the future side, I think the difference is that because

[00:16:35] we work with donors and governments, we are free to take more of a systems level view

[00:16:43] and an impact orientation so we actually don't sell our services to employers on the

[00:16:50] shortlist future side again which is more workforce and junior talent oriented.

[00:16:56] We're actually designing programs that we're then running with donors and able to work with

[00:17:02] them to figure out how do we best solve these problems that we're trying to solve

[00:17:06] and those problems could be how do we make the green economy grow as fast as it possibly

[00:17:11] can? How can we make sure that the most number of Africans can benefit from the

[00:17:17] employment opportunities of these new sectors and then how do we make sure that the employment

[00:17:21] is diverse, inclusive and equitable in terms of the participation of different groups,

[00:17:28] particularly women. So you've mentioned during the conversation how tech and data play a

[00:17:35] part in how the platform operates but I'm assuming that there is a human touch to what

[00:17:41] you do as well. What would you say the human touch to your work is?

[00:17:47] Yeah and I think a lot of our journey over the last eight years has been a process of figuring

[00:17:52] out how to get that balance right. When we started, we were all tech and oriented very much

[00:17:59] towards tools like chat bots and skills assessments to augment the data that you could

[00:18:06] have and assemble on candidates to figure out who's going to be the right fit and our

[00:18:10] initial business model was much more of a software as a service business model. We

[00:18:15] licensed this to about 800 or so companies across Africa and a bit in India as well.

[00:18:24] I think as time moved on we realized that our clients needed more. Not only did they need

[00:18:31] help making sure they could get the most out of the platform but really advice and guidance

[00:18:36] on best practices of hiring, what talent pools to target, what kinds of organizations would be the

[00:18:43] right place to go find the kind of talent they're looking for and a variety of other

[00:18:47] points in that kind of talent acquisition cycle. So we still do use our platform which has

[00:18:55] nearly a thousand assessments, has a really easy to configure chat bot which then can funnel

[00:19:01] data in a structured way. We've realized that to have the biggest impact we needed to lean into

[00:19:06] becoming a world-class professional services firm. We needed to hire people that are incredibly

[00:19:12] smart, are excited to engage with clients and solve their problems, coming from a range of

[00:19:20] backgrounds that often aren't recruited. A lot of the people that are most successful at

[00:19:24] shortlist are coming from entrepreneurial backgrounds, startup operational roles,

[00:19:30] investor roles, management consulting areas like that. I think it's really been cultivating that

[00:19:36] human touch side that has enabled us to build the kinds of relationships and have the kind

[00:19:42] of impact we're able to have with companies. But it's always a balance and I think I've seen

[00:19:46] this across a lot of our business, many other sectors even in financial inclusion when I was

[00:19:53] an investor, this tech versus touch dynamic is one that is so critical to get right. If you

[00:20:01] over focus on hoping tech can solve your problems, you're often disappointed. Whereas

[00:20:06] the businesses that break through are usually the ones that are combining some of the benefits

[00:20:11] and scalability of tech but very much not forgetting the human in the loop and the

[00:20:17] human touch side of things. Yeah, so would you say that the human touch is essential for being

[00:20:23] successful in the African market? I think in general, yeah, I'm sure there's exceptions but

[00:20:30] I would say this is true across a number of markets. We see the same thing in India where

[00:20:35] people are still more comfortable dealing with humans. It's still a service first

[00:20:41] economy rather than tech. I am American, I still spend some time back in the US. Americans,

[00:20:48] and I think it's true in a lot of countries, are very comfortable going and finding a software

[00:20:53] solution on a website, plugging in their credit card and just getting to work and never

[00:20:58] speaking to a human. That is very unusual in my experience in Africa where most times,

[00:21:07] in most places, people want to know the human behind the service you're getting. They want

[00:21:12] to talk to a person first. They want to know that there's someone who will answer their

[00:21:17] WhatsApp or answer their phone call. They can yell at when things break. I don't think

[00:21:23] there's the same trust and comfort in tech. And so yeah, the companies that work,

[00:21:29] I feel like almost always have figured out and put at the very center of their business

[00:21:35] model, human engagement, a service, making sure people are getting the value they want.

[00:21:42] S1 I agree. I guess partnerships and community would probably come under the human touch. So

[00:21:50] how important are partnerships with regards to what you do?

[00:21:54] S2 Incredibly important, particularly on our shortlist future side. Very frequently,

[00:22:01] as we're designing programs, trying to get more Africans to work in these growth sectors,

[00:22:08] we're doing it through partnerships. We have no illusion that we can do everything. At an early

[00:22:14] point in our journey, we considered should we try to become an all-in-one training and placement

[00:22:20] workforce platform and instead decided that we could focus on the things that we could do

[00:22:26] particularly well. Things like awareness building and talent assessment, but that for a lot of the

[00:22:33] training and talent development side of things, we'd be much better off working with partners

[00:22:39] and having the flexibility to choose from whoever the very best providers might be

[00:22:45] for any particular niche area that we're getting into. So we work with a range of terrific

[00:22:53] training organizations. We work with a range of different, what we call sourcing partners,

[00:22:58] NGOs and different organizations that have access to and engage with youth across a lot

[00:23:05] of different markets where we can try to promote what opportunities are available,

[00:23:10] share insights about where jobs in the future are going to come from, provide training resources

[00:23:14] and programs, and then of course with the funding community. And so we work very actively

[00:23:21] with a number of different governments, with multilaterals and with private foundations who

[00:23:28] are in different ways supporting the work either with funding or expertise or other resources

[00:23:34] to try to make sure these programs work. So in some ways we view ourselves as someone

[00:23:39] stitching together different organizations and different resources to try to have the most

[00:23:46] impact that we can on the continent. In the early parts of your journey,

[00:23:51] how did you go about identifying and forming the key partnerships? Luckily my co-founder and I

[00:23:58] came from backgrounds where we had been investing in these markets and in these

[00:24:03] sectors for a long time. So no doubt when we got under this, we were doing this with

[00:24:10] the benefit of a lot of long-standing partnerships and relationships that could

[00:24:16] inform where our work could have the most impact but also get us started and actually

[00:24:23] trust us as initial clients, partners and funders. As we've gone, of course,

[00:24:32] we're very focused on the problem and we go find whatever partners we need to go

[00:24:37] solve the problems we're looking at. So at the moment, for example, we have been running for

[00:24:42] about five years now a couple of different programs. One is called Energy Access Talent

[00:24:47] Initiative. The other that's called Women for Green Jobs, both broadly oriented at getting more

[00:24:54] young people and particularly young women into jobs in the clean energy sector.

[00:24:59] At the moment, we're realizing the opportunity is much broader than clean energy and so we're

[00:25:05] broadening our programming quite a bit to encompass a range of climate relevant

[00:25:11] sectors, areas like e-mobility and blue economy and direct air capture for carbon and

[00:25:19] a number of other green manufacturing and other industries that we see as potential growth areas

[00:25:26] for different African economies. So we're actually going out and figuring out who's

[00:25:32] out there doing good work? What are the big organizations we need to be a part of? Who's

[00:25:36] training at the university level or at the private training level for these positions

[00:25:42] and kind of knitting those together to try to figure out how to reach the most people and

[00:25:48] get the most people into these jobs and the most people prepared so as these investments come,

[00:25:54] the Human Capital Foundation will be ready.

[00:25:57] Brilliant. So sticking with the theme of partnerships, you do work with donors,

[00:26:02] governments, enterprises, educational institutions. So how would you navigate

[00:26:07] the complex landscape of these partnerships to implement the work that you're doing effectively?

[00:26:15] Getting these partnerships and these relationships right is critical. I think one of the most

[00:26:20] important things is listening and being aware of what problems different people are trying

[00:26:26] to solve. If you take too broad a brush stroke on this or that organization's trying to address

[00:26:33] climate change, I think what we see is we need to get much more granular with understanding the

[00:26:39] particular points of view, the language, the ambitions of particular organizations and even

[00:26:46] within them, particular people so that we can make sure that we're responding to what people

[00:26:51] need. I think many of our programs have multiple stakeholders involved, have multiple funders,

[00:26:59] and so a part of getting these right is making sure there's open lines of communication and

[00:27:06] getting people on the same page but also creating some room for customization so that

[00:27:10] each participant can get out of the program what they need. So yeah really just listening

[00:27:16] and making sure we're effectively juggling responding to the different needs of partners.

[00:27:25] So would you say are there any unique challenges that you've encountered in the

[00:27:30] African market you've probably not encountered outside with regards to the search services,

[00:27:38] whether it's for startups or impact organizations in Africa?

[00:27:42] Well what I would say less about executive search and more about the broader workforce dynamics is

[00:27:51] Africa's really in a unique situation in terms of having so many young people entering

[00:27:58] the workforce. I mean there's more people entering the African workforce in the coming

[00:28:02] decade than the rest of the world combined and that being paired with not having the same

[00:28:10] number of jobs coming into the formal sector to keep up with this. I mean there's estimates that

[00:28:17] maybe for every five people that enter the workforce perhaps one formal job will be created.

[00:28:24] So I think what's quite unique here is in a lot of other markets, particularly markets that

[00:28:30] are facing declining demographics, shrinking populations, the name of the game is more

[00:28:36] trying to re-skill and up-skill the workforce so that it can meet the needs. In Africa you don't

[00:28:43] really have a workforce or a training problem, you really just have a jobs problem and so what's

[00:28:48] unique here is the number of different angles you need to take to address this and so

[00:28:54] I also sit on the board of a great organization called JobTech Alliance where the focus is

[00:29:00] broadly less about helping people get full-time jobs. So I think that's a

[00:29:06] great way to get people to get full-time jobs and more using technology to be to intermediate

[00:29:15] gigs and a more diversified portfolio of work for young people to make ends meet.

[00:29:23] We of course are working to try to cultivate the development of sectors like the climate

[00:29:29] clean energy sectors which we think if successful in growing away we think they can

[00:29:34] abroad for where is there labor demand that could plausibly be filled by young Africans and

[00:29:41] I know you've had in the past other folks working on this issue bridging the tech talent

[00:29:45] divide between the supply of tech talent that exists in the continent and the emerging demand

[00:29:52] for tech talent in a variety of other European, American and other markets around the world. So

[00:29:57] I think those dynamics are very unique but ever more urgent to be addressing.

[00:30:05] As you mentioned a lot of African countries are experiencing a talent boom within the

[00:30:11] youth population and we're seeing in Europe and America we are seeing talent shortages in

[00:30:18] certain areas or sectors so what are some of the interesting opportunities that you're seeing

[00:30:23] for African youth that are emerging? Yeah I think what we're most excited about

[00:30:29] are opportunities in the green economy more broadly. Africa's I mean the world stands at

[00:30:36] this unique moment where it's facing a true climate crisis and needs to try to get as close

[00:30:42] to net zero in terms of carbon emissions as possible by 2050. I think increasingly I'm of

[00:30:49] the view and I think many people are of the view that the world can't get there without Africa's

[00:30:53] help. Africa combines and has a few key things that's really unique in the world. It has

[00:31:00] some of the richest natural resources anywhere on planet earth, it has some of the most

[00:31:05] untapped renewables across all categories, solar, wind, geothermal, etc. The opportunities

[00:31:17] there are massive and then of course a booming youth workforce. Those could actually be brought

[00:31:22] together in ways to help a lot of the heavy carbon emitting industries that are around the

[00:31:31] world actually be brought to Africa and be done in a much more green way powered by green

[00:31:36] energy even in energy intensive industries like steel and aluminum and things like that.

[00:31:41] So the opportunity for green industrialization in Africa I think is a big one as well as

[00:31:46] opportunities for countries like Kenya for example to be a net negative emitter. There's such great

[00:31:53] geothermal and other power reserves that could power direct air capture of carbon and Kenya has

[00:32:01] this geological structure that it makes it a really great place to then store away and

[00:32:06] sequester that carbon for a long long time. If countries like Kenya could take advantage of

[00:32:15] that and actually be a net negative emitter we're going to need that in order to achieve some of

[00:32:22] these global goals. What that means for youth in Africa is we hope a lot of different jobs

[00:32:30] being directly created by green industry, by renewables, solar installers, wind turbine

[00:32:38] engineers, as well as a lot of downstream jobs that are created whether that's

[00:32:46] new approaches to agriculture and productivity that become possible

[00:32:51] productively using access to energy to run smaller businesses and do things in that manner.

[00:32:59] So I think there's a universe of opportunities that are coming from

[00:33:04] the green economic promise in Africa. In order to access these opportunities it does require

[00:33:13] investment how do you believe we can invest in Africa's human capital to ensure that we

[00:33:20] increase opportunities like these on the continent? Yeah it's a great question I think

[00:33:25] there's a variety of chicken and egg problems that we have no question that

[00:33:31] all of the things we're talking about depend on financial investments coming in from around the

[00:33:38] world capital being mobilized depends on the right policy structures being in place but all

[00:33:44] of this working out also depends on the right human capital foundation being in place. We need

[00:33:49] a workforce ready and aware about these opportunities skilled up for these opportunities

[00:33:57] because ultimately some of these investments and some of these industries won't materialize and

[00:34:02] grow unless people are confident they can actually hire people in an affordable way

[00:34:07] to execute this and to build this future we're thinking of. So I think it's right now

[00:34:16] there's a component to which talent issues are downstream from investment and policy and we're

[00:34:22] very actively working with different partners who are putting in place the money and the policy

[00:34:29] and then looking to us to make sure the workforce is ready but we're also I think

[00:34:34] in some ways trying to play a precursor and trying to make sure that we're getting out

[00:34:38] ahead of likely industry needs so that as those decisions are getting made on money on policy

[00:34:44] people can look to these countries and say oh great okay there's actual people working on

[00:34:50] the skill level we know we've got people mobilized for these jobs if we get these other

[00:34:56] pieces of the puzzle in place the talent and the human capital side will be ready.

[00:35:01] Fantastic so if we look specifically at Surelist what type of opportunities would you say are

[00:35:08] currently available via the platform? Yeah so it comes in a couple like I mentioned on the

[00:35:15] exec search side at any given time we're working on 80 to 100 senior executive searches very hands

[00:35:22] on low hunts for c-suite and you know c-1 executives and those the best way to get in

[00:35:30] touch is more directly with me or any of my colleagues via our website or any other mode.

[00:35:37] We've recently launched the Africa Climate Careers Network that kind of is the umbrella

[00:35:43] organizing site for the variety of our climate related talent programs. This features a bunch

[00:35:51] of free resources for young Africans trying to transition into the green economy so different

[00:35:58] free webinars, training courses, intro to climate courses, networking opportunities.

[00:36:05] We also have the continent's biggest climate-focused job board with I think at

[00:36:11] present over 1500 verified jobs across over 100 climate organizations on the continent

[00:36:20] and so that's an easy place to look at what are the aggregated opportunities available.

[00:36:26] Some of those are our clients we work with directly and we help find their workforce,

[00:36:32] others are ones we just provide a lead so that we can try to provide the most comprehensive

[00:36:37] set of opportunities to youth on the continent and a variety of other kind of resources available

[00:36:46] through ACCN. On the digital job side we work with a variety of partners who are working across

[00:36:55] the data labeling, data annotation, digital customer service spaces as well as up the value

[00:37:01] chain into other software engineering and data analysis and data science realms and so that's

[00:37:08] all can be found on our website. So are there any specific industries or sectors that you're

[00:37:15] seeing more demand for? Yeah I think right now on the climate side clean energy continues

[00:37:22] to be expanding but there's been a lot of excitement about the potential for e-mobility.

[00:37:29] We've seen with MOVE getting funded and BASICO and a number of other exciting

[00:37:37] announcements. There's a lot in the electric scooter world with big funding announcements

[00:37:42] so we are seeing a lot of growth around e-mobility and I think more nascent we're

[00:37:47] seeing a number of areas related to urban infrastructure, regenerative agriculture,

[00:37:58] a number of sectors on the rise there. I think this will continue to be

[00:38:02] a very dynamic space though and a lot's changing month to month as we move forward.

[00:38:10] Fantastic so as you mentioned you're seeing a trend or growth in areas such as clean energy

[00:38:16] and e-mobility so keeping on the theme of trends are there any current trends that you'll see

[00:38:24] in Africa's recruitment landscape that you're probably not seeing in the rest of the world that

[00:38:30] you are excited about? Yeah excited and have some nervousness about the role of philanthropy

[00:38:39] and donors in the space. I think what's unique is in Africa is there's more and more government

[00:38:46] and donors who have identified youth employment employability issues particularly with the

[00:38:53] booming youth workforce of Africa as being an important public policy issue to get out ahead

[00:39:00] of and something that we should be investing in as an area of public concern. I think with all

[00:39:07] of these young people entering the workforce it could be a terrific opportunity if productivity

[00:39:14] can stay high to drive economic growth and opportunity for Africa. It's also scary if

[00:39:20] people are not able to find employment in ways that meet the opportunity. I think what's

[00:39:29] interesting is the variety of ways that funders are getting involved and some of them with very

[00:39:34] big tickets. So I think one of the things that we're focused on is trying to make sure that

[00:39:39] there's the right blend both in our programming but across the workforce space between efforts

[00:39:45] that are looking at scale and number of jobs created and measure success almost at the cost

[00:39:52] effectiveness of how easily someone can be found employment or a job versus the depth of that

[00:40:00] impact and the income increase over time. A lot of the work that we do is focused, it's not

[00:40:06] necessarily in the hundreds of thousands of jobs created. It might be in the hundreds or the

[00:40:12] thousands of jobs created but it's focused on career track formal sector employment areas

[00:40:19] where getting a job today can yield five to 10x income increases over a three to five year

[00:40:26] period with genuine career potential long-term stability benefits. So I think what I'm hoping is

[00:40:33] that as we all try to it's terrific and promising that there's a number of foundations and

[00:40:39] governments wanting to invest in this space. I just hope we can find the right balance and

[00:40:44] create a range of possibilities that ensure as many people as possible get jobs and income

[00:40:51] growth but also that we focus on economic mobility, income increases over time, genuine

[00:40:57] mobility and progress over time. Thank you for sharing that. So if we go from current trends

[00:41:03] and look at the future, where do you see Africa in five years time from a online recruitment

[00:41:10] search perspective? On the exec search side we continue to see a real expansion of demand for

[00:41:18] what we do. I think that economies are growing and as the talent markets get more and more

[00:41:23] sophisticated organizations like ours that can help companies that are growing or even foreign

[00:41:29] companies that are coming setting up helping navigate where to find people, how to engage

[00:41:34] the difference between different backgrounds and organizations and educational experiences and things

[00:41:38] like that will only become more important. We talk a lot about for our executive search work

[00:41:44] we're not competing with other firms so much as we're all trying to grow the pie. So we're

[00:41:49] not fighting over slices over the pie, we're trying to grow the fact that there's a lot of

[00:41:53] organizations today that don't think they can afford or don't think they need executive search

[00:41:57] services that when we get a chance to work with them often feel oh yes okay we actually

[00:42:02] need shortlist or someone like shortlist as a partner for the work we do. Of course on the

[00:42:08] shortlist future side it's going to be a very dynamic time in terms of how we rise up to meet

[00:42:14] the boom in the workforce and try to match that to where we see the economic growth potential

[00:42:20] of different sectors. So the next five years I think are going to be critically important to

[00:42:26] starting to put some of those puzzle pieces together, get momentum going particularly as we

[00:42:31] think about the investments required for a successful green economic transition across Africa

[00:42:37] as well as further cementing the brand of African talent for the global services market.

[00:42:44] Some of the work we're doing is focused on this whole global business services market,

[00:42:51] BPOs, customer service etc. Today African talent represents only 2% of that global workforce

[00:42:59] but increasingly African talent is going to be a huge portion of the actual digitally enabled

[00:43:06] young workforce. We need to see Africa capture more of those jobs and to do that I think

[00:43:12] continuing to invest in and grow brand Africa around the world with these big organizations

[00:43:19] is going to be critically important. Brilliant and I look forward to seeing it develop

[00:43:23] in the near future Paul thank you for sharing that. As people we often have quotes, mantras,

[00:43:30] proverbs or affirmations that keep us going when times are challenging or when times are good.

[00:43:35] Do you have one that you can share with us today?

[00:43:40] I would say one of our core values and one that I find myself reciting to myself more than

[00:43:45] any other is find the adventure. I think life throws a lot of curveballs at us and how you

[00:43:52] respond to those and whether you take those challenges and get depressed about them or take

[00:43:57] them as opportunities to rise up and turn them into things that are not barriers to overcome

[00:44:03] chances to have an adventurous life and try something new the better. Certainly it's helped

[00:44:09] me in my career, pushed me to kind of zig maybe when others are zagging and continually

[00:44:15] try to find interesting problems to work on with great people. Brilliant spoken like a true

[00:44:20] entrepreneur fantastic thank you for sharing that Paul. We've come to the end of today's

[00:44:25] conversation it's been a great conversation I was wondering if you had any closing remarks

[00:44:31] final course of action for people who are interested in the work that you're doing at

[00:44:35] Shortlist or just interested in the whole executive search recruitment space in Africa?

[00:44:41] Yeah just grateful that you do this work I love your podcast thanks for having me on it and if

[00:44:47] people want to learn more probably easiest to find us at our website shortlist.net

[00:44:52] or find me on LinkedIn. I pride myself on being as responsive as I possibly can

[00:44:58] I would love to talk to anyone who's interested in topics around African workforce

[00:45:02] senior hiring for African organizations or hit me up if people come through Nairobi.

[00:45:08] Fantastic thank you Paul for sharing your insights in terms of what Shortlist is doing

[00:45:15] transforming executive search services and also pioneering some of those youth employment

[00:45:21] solutions that we discussed today so looking forward to seeing how Shortlist continues to

[00:45:27] drive that positive change across the continent's employment landscape.

[00:45:32] Thanks so much for having me. Speak soon.

[00:45:34] All right take care Trishir thank you bye bye.

[00:45:37] Thank you to everyone who has listened and stay tuned to the podcast if you've enjoyed this

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