Ella Gorgla, Founding Member of The Khana Group, On Africa & Entrepreneurs

By | October 23 2009 | Comments (0) | Trackbacks (0)

We had a delightful chat with Ella Gorgla, Managing Director and Co-Founder of The Khana Group, in New York City at Africa Social Enterprise Forum. In this video interview, Ella tells us about the new face of Africa, and the role that Africans like herself are playing to develop the continent – in Ella’s case specifically, West Africa and Liberia. Watch this video to learn more about The Khana Group and hear what Ella has to say about the “gift of wanting to be an entrepreneur”. Thanks for watching. What thoughts and/or insights can you share about entrepreneurship &/or Africa? Please drop us a note here at envisionGood.tv, or join us at our other online hangout at Twitter @envisionGood. Thanks!

The Full Transcript:

KATRINA: So here we are with Ella of The Khana Group. We’re at the Africa Social Enterprise Forum in New York City. [Can you please share Ella, what is The Khana Group?]

ELLA: The Khana Group is a consulting and advisory firm that focuse on raising capital for entrepreneurs in West Africa. Our primary focus is Liberia. All four managing partners are Liberian, but we also focus on Ghana and Nigeria as well. I’m a founding member of The Khana Group. And it’s a unique social enterprise in the sense that we are a for-profit company and we sort of cut across all sectors of business. Beyond health care and education we actually work on real estate projects, we work on technology-oriented projects. I’m actually doing a great new venture right now in the specialty coffee and teas area, looking at sourcing organic products from Africa.

So, our goal is just that with every single project that we do is that those ventures have some kind of societal impact – they’re creating jobs, providing intellectual capital within the country, and we feel that that is a really good way to effect change. When you’re raising capital for entrepreneurs they tend to listen to your suggestions in terms of how they can be socially impactful.
KATRINA: What attracted you to this field of social enterprise?

ELLA: I’m Liberian. My background is in consulting. And I’ve always wanted to be an entrepreneur. And I always felt that I wanted to be a part of that new face of Africa.
KATRINA: What have been some of your challenges as an entrepreneur?

ELLA: Making money [haha]. You know, in the beginning that was a challenge. We’re very fortunate in the sense that, very early on, we got great media coverage. I actually had the opportunity to be on CNBC to talk about the importance of investing in Africa. And I thin the challenge for us was focusing our ideas, you know having a fairly clear focus. And, closing deals, believe it or not. A lot of people enjoyed talking to us, everyone took our calls you know. But closing that deal, sealing contracts, that is a challenge.
KATRINA: Fantastic. And you were on a panel earlier today on “the making of a social entrepreneur”, can you share some top-level insights that you shared with the group?

ELLA: Yeah – one thing I said to the group is that I believe that the desire to be an entrepreneur is a gift, that not everyone wants to be an entrepreneur. You know, a lot of people are very comfortable working their way up that corporate ladder. And so if you have that gift, it’s something that you ought to respond to. And I think that people did understand that and take that to heart.
KATRINA: How does The Khana Group fit into the context of Africa, at large?

ELLA: One of the things that happening and that people don’t realize is that with poor financial markets, I mean we’re rebounding but it’s still fairly poor financial markets here in the U.S., that it’s possible to make significant returns in Africa across different sectors, whether it’s infrastructure or real estate. Right now in Ghana you have a growing middle class. In Sierra Leone you have growing wealth.

And so, one thing that we try to do is, is to help these individuals create these enterprises. We don’t do microfinancing. Generally speaking the deals that we focus on are around two and a half billion (USD) or more in terms of capital requirements. And so I feel like we’re part of that “new face”, to bring in the capital to Africa and also apply some corporate discipline, if you will, some western discipline, because you still have to still have to manage that terrain in terms of how to do work in Africa the African way. But you still want to provide proper governance, address issues such as corruption, etc.

The most important thing is really understanding that the face of Africa is changing. And that you have entrepreneurs such as myself who are African but who are educated right here in the U.S., and we’re all very interested in going back and making a difference. You have people from the diaspora who have this newfound interest. CNBC has been a huge supporter of ours, they are continuing to unveil this new face of Africa. So, I think people need to get onboard.

KATRINA: Wonderful, where can everyone find you on the web?

ELLA: We are at TheKhanaGroup.com

KATRINA: Thank you so much.

ELLA: Thank you, thanks for having us.

KATRINA: Of course! : )