Yaw Nsarkoh, Senior Vice President of Unilever and Managing Director of Unilever Nigeria on Education, Leadership and Africa Business
Mr. Yaw Nsarkoh, is evidently an exceptional conversationalist. His arguments, based on deep knowledge on a wide range of issues, are forceful and leave you no room for speculation about his rise in an organisation noted for the rigorous screening of its go-getting employees.
One does not rise from management trainee to Managing Director of Unilever in Africa’s biggest economy by chance. But you only have to speak to Yaw for a few minutes before you are struck by the wit, intelligence and humility that must have contributed to his meteoric rise.
Without sounding conceited he attributes his good fortune not to chance but largely to sound education on which his parents never compromised. Both parents themselves had “broken the cycle of poverty into which they were born, in one lifetime, by their capacity to exert themselves in the intellectual sphere,” Yaw says, in his characteristic manner that makes a 30-minute interview seem like a two-hour action movie, which is so engaging, you feel you’ve watched the whole bit in barely five minutes. His power of description is prodigious. So also is his passion for sound education, which he considers a potent driver of social mobility.
“I focus a lot on the public education system’s capability to become a vector of social mobility. Taking my own parents’ example; my father was born to a peasant but he became a university professor. My mother, also born to a peasant, ended up becoming a very senior academic who worked on many continents of the earth. Although she was born in a mud house and attended a village school, she went on to attend Achimota School,” Yaw recalls proudly.
He however laments that today in Ghana , and in most of West Africa where stories like his parents’ abound, “that is no longer going to happen to the extent that it happened previously. Today when I tell my children that their grandparents were born in mud houses, they think I’m making it up. The main catalyst that helped my parents achieve that remarkable transformation in a lifetime was education, and particularly the public education system, because my grandparents could never have been able to pay for their children’s education in a private school. This is why I believe so much in the power of education,” he says.
Unfortunately, today the public educational system no longer provides the quality of teaching that helps transform lives of the children of the poor, who cannot afford the quality of education offered by elite private sector schools.
Yaw regrets this trend. He is of the view that the waning influence of education as a force of social mobility will not augur well for society.
In his view, the capacity for education to transform people from a condition of mere hopelessness is a crucial one “people should be confident that if they do their bit, they can get ahead in life. Any society which cannot address that specific need of the masses to aspire and achieve, is sitting on a keg of gun powder, which will explode sooner or later.”
To him, the failed educational system is part of the reason why the world’s top one billion people account for 72% of consumption, globally, and the bottom one billion account for just 1% of consumption.
“A system where the top 85 richest people in the world have the same wealth as the bottom three and half billion is not going to last. A system where a billion people go to bed hungry, while the rest waste 30 to 40% of their food is not going to last. So if we don’t reverse this trend then we are creating a system which will implode,” Yaw surmises, repeating by his own admission, statistics that often feature in speeches delivered by Unilever’s CEO, Paul Polman.
Even with the huge responsibilities of running a large company, Yaw strives to manage both his personal and professional demands. “Much of my social life is built around my family – Elizabeth, my wife and our two boys, Kwaku and Kwame aged twelve and nine respectively. When I’m not at work, I do my best to ensure we spend time together” he says.
Charting a career path in Unilever
Sound education may have greatly facilitated Yaw’s career development, but Unilever’s uniquely supportive environment has made him stick with the manufacturer of fast moving consumer goods for over two decades, without getting jaded.
“Unilever is a company that upholds its values at all times, this means that throughout my career with the company, I have not had to be anything that I am not. No one will ever compel me to do business in ways that offend my own values. This has made it easy for me to stay with the company,” Yaw explains.
He further notes that the variety of roles he has held in the company have made the journey of 20 years an exciting one. He has worked in different locations and held various positions “I can’t remember a time in my career when I felt bored with what I was doing, I think this is largely because I’ve had the opportunity to hold various roles in the business, each with its unique demands ”
Despite his rich experience, Yaw’s unpretentiousness is revealing,
“I think success comes with having respect for others, having the humility to accept that you don’t know everything and that you’re going to have to depend on others, which means respecting everyone around you as people who can bring something that you don’t know to the party, because people come with different perspectives, regardless of where they are in society and who they may be,” he says.
He also notes that another key success factor in the corporate world is self-confidence, where you’re not intimidated by others, where you come to the party with your own point of view.
He also highlights the role of curiosity and continuous learning “The world is constantly in a state of flux; information and ideas that are celebrated in one moment can become irrelevant in the next. The reality in the FMCG space is not different – some things I thought I had to hold on to some years ago, I’ve had to accept today that they are not relevant”.
“I had to understand that today’s work force know things that I don’t. My 12-year old son, for instance, does things on a smart phone that beat me completely; things I might not be able to do in an eternity, he does in five minutes. So in a sense, he also has become a reverse mentor. That’s the nature of organisations; they are organic and you must be in touch with all the parts. For us in the FMCG industry, this means we must stay close to our consumers and embrace new ideas that will help us serve them better,” Yaw explains.
Yaw’s rise in the tough corporate environment may seem to have been a stroll in the park, but in retrospect he says; “I have faced many challenges; there have been times when I have not achieved what I had set out to achieve. Early on, in your career, you tend to think that everything you touch must turn to gold, but then you go through experiences that make you get back in touch with reality and begin to see that indeed you’re not fully in control of all the elements.”
“Unilever today talks a lot about what we call the “VUCA” environment. VUCA is an acronym for: Volatile, Uncertain, Complex and Ambiguous. Though this term was made popular by the military, it holds true in our sector. In uncertain times as these, you have to reckon with the fact that the wheels of change turn rapidly. Under the circumstance you must therefore have a strong sense of purpose; a purpose you wake up in the morning to pursue. Purpose not only gives you a sense of direction, but is also a fuel that keeps you going even in the face of daunting odds”.
He observes that this sense of purpose, most of the time, is shaped both by success as well as setbacks.
That has been the story of his journey up the corporate ladder, not for a moment discounting the influence of colleagues he worked with through the years “I am fortunate to have had many managers and mentors who I look to with admiration. However, there have also been one or two others who I remember for reasons that are not quite positive. I learnt from them, but they taught me lessons on how not to lead. Also in my earlier years, there were occasions when I was intimidated by certain situations, but today I look back and wonder why?”
He also admits that in retrospect there have been occasions when he should have taken time to learn more before moving on to something new.
Leadership
Ever willing to share his experiences, Yaw says that leaders should demystify their success a little bit so others can learn from them. “I have had some successes which are credited to me that I shouldn’t take full credit for because I had great team members who were working with me. This has helped me form a point of view about life and leadership”
To him, if one doesn’t face challenging situations then there would be no need for leadership. He therefore believes that the setbacks he encountered all contributed to his development “I don’t look at past setbacks with regret, I look at them as opportunities for learning and I try to share them so that others can learn from some of the pitfalls in my career.”
He counts himself fortunate to have travelled widely with his parents at an early age. He believes this helped him appreciate diversity and broadened his perspectives.
“My parents, made no distinction between what I could achieve and what anyone else, anywhere in the world, could. They had the good fortune of studying abroad across several continents, and working in several places,” Yaw recollects
He remembers fondly that his parents taught him to respect people and also to strive for balance “My mother told me to do my best always but to also remember that there is one life to live , so in exerting myself, I should also try to create time for the things that matter to me “
While early experiences are critical to the development of one’s leadership philosophy, Yaw believes good leadership also depends, to a large extent, on the leader’s capabilities for systems thinking. “Systems thinking is being able to see the complex parts of the things that you’re trying to deal with and pulling a pattern together from what appears to be chaos so that you can do something with it” Yaw says.
He also views execution as a fundamental differentiator between winners and losers.
“Execution and result-orientation are absolutely critical because, it is easy for anyone to put together a strategy, the big differentiator however, is how well great plans are translated to great results.
“The last bit is that a leader must be able to define a clear vision, this involves creating a collective destination and energizing the group so that their full potential is unleashed. Not to distribute your energy, but to unleash the energy of the team,” Yaw observes.
In all efforts at creating a just and thriving society, whether at the family level, at the community, corporate or national levels, sound and unselfish leadership is crucial.
“If your leadership style does not deconstruct some of the airs that are constructed around you, what would happen is that the truth is sometimes filtered out and you become blindsided on various issues” Yaw says.
“I believe in preparing for situations before they arise, even in an uncertain world. We are caught unawares by un expected situations all the time,” he says.
Leadership, he believes, is something people can learn “with the right examples, the right coaching, the right kind of mentoring, and with determination and will, everybody can learn to become a leader.”
But above all, Yaw observes that the only way society can tap into the potentials of individuals is to increase their ability to nurture those potentials
Africa Rising
Yaw believes this is Africa’s time in the sun but there should be no delusion that the continent just got rid of all its challenges “if you look at all the real statistics, seven out of 10 of the fastest growing economies in the world are in Africa; by and large, the quality of governance has improved. If you take a country like Nigeria, the demographic dividend is definitely in favour of Nigeria. 76% of the population is below 30 years. And Africa will be the only continent, if you look at the projections, which will continue to have an increasing youth population..
“While Africa grows, the growth rate of most other economies around the world will either stagnate or decline. In Nigeria, for example, it is estimated that the size of the middle class is 24% of 170 million people, a population that is bigger than most African countries, so when you pool all of that together obviously Africa has a big opportunity.
The other thing is that considering the consumption levels of most African countries, they are much lower than in many other places, including in South East Asia or in Europe or in Latin America, so obviously, there is a huge opportunity for market development which will in turn contribute to economic growth.
“In all this, consumer goods manufacturers like Unilever also have huge opportunities for growth as Africa rises,” Yaw says.
“The back linkages in agriculture, for example, are many. Unilever is driving this through the ‘Grow Africa’ initiative. Through this initiative we hope to ensure that more of the raw materials we use in manufacturing are sourced locally. In line with the goal we have set in the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan, we are also committed to the sustainable sourcing of our raw materials. Unilever buys around 12% of the world’s black tea, 3% of tomatoes for processing, and 3% of the palm oil produced. “The sheer volume of agricultural raw materials we purchase makes Unilever a key player in the sector. Our demand for these products contributes to the economies of the communities and countries where we source these raw materials”
“But real economic development comes when there is a viable ecosystem, where the various actors play their part. To achieve sustainable economic growth, the government has a key role to play especially in the area of infrastructure. When there’s a right infrastructural base for companies to operate, it brings down the cost of doing business so that the low income earners do not have to pay more for products their counterparts in the developed world purchase for less. This is the poverty paradox, as they call it.
Yaw believes that an effective public education system will be the engine that will bring about the transformational change Africa desperately needs to fulfill its promise. This has been Yaw’s muse and one for which he crusades passionately.
Crusades come with their consequences – while obviously mentally rewarding and spiritually uplifting, they take a physical toll, especially as one advances in years.
While old age doesn’t seem to be creeping up on Yaw, he tries to keep fit by walking.
“My main pastime now is walking. Sometime back, I used to play football but I’ve given that up and the main thing I do these days is to walk. I enjoy walking long distances.”
“I also spend a lot of time on social media, chatting with my friends all over the world, having a good laugh, sharing jokes.”
On how he views his accomplishment, he says he hopes young Africans can learn a few lessons from his experience “It’ll be great if someone out there reads my story and says to himself, if Yaw Nsarkoh can achieve this, so can I”.