As the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA) celebrates its first anniversary, SMEs and Start-ups in Africa must seize the opportunity to Rethink, Retool, Innovate, Digitalize and Transform.

AfCFTA, which creates an African market for 1.2 billion people and a gross domestic product (GDP) of $2.5 trillion across all 55 member States of the African Union, presents an enormous potential for the African private sector. The market also unleashes the potential of SMEs and Start-ups on the continent, especially those led by women and young people who are tapping into the regional supply and value chains, and exploring the opportunities presented by AfCFTA.

The 4th Strategic Leader’s summit, coming one year after the launch of AfCFTA, is to create a common platform for all SMEs, Start-ups, Policy makers, professionals and scholars to review the market penetration and innovation potentials for businesses in Africa in the current technology-led global economy.

The theme for the summit is “Africa’s SMEs and Start-ups post AfCFTA: Rethink, Retool, Innovate, Digitalize and Transform”. To deliver the keynote is the world’s second-best Innovation Management scholar, Professor Atuahene-Gima.

Professor Kwaku Atuahene-Gima is Founder, President & Distinguished Professor of Innovation, Strategy & Marketing at Nobel International Business School (NIBS) in Accra, Ghana. Kwaku has over 30 years of experience in university teaching and research across several countries in Australia, the UK, the US, Singapore, Germany, China and Hong Kong. He is currently visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the Mannheim Business School and Frankfurt School of Finance and Management.

World Recognition

Kwaku ranks as the world’s Number 2 innovation management scholar based on single-authored research papers published in the Top 10 business and management journals. He is on the prestigious list of World’s Top 2% Scientists published according to an October 16^th,2020 publication by a Stanford University research team. The report acknowledges scientists whose published research has made the most outstanding contribution to knowledge in their respective fields.  Of the over 36,000 Top 2% scientists in the business and management discipline in the world, Kwaku is ranked in the Top 150.

His credentials include the following also:

• among the world’s top 10 doctoral faculty in Marketing (scholars whose work is most cited by marketing doctoral students).
• among the top 20 scholars worldwide with the most citations in the entrepreneurship literature.
• named number 1 scientist in Ghana by the European Union, based on the number of Google citations.

In June 2006, he was an invited faculty participant in executive education on innovation at the Harvard Business School.

To date, Kwaku is the first and the only African scholar ever to have served on the Editorial Review Board of the American Journal of Marketing, the world’s leading marketing journal (July 2006 – June 2014). In November 2015, Kwaku was appointed a member of the International Expert Panel of the Russian Science Foundation (RSF).

He is currently an Associate Editor of the Journal of Product Innovation Management (JPIM), the world’s leading innovation journal.

 Kwaku has been interviewed by, and written for, the Financial Times of London, International Herald Tribune, the 21 Century Business Herald, Global Entrepreneur, China Daily, the Economist, BBC, CCTV, El Mundo of Spain, China Business News, the New York Times, Wall

Register here to join in the discussion on how SMEs and Start-ups in Africa can rethink, retool, innovate, digitalize, and transform post AfCFTA.

REGISTER HERE.

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