How Many Lives Can $150 Million Transform?

One SEED business coach smiles for the camera at the Vester Oil Mills facility in Kumasi, Ghana.

A mini-EMBA and pro bono consulting 

Right now, the companies are nearly done with the Transformation Program, which resembles a condensed Executive MBA program. Every other month, SEED sends a Stanford professor to Ghana to run key parts of it. (The involvement of the professors is likely a huge expense.) The immersion week introduced participants to the idea of the mindset shift and design thinking. Later topics have included strategy and operations, governance, finance, accounting, marketing, and investment, and more. “What we’ve designed is something that we think covers the core subjects,” Addy says. “We’re not teaching it like regular courses. It’s all experiential learning.”

Meanwhile, the companies receive pro bono consulting from people SEED calls “business coaches.” They relocate to Ghana and work with the companies from six months to a year. “This is not just a matter of mentorship,” Addy says. “This is a matter of waking up in the morning and going into the companies and working with them and saying, ‘Okay, how do we reimagine this business? Based on what we have, where else could it go to satisfy our need for transformation of lives?’”

The thing is, the coaches are volunteers. In spite of their expertise, SEED simply covers their living costs. It’s a little surprising, considering the institute isn’t exactly strapped for cash. What’s these coaches’ motivation? “I tease them and say it’s their ego,” Addy jokes. But on a more serious note, he adds that volunteers are usually looking for a challenge, for a higher purpose. “Essentially, the people—even including the professors—who’ve gone and been part of this say, ‘My gosh, this is one of the most meaningful things I’ve done,’” he says. “Your impact is not on the margins. Your impact is central to somebody’s life.”

One can only assume these volunteers are either relatively wealthy or retired. But in spite of the success they might’ve enjoyed, building a business in the United States doesn’t always prepare someone for the challenges of working in the developing world. For example, Manoj Sinha, the founder of Husk Power Systems, faced a few surprises while operating in one of India’s poorest states—and he actually grew up there. “I was in a business ethics class where you say no to bribes, you say no to this and that,” Sinha says. “When you are operating in rural areas that have five levels of government officials, how do you deal with it, practically speaking?”

The new heroes of entrepreneurship  

Still, SEED is making an admirable effort to make sure the centers benefit locals and Stanford-affiliated people alike. “Most universities and business schools now have trips abroad, and [MBAs] get two weeks or something—they learn a lot,” Addy says. “But what we hear from the ground is that the businesses that they visit do not feel that they get as much out of it as the students do.” Soon—although Addy hasn’t specified when—SEED will allow MBAs to spend a summer at the center, as opposed to getting “thrown out there into random companies,” he explains. That’ll likely be a huge improvement.

SEED’s East Africa center is scheduled to be up and running this year. There’s talk of putting centers in South Asia and Central America as well. Before SEED expands beyond Sub-Saharan Africa, though, Addy wants to see how well the current model works. “You can get a pretty early measure of, ‘Have they changed what they’re doing? Have they put themselves on a different path?’” In other words: Is Stanford’s fairy dust sticking?

Robert King, the original donor, said he’ll feel that SEED’s really on its way once it has changed 200 million lives. (For the record, that’s $0.75 per life—not bad.) Addy takes a broader view. “Here in Silicon Valley, entrepreneurship is a glorious thing,” he says. “In most of the world, entrepreneurship is something you do after you’ve failed getting a job with the government or the U.N. or something.” He wants that to change: He wants entrepreneurship in developing countries to be about building something consequential. “It doesn’t really take a whole lot,” he says. “Just a few companies achieving success—they become the new heroes. So when we begin to do that, I’ll feel we’re getting there.”

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