Yaw Nsarkoh, managing director, Unilever East and Southern Africa

Source: http://www.howwemadeitinafrica.com

1. What was your first job?

My first job was working in the factory as a shift manager in Unilever Ghana.

2. Who has had the biggest impact on your career and why?

Several people have had a big impact on my career. For this moment I will probably give the credit to my parents who formed my view about life, gave me values, and gave me good training and appreciation of hard work and effort. I will also credit the support of my immediate family; my wife and my children. I have also had some very good mentors in my career.

3. What parts of your job keep you awake at night?

Due to volatility I do invest a lot of time in trying to understand the environment around me and question myself on whether we are planning in adequate ways to be able to cope with that. This keeps me awake sometime as a result of some amount of worry, but I am also kept awake for positive reasons like when I see young people join [Unilever with] very bright futures ahead of them and the energy that they have. I consider it a privilege to be able to play a role in that.

4. What are the top reasons why you have been successful in business?

I would think that I like to listen and observe and learn and that is important in the context of business. The rest is better for others to judge.

5. What are the best things about your country?

I guess the starting point is which is my country? I haven’t been in Ghana for some time now so I kind of consider Kenya also to be my country and I have worked in so many places and I consider them all to be my country. I would say the friendliness of the people. Interestingly I would give the same answer for Kenya as for Ghana. I only remember I am not Kenyan when people ask me: “How do you find Kenya?”