Ajen Sita
Chief Executive, Ernst & Young (EY) Africa
With Onome Amawhe
Ajen Sita, CEO of EY Africa, is a driving force behind Africa’s economic integration. His unwavering commitment led to a landmark $100 million investment in EY’s Africa operations, transforming the continent’s business landscape. This strategic move sparked the establishment of multiple offices across key markets and acquisitions, significantly expanding EY’s market reach and reinforcing its pan-African presence. Under Sita’s visionary leadership since 2010, EY Africa has experienced unprecedented growth, navigating complex markets and fostering business resilience. Now, he spearheads the innovative “NextWave Strategy,” ushering in a new era of expansion, digital transformation and sustainable growth. As a premier provider of professional services, EY continues investing in Africa’s skills development, fostering talent and innovation. This commitment strengthens Africa’s business ecosystem, attracting further investments and driving prosperity. Through Sita’s leadership, EY Africa remains at the forefront of shaping the continent’s economic future.
How is EY’s vision shaping up Africa?
EY has completed the integration of our country practices across SubSaharan Africa under a single leadership team. This structural change has been a catalyst for growth and transformed the way we serve our clients. We have moved to the next phase of our growth strategy, what we call NextWave Strategy, our strategy to transform elements of our service delivery anchored in providing our people with exceptional experiences, investments in technology, teaming, and client experiences.
To what extent has EY fulfilled its purpose of “building a better working world in the region?”
As a firm we have committed ourselves to a purpose of ‘building a better working world’ and this commitment is more relevant than ever. Post the pandemic, businesses are dealing with some unique challenges. Talent scarcity and the Great Resignation are topics on the mind of every business leader. How to retain best talent to continue to provide exceptional service delivery to clients means that all leaders need to be thinking differently and innovatively about the career proposition that we offer our people. One size fits all is no longer an option. I am excited to see the progress we can make in this area.
Equally, trust in the world is at an all time low
How do you characterize “a better working world”?
We believe a better working world is one where economic growth is sustainable and inclusive. We look at this through three lenses: our clients, our people, and society. We work with each of them to solve their most pressing challenges. For our clients it is about innovating solutions to deal with complexity, for our people it’s about the learning and leadership opportunities we give them and for society it is about how we bring trust to the Capital Markets.
Why does EY believe that predicting the future is less important than creating”?
One thing that the past two years have taught us is that we are helping to navigating a world that is hard to predict. All we really know is that everything is constantly evolving. If you spoke to four different economists and asked them to predict something like the currency fluctuation you would likely get four different responses. So, while I think predicting the future is challenging, I think preparing and creating a new future is exciting for those who are willing to plan for it and are open to transformation. Companies know they need to transform.
How is EY managing some of the disruptions caused by technology in emerging markets such as Africa?
We are embracing it. Over past centuries, disruptive innovation has resulted in improved living standards in the long term. Businesses and governments have vast opportunities to help drive the economic growth that comes with innovation. Technology will be a significant differentiator in Africa and we are investing significantly in digitizing our own business and in solutions that we develop for our clients. Across the world, new technologies are revolutionizing businesses and transforming entire industries as they address digital disruption.
How should we define business responsibility in the digital age?
In the digital age, business has a real role to play in partnering with society. Traditionally, the primary responsibility of a business was to create financial value for its shareholders, and that was enough. I think in this age of sustainability, digital things are different. Today, companies should create value for many stakeholders to succeed.
Shareholder value is still critically important – but isn’t separate from a company’s impact on its people, its communities, and more. Businesses can fulfill this responsibility in several ways, whether through employees serving as ambassadors to customers and their communities or through their social impact by sponsoring education, mentoring, and other community initiatives with other organizations.
How important is innovation for EY?
It is part of the DNA of our business. EY has been in operation for more than 150 years, and innovation is the one common thread that has ensured continued success. By constantly innovating, and investing in new markets, new technologies, and new solutions, we have been able to remain relevant and distinctive across the markets that we operate in.
Why is consulting shifting from ideas to outcomes these days?
Fundamentally, people want results and execution over theory and ideas. We realized this some time ago and introduced our wave spaces, which are essentially spaces designed to generate possibilities in your business, find answers faster and align people for decision-making— whether your goal is to grow, transform or disrupt. We like to bring people from our client organizations together with us to interact with ideas, technology, and each other. The difference is that this interaction is not only an idea generator but solves problems and leads to meaningful outcomes
What is your biggest leadership challenge driving EY’s goals in the region?
I believe that we need to see a more integrated Africa as a region. I think we have an opportunity to create significant market access gains but we need to have better trade committees, infrastructure, and investmen in place to make this happen. EY has a strong presence in Africa, operating in multiple countries with a strong leadership team in place who are excited about the potential the continent can bring.
How has EY managed to sustain its relevance with clients?
Primarily I think with a trusted relationship. Our clients trust that EY has their best interests at heart and this is demonstrated in the type of work we can do. Through our purpose and our intent to be distinctive in our markets, we are focused on remaining relevant to society. This may mean that clients appreciate our ongoing investment into new solutions or leading with our digital transformation efforts or other things that may be relevant to them. At the end of the day it comes down to trust.
What’s EY’s philosophy on the best way to train employees to be better leaders?
We invest heavily into the training and development of our people but it really comes down to four things; learning, experiences, coaching, and relationships. Our learning programmes are best of breed and we require our people to be on a continual learning journey at EY. However, this can take many forms and whether it is a training course, an international assignment, or a leadership development programme – our people have access to them all.
Our employees are looking to us to educate and empower them and so we have also introduced digital credentials known as EY Badges to help people develop skills related to emerging technologies that will benefit them throughout their careers. I take a personal interest in coaching our future leaders and expect the same commitment from my leadership team.
What are your ideas about the workplace of the future?
I am personally inspired by the workplace of the future. We have a young demographic in our business and a truly globalized workforce. This enables us to make agile decisions around our spaces which are embraced by our people and supported by our clients which is encouraging. We have worked hard to make our environments flexible including our office locations, enabling our people to “work from anywhere” and digitally enabling our workforce to ensure they have the tools they need to do their job effectively. Is there anything that scares you about the workplace of the future? Primarily that it is coming too slowly! Talking about it and delivering against it are not always the same thing. If we are to continue to attract the best talent and deliver the best solutions to our clients, we need to enable our people in the best way that we can.
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