Hi all,
It’s been a while since I’ve seen you all. Time is flying by so quickly—how are we already wrapping up Q1 of 2019?!?! I’ve been busy test running this new decade of my life, and I have to say THIRTY IS REALLY AWESOME. In addition to being able to say “in my 20s I…”, with the utmost authority, I’m experiencing a level of calm with the way things are in my life right now that is really grounding.
My older friends and dear mentors have always told me that when I stop rushing through life, I’ll be surprised at how much time I have…and I finally ‘get it’. I’m not yet living my best life every day, but I’m not beating up on myself so much for spending some Monday mornings in a post weekend slump, I just have a shorter to-do list and accept upfront the things that will simply not get done.
I have three exciting updates from this side of 30…
(1) I’ve picked my McKinsey industry ‘home’—agriculture and food. My experience on the toughest study ever was transformative and I’ve committed to the agriculture practice at the firm. Since I last blogged, I’ve spent most of my time between:
+ seeing the 10-year national government agricultural strategy in one of my favorite African countries into its last lap (President should be signing it any day now!), AND
+ designing growth and market entry strategies for private sector food and/or input players in Africa
I’ve published a couple of neat things along the way—check out this McKinsey.com article that I co-wrote (Winning in Africa’s agriculture market), and the Harvard Business Review (HBR) published Africa’s Business Revolution (ABR) book—yours truly in the acknowledgements. Shout out to the incredible McKinsey communications and digital publishing teams I led on all the book launch and go-to-market strategy. What a talented group of people!
You’ll have to read my next post for the second and third reflections!
Amandla
P.S. The above photo is post-workout session with my latest team (food processor based in Accra). We eat hard and work out hard!