LIONESS WEEKENDER COVER STORY
STRATEGIES!, a consultancy firm specializing in leadership and management solutions
Kah Walla is a Political Leader, Activist and Entrepreneur from Cameroon. She is the founder and CEO of the 26-year old consulting firm, STRATEGIES! and the current president of the Cameroon People’s Party (CPP) she joined in 2010. In 2011, she became the first woman to ever run for President of the Republic of Cameroon. She has been recognized with several awards: The Vital Voices Global Leadership Award in public Life (2012), the DVF Award (2014), and the Vital Voices Vanguard Award (2015).
Lionesses Weekender spoke to the inspirational Kah Walla this month to learn more about this impact driven entrepreneur and activist who is on a mission to bring African solutions to very important African challenges.
What does your company do?
STRATEGIES! is a 26-year-old consulting firm agency offering services in leadership, strategy and organizational development to multinational companies and development organizations on 5 continents. We like to define ourselves as “organizational doctors”. STRATEGIES! provides solutions to challenges faced by organizations and we walk hand-in-hand with our partners as they implement these solutions. Our headquarters are in Douala, Cameroon and we have a branch office in Washington DC, USA since 2017.
What inspired you to start your company?
Working with other colleagues in a consulting firm which was about to close down, we saw the opportunity to create STRATEGIES! in April 1995. We had the ambition to set up a consultancy firm specialized in leadership and management employing young Africans and able to compete with the best in the world. At that time, management consultants in Cameroon were mostly Westerners who were not always connected to local realities. Having made this observation, we were crazy enough to believe that a firm run by young Cameroonians could be competitive on the market. After 26 years of existence, multiple projects carried out in 43 countries with over 100 public and private organizations, we are proud to compete with the best consulting firms in the world in Leadership, Strategy and Organizational Development. In addition we have developed thematic expertise in key areas such as Peace & Security, Decentralization & Local Governance, Mining & Natural Resource Governance, Gender, Economic Development & Entrepreneurship, Agriculture, etc. We are very proud to be part of those bringing African solutions to these very important African challenges.
Why should anyone use your service or product?
As consultants working in the field of leadership and management in Africa, we have a deep understanding and mastery of the African context and its specific challenges. We also work in a global context and believe that African organizations must deliver excellence at global norms and standards.
STRATEGIES! is an African firm that delivers excellence at a global level, and we work with our clients and partners to do the same by combining international norms and standards with the specificities of the African continent.
STRATEGIES! also uses African history and culture to train on leadership even as we work with African Macro-Trends and success stories to build leadership and management skills in both public and private sector leaders.
Tell us a little about your team
At STRATEGIES! one of our key values is “We believe in People”. Our company has an amazing team of consultants who deliver the highest quality services to our clients and partners. They are multidisciplinary, professional, and bilingual. Always striving for excellence, they are dynamic and results-oriented. Our team is 100% African and usually at least 50% of our leaders and staff are women. Over our 26 years, we have employed over 70 people, giving many young Africans and particularly young African women their first opportunity at an international job.
Share a little about your entrepreneurial journey. And do you come from an entrepreneurial background?
My parents were both civil servants, but both of my grandmothers aside from being some of the most outstanding women I have known, were entrepreneurs. They both taught me the importance of financial independence. I learned that lesson well. I began my first company at 19 and have been an entrepreneur in one form or another since then. I was very lucky to have parents who, even though they spent a fortune on my education, did not have hang ups about big titles or fancy cars, so they did not force me into a 9 to 5 job. This gave me the freedom to take the risks and go through the very difficult first years that every entrepreneur knows.
What are your future plans and aspirations for your company?
STRATEGIES! is in its quantum leap period. We want to see exponential growth in the next 3-5 years. We have amassed a tremendous amount of knowledge, experience, and skills over the last 26 years. We are in a period where we want to make these assets more productive than ever. This means digitalization, expanding our market to individual consumers and conquering significant market segments online. We need to bring on new competencies that can help us with this. We have really amazing products, but to make the quantum leap, we must be able to package them and distribute to an online market. That is our next challenge!
What gives you the most satisfaction being an entrepreneur?
Helping a client find a solution for a very complex problem. Every single time. 26 years and that never gets old.
What's the biggest piece of advice you can give to other women looking to start-up?
Believe in yourself.
Do your homework. Know your market, understand your customers then determine what is your business model? How do you make money from your product or service? If you cannot figure this out on paper, it will not work in real life. If you can figure out a business model and how to make money on paper, there is a slight chance it will work in real life.
Entrepreneurship is about the ability to overcome failure. We fail all the time. It is how well you learn from your failure and how quickly you recover from it that will build your success.
Persevere. Believe in yourself. Again, and always.
To find out more about the work of STRATEGIES!, email to:
strategs@strategiesconsultingfirm.com or visit the company’s website and social media platforms:
