May 21, 2025
Around 3,000 leaders from across Africa and around the world gathered in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, on May 12 and 13 for the Africa CEO Forum, the largest annual event dedicated to the continent’s private sector. This year’s program featured a full slate of thought-provoking presentations, strategic debates and high-level meetings addressing major business development issues.
One of the highlights of the event was a strategic roundtable entitled “A workforce for digital and industrial growth: Realizing ROI in talent development” with a focus on training and unlocking the value of human capital. The discussion, which was moderated by Michelle Vaillancourt, Director of Communications and Programs at Executive Education HEC Montréal, brought together leading education, human resources and industry experts.
The speakers talked about the strategic role of executive education in developing talent in Africa and offered some concrete recommendations to maximize these impacts.
An innovative study on talent management in Africa
The discussion was further enriched with a presentation on the results of a study entitled Talent in Africa: Today’s Challenges, Tomorrow’s Opportunities.
“This extensive study was conducted by École des dirigeants Afrique, a joint initiative between Executive Education HEC Montréal and BEM Executive Education, with the goal of better addressing the training-related needs of African businesses. We surveyed CEOs and C-level HR executives across Africa. Being attuned to what our partners are looking for is a top priority for our teams,” said Fara Sakho (BEM Executive Education) and Serge Lafrance (Executive Education HEC Montréal), the Directors of École des dirigeants Afrique.
The findings of the study, as presented by Vaillancourt, revealed a strong commitment to investing in training, although they also indicated a significant gap between supply and demand.
“What these figures show is cause for concern: 79% of the leaders surveyed said that training their teams was something they were eager to do, but the options available to them were scarce or largely incompatible with their needs. That means there’s a glaring mismatch between what African businesses want to achieve and the means at their disposal to make it happen. If we hope to build something durable, this gap has to be bridged.”
Four key challenges
A total of 112 African leaders responded to the survey. An analysis of their feedback shows that they face four key challenges:
- Recruitment: 70% say that the competition for talent is fierce. And although 85% would like to recruit locally, 48% have trouble doing so.
- Skills development: The top HR priorities that respondents named were training (70%), employee engagement (50%), adaptation to new technology (36%), better work conditions (35%) and recruitment (30%). The skills they feel it is important to focus on are leadership, strategy, innovation, digital transformation and change management.
- AI integration: 60% consider AI to be a major HR challenge.
- Training budgets: 79% don’t have access to sufficient funds to train their staff, even though 85% hope to increase HR investments over a short-term horizon.
Concrete solutions to drive change
Weighing in on the troubling implications of these findings were speakers Debbie Goodman, CEO of Jack Hammer Global; Hicham El Habti, President of University Mohammed VI Polytechnic (UM6P); Folawe Omikunle, Ambassador — Africa, Teach for All; Nglan Leke Niat, Group Chief Human Resources Officer, Dangote Industries; Erika Achum, CEO, Falcon Aerospace Limited; and Cheikh Mohamed Elkarachi, President and CEO, Elkarachi Holdings. They proposed concrete ways forward to turn challenges into opportunities for sustainable growth.
- Investing intelligently in training
Putting clear performance and ROI indicators in place and leveraging custom training programs developed to meet businesses’ specific needs. Supporting these efforts with tax incentives and strong public-private partnerships. - Creating environments that foster retention
Developing local innovation-oriented ecosystems and providing a stable environment from a political, health and educational perspective in order to keep talent in place. - Making employee engagement a strategic priority
Making work meaningful, valuing individual contributions and ensuring there are real opportunities for growth to encourage a sense of loyalty and belonging.
“Talent goes where opportunity thrives.”
- Hicham El Habti, University Mohammed VI Polytechnic
Businesses need to rethink the employee experience beyond recruitment. To be able to retain the best talent, they have to find ways to make this experience rich, provide clear career paths forward and ensure there are tangible and meaningful recognition practices in place.
Executive education grounded in African realities
At the end of the roundtable, the speakers stressed the importance of ensuring that executive education was in sync with the local context to ensure the greatest impact. They agreed that training is about more than teaching new skills; it’s about making solutions available to respond to challenges specific to Africa and helping to support in-depth change within organizations.
“École des dirigeants Afrique emerged from a clear need to offer a structured, ambitious response tailored to uniquely African realities. Through this context-based approach, we can train leaders who will then be equipped to take impactful action within their ecosystem and actively contribute to Africa’s economic and social development.”
“We are building concrete solutions that have been designed for people who want to take action here and now. The business community keeps telling us that training should be built around their specific needs if it is to have a real impact. That is why our approach is custom-tailored to, and developed in conjunction with, our partners.”
Africa is in the midst of a significant and swift transformation. Investing in talent is no longer an option; it’s a strategic necessity. The study and these conversations show that institutions, businesses and governments must work closely together to train, motivate and engage the leaders who will lead the continent forward.
At the Africa CEO Forum, Michelle Vaillancourt, Director of Communications and Programs, Executive Education HEC Montréal, moderated a strategic roundtable entitled “A workforce for digital and industrial growth: Realizing ROI in talent development”.
➲ Read the full survey report - Talent in Africa: Today’s Challenges, Tomorrow’s Opportunities.
➲ Learn more about what we are doing in Africa through the École des dirigeants Afrique website.