Appointing a VC is not necessarily the responsibility of the people in the university alone. The people who are in charge of university system, the ministers and so on also have a say. They also have a responsibility to see that there is law and order and ensure they themselves appoint responsible people.

The VC is also responsible for administrative action and is the chief financial officer of the university. When things go wrong financially, the VC is held responsible. Those are the tripartite responsibilities of a vice-chancellor.

Good VCs should be their own media.

My appointment as Acting Vice Chancellor constantly reminds me that my great Founder wants a credible, selfless, honest leader who buys into his vision of running a university that will show Nigerians how a university should be run to pilot the affairs of the university as a Vice Chancellor.

Harvard is an asset management business cloaked as a college.
but if you are a start-up, do you want VC money funded by Harvard?

As the first female vice-chancellor of the university, it comes with a lot of responsibility and expectations. Many people want to see what a female vice-chancellor can do. There are also high expectations from people who think the university is too complex for a woman to run.

In the current dispensation that the University of Cape Coast is championing the entrepreneurship drive, students need to add value to themselves by gaining both hard and soft skills necessary to ensure their holistic moulding into responsible citizens.

Am I not a professor? I earned a PhD but there are professors who did not earn a PhD. I am stepping on toes. I am a woman and this is the first time a woman will act as VC. I understand that some people are not happy. I was mile ahead of my colleagues in the interview. Is it my fault that I am sound and that I am appreciated?

venture capital is actually team sport.
the Midas Award goes to a person, not a firm. that’s insane and will change.

Upon joining Venture for America, we ask our fellows to adopt the following credo: My career is a choice that indicates my values. There is no courage without risk. Value creation is how I measure achievement. I will create opportunity for myself and others. I will act with integrity in all things.

As a venture capitalist, I have had the freedom to say what I want and what I really think without worrying what everybody else thinks. As a CEO, there is no such luxury. As CEO, I had to worry about what everybody else thought. In particular, I could not show weakness in public. It would not have been fair to the employees, the executives, or the public company shareholders. Unrelenting confidence was necessary.

VCs must find the handful of companies that will successfully go from 0 to 1 and then back them with every resource.

I do not know what has happened that people are struggling to become vice chancellors. It looks as if law and order are no longer there. It looks like the respect is no longer there. People struggle to gain this high position not necessarily because of what they have achieved, but because they also want to be there to be able to call the shot and so on.

Why did so few startup advisers and venture capitalists have any experience starting companies? As these thoughts rolled around in my head, I sent Marc Andreessen an instant message: “We ought to start a venture capital firm. Our motto for general partners would be ‘some experience required’ as in some experience in founding and running companies is required to advise people who are founding and running companies.” To my surprise, he replied, “I was thinking the same thing.