Entrepreneurship at a Global Scale: An Interview with Chrystèle Sanon, An Ecosystem Builder in Africa and the Caribbean

Our guest is someone who works in Africa and across the Caribbean, fostering innovation and entrepreneurship through business studios and incubators.

Chrystèle Sanon is a serial entrepreneur in her own right, supporting innovation and business incubation globally, with a concentration in Africa and the Afro-Caribbean. She is a founding member of United Afro Experts for Innovation, as well as the founder of QWAMPUS – Station F. QWAMPUS is a resource center for various stakeholders in business creation support. It enables them to quickly deploy their own digital incubator using the Incubation Management System software, educational formats to enhance their project leaders’ skills, and a library of branded videos and text content. Station F in Paris is the world’s largest startup campus. These are only two of many accomplishments.

Chrystele and I first met in Toronto in late 2023 at a conference on entrepreneurship and higher education hosted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. We then had an opportunity to sit down for a long conversation in Paris in February, which led to the idea for this podcast. It was immediately clear to me that her work and story needed to be shared with new audiences.

The conversation touches on a range of topics, including her strategic choices to address the needs of business incubators and studios, the energy and potential advantages of entrepreneurs from less economically developed countries, and the role incubators can play in encouraging collective action among creatives.

This program was edited by William Edwards. The music was written and performed by Ronnie Malley. Support for this program was provided by the Board of Directors of the Institute for Work & the Economy. The accompanying transcript was lightly edited.

Transcript

Entrepreneurship at a Global Scale: An Interview with Chrystèle Sanon, An Ecosystem Builder in Africa and the Caribbean

Chrystèle Sanon: [00:00:03] To me, entrepreneurship is not only about building a business, it's about building your life, choosing the choosing, the why, choosing the how, choosing with whom, and being an actor of your personal life.

Peter Creticos: [00:00:31] Welcome to the Many Futures of Work, a production of the Institute for Work and the Economy. I'm Peter Creticos, president of the Institute. Our podcasts invite people on the front lines to share their stories on workforce and economic development. The listener will gain insights into the thought processes of those who are making sense of these worlds. We believe this will help guide your own efforts.

[00:01:00] Today's podcast delves into innovation, entrepreneurship, and the systems that support it. The institute took its first leap into entrepreneurship in 2017 with our conference on the Many Futures of Work. It led to our engagement with the Kauffman Foundation's E-Ship Initiative on Entrepreneurship Ecosystem building, and later, on a project with the National Governors Association focusing largely on the gig economy. We continue to remain engaged in entrepreneurship initiatives through our board, especially Celia Wessinger, Kelsey Davis, Chipo Nyambuya, and Melody Lewis, as well as our most recently named Institute fellow, Amy Beeler.

[00:01:39] Today's guest is someone who works in Africa and across the Caribbean, fostering innovation and entrepreneurship through business studios and incubators. Chrystèle Sanon is a serial entrepreneur in her own right, supporting innovation and business incubation globally with a concentration in Africa and the Afro-Caribbean region. She is a founding member of United Afro Experts for Innovation, as well as the founder of Qwampus, Station F. Qwampus is a resource center for various stakeholders and business creation. It enables them to quickly deploy their own digital incubator using an incubation management system, software, and a library of branded videos and text content. Station F in Paris is the world's largest startup campus.

[00:02:34] Chrystèle and I met in Toronto in late 2023 at a conference on entrepreneurship and higher education hosted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. We had an opportunity to sit down for a long conversation in Paris in February, which led to the idea for this podcast. It was immediately clear to me that her work and story needed to be shared with new audiences.

[00:02:56] Chrystèle, welcome. Talk a little bit about your background and what brought you to where you are today in terms of your work?

Chrystèle Sanon: [00:03:07] First of all, I'd like to thank you, Peter, for having me on your podcast. I feel very honored. So I was born in the Caribbean, but I've been raised in Europe and particularly in France where the culture of entrepreneurship wasn't that, you know, common and especially for profile like me, I'm a former in-house lawyer, I studied law. So even if it was business law, but I wasn't really you know, comfortable with all those making money investment concepts, but the experience I had in this large media company, which is Lagardère Active,that you mentioned, provide me with a strong experience of what it takes and also how it works to create things, to create projects, and to create value.

[00:04:07] After 12 years, I decided to, to support entrepreneurs like all kind of entrepreneurs could be craftsmen you know, plumbers, but also architects. And I start supporting more and more startups founder and I discover, you know what, innovation, mainly tech innovation, but it could be also social innovation was, and I fell in love with this. And particularly because I could see those founders seeking to fix problems, our society problems. And yes, so I did that for many years. Until I get to the realization that entrepreneurs need support. This is what I was contributing to do. For instance, in France, we could say that incubation, it's it's something that's been around for 15, 20, or 20 years. So most of incubators, I could tell that they had no specific tools. They had no business model. They were they were depending on grants. And I decided to commit to, to, to support them instead of directly entrepreneurs to make sure I will have a real impact on my community first. And when I, you know, you know, when you're, you're aging, you want to, to, to do good to the more people possible. And I decided to extend my activities from Paris to those regions that were close to my heart, which are the Caribbean region and Africa.

Peter Creticos: [00:05:53] You mentioned that the that the incubators or various operations that are out there, that that house and designed to or intend to support entrepreneurs really lack the basic skills to be able to do that on a sustained basis. Can you talk a little bit about what those what those issues are?

Chrystèle Sanon: [00:06:11] I'm not sure that all those organizations, stakeholders have an experience. From what I've seen in Paris at least, and we are way less mature than the Silicon Valley that you guys have in the US. The people who were put in charge were more consultants. I've been a consultant all my life, so it's not on my you know, it's not my purpose to criticize. It's just to, to, to, to try to analyze how we can improve the, the system. So, and this is also something I experienced myself. I built my tech company in the biggest startup campus in the world, which is Station F .... As you say, is the biggest business school in France competing with, you know, some international business school in the world. And I've met those, those mentors who were way more experienced than me in, in, in being part of the business area, but not necessarily in building a venture. And, and and their question, their reflex and also their values were very interesting to analyze because when it comes to innovation, new founders, they have to innovate, they have to bring new business models. They have to think differently. And it's, it is critical that those organizations hire people who have enough critical thinking, enough openness to listen, to test and learn and come back with what they are supposed to build.

[00:07:55] You know, it reminds me that the example of these top management guy who were at J.C. Penney and, and no, who was working at Apple and, and and J.C.Penney were were facing difficulties and they hired, hired him and he crashed because he was seen as the successful guy who did. Right. And he was so confident he applied the same systems, the same approaches, and it didn't work. So to me, choosing the right people, the right mentors, the right coaches is very critical.

[00:08:35] Secondly, I would say that who, who are building incubators could be schools, but also institutions. But it is always something that is financed. And, and from what we, I experienced in France, very few incubators have their own business model, like their financial capacity to generate their own revenue because founders have no money at this very early stage. You are supporting entrepreneurs from grants. Your resources are limited, so your results are limited to. And after one, two, three years, funders will come to you and ask for results. And if you don't demonstrate that you did not build the next unicorn, at least 1 or 2 successful startups. And we know the the failure rate in the startup field, they will cut your grants, and then the new challenge will be for you to continue your mission. Your support mission, but with less resources until you get to improve. Definitely your support programs, your network, your capacity to bring services, your capacity to bring free tasks or free workforce to founders. And finally get them to a stage where they will be sustainable. So it is it is really not easy.

Peter Creticos: [00:10:15] The experience that I think a lot of organizations that are purpose-driven run into, whether it's, it's building an incubator system or an incubator itself or other sorts of socially focused programs, where you begin with the mission. And then you tried to build the business around it without figuring out what the business is in the first place, and then building that with the aim of achieving the mission people go in with with great intentions and then find that they don't have the individual capacity and understanding in terms of how to then translate that into action. I mean, we see this in entrepreneurship just generally where you have the founder, the founder is usually the worst person to run the business because the founder is the one who had this idea what it is and the purpose, but they they don't know how to execute it. We often don't think of that same problem existing for incubators. What's the approach that they should be taking in terms of their own viability?

Chrystèle Sanon: [00:11:23] I think that it is very strategic for those ecosystems to build communities of people who have common interests. If you are an incubator, you are supporting startups in a specific field. You need the the, the technical and the field expertise. It's not only about having a lawyer, having a fundraiser, having a marketing guy. It's about sticking to market realities. So communities will bring not only us, other founders in the same field, but also brings some field experts to founders. So it could also lead to open innovation initiatives. So to me, it's, it's, it's not only about building a very a perfect program that could be perfect for a training program or from the best business schools. I teach entrepreneurship, I teach innovation in seven business engineering management school in Paris. I love academics and I could go to school all my life. I love research and I think it brings so much value, so much insight, so much experience to to the field. But definitely it's about mixing teams, mixing the people, mixing founders. But I think that serendipity, you know, the fact that you could find what you don't even know you needed in other people.

Chrystèle Sanon: [00:13:01] And this is really important. And on the, on the economic side, I've been talking about incubation for a while now, but there's this model of venture studio, startup studio that gives more responsibility to those entrepreneurship support organization. It forces them to have this ecosystemic vision strategy as venture studio. Your mission is not only to support the In coming startups. It's to build the whole value chain is to be aware of what are the needed activities before the startup value proposition and after the, the start of value proposition and make sure that it, the way this startup is structuring its business will align with other stakeholders in the field. To me, when we, we, we talk about incubation, it cannot go without immediate necessity to, to, to start building ecosystem. And this is what I like about Station F. 4000 startups in one campus, even American, the GAFAM, as we call them, have they incubated there and, and these create a dynamic where, at the end of the day, you reach your goal faster than you think.

Peter Creticos: [00:14:39] Are there specific examples that that come to mind in terms of how these systems, as you're describing them, are made to work?

Chrystèle Sanon: [00:14:49] I've been part of others incubation,incubators dynamics, and, and the one I consider bringing more values to founders have multicultural, multi-sector approach. Multicultural means that startups wants to go you know, to, to, to enter foreign markets way faster than they used to. You know, people are traveling more and more. And sometimes you've been inspired by a foreign business during your vacation, whatever. And, and, and I've seen many startups finding their early adopters in foreign countries and succeeding after in France, could be in Belgium, could be Deutschland, still in Europe, in Asia, and then come back to Paris because they get this credibility and they demonstrate to peopl,e who were maybe less risk averse, you know, have more the early adopters mindset. So to me, this ecosystem, different pillars, seeing the world, the global market, first of all, and how does it works practically bringing startups abroad, doing learning expeditions. And this is very powerful because then they can start co-building, they can see different perspectives, test faster, learn faster, fail faster, and then rebuild the value proposition.

[00:16:32] You know, there's a word. There's a word I don't I think we have this conversation. There's a word I hate. Actually, I have to be honest. It's the word focus. I know I'm teaching, I have kids, I'm teaching. So I will never tell anyone to play around to, to, to go everywhere. And not having a plan and not defining KPIs. I will never say that, but this focus to me sometimes prevent people from capturing what other insights, you know, what other people, what other ecosystems could bring to you to create things, to create projects and to create value.

Peter Creticos: [00:17:18] Your focus has, has, has turned to Africa and the Caribbean. You're going from a, from a resource rich area to other parts of the world that have fewer resources or fewer obvious access to resources. Based on our conversations, you see, you see value in places that other people don't. How do you see the process unfolding over the next 510 years?

Chrystèle Sanon: [00:17:45] I think that those regions, and it could be true for most emerging markets. I think that they have a competitive advantage because even if you are a founder in France, you can have access to grants. You will not have access to to loans, to debt. And it's, it's hard also for, for people who are building startups in France, let's, let's say that first. But the competitive advantage that they have is that they, it is natural for those founders to have this lean approach to bootstrap, to to make value out of nothing. And to me, since I like challenges, it's, it's this is something I tell myself. Imagine those people had more resources. What would they do? They, they can come up with energy solutions. They come with health solutions, to transport solutions, out of necessity. And when you look, or at least the way I look at the world, and I see that on a common basis, resources like nature, natural resources, even natural resources are, you know, are decreasing. I think that we have a lot to learn from people who will identify very naturally what type of problem to address. It is also an, a competitive advantage for me personally, because you're coming from Europe, a more mature ecosystem. So the welcome is probably better for me as a as an individual. But I like challenge. I like to be at the beginning of things. I'm not pretending that I'm a beginning at anything in Africa. In the Caribbean. People never wait for me. But still, it's a, it's a, at an early stage. And, and I think that if you are a person looking for impact who like to design solutions and my whole life I've been, you know.., I'm, I'm comfortable with talking at United Nations at OECD, but my thing is immediately to go back home and try to design a solution, a system. But because I believe in system, if you want change to come faster. I think we need system for the community.

Peter Creticos: [00:20:23] The challenge that I kind of think about is that the gravity is pulling those organizations, you know, those individuals into what can be more restrictive structures. They become victims of their own success and can potentially be thwarted in their own growth because they have become somewhat formalized. And I'm wondering, how do you keep the energy going and at the same time, live within Western dominated financial structures and systems and business arrangements and so forth?

Chrystèle Sanon: [00:21:01] My question would be to try to answer to your question would be, what makes Western countries more comfortable, more advanced in terms of infrastructure, in terms of health capacity, medical capacity, in terms of education? It is the tax systems. So now I think that the main challenge is to bring on board those gigs in Africa and in the Caribbean and demonstrate to them that the social impact, the social support, the social value they're bringing at small scales could drive way more impact at a national level. And this is a challenge. This is at the the collective level, but at the individual level too, being a gig can be and being an entrepreneur out of necessity in Abidjan, in Ivory Coast, in Benin, in, in Kenya, in South Africa. I know that some people are making big money. Actually, I've learned that, but it will not take you that far. And what if you could raise the bar of your ambition? What if you could be 100% part of the modernisation? You will have as a community to define what is modernity for you. It's not only about, you know, copying and pasting the Western models, but at least I think that some dreams are universal no matter where you are on the planet.

Chrystèle Sanon: [00:22:43] You are wishing the same thing for your kids. 30 years ago, if someone would think about Africa and the Caribbean, we could imagine the Caribbean region with the nice you know beaches, particularly because they are part of France. If you take the French West Indies. But it could be a real surprise for people to, to, you know, to, to leave the beaches and to get into the cities and to see how in Guadeloupe, people have no access to water. I've been to Guadeloupe with my kids three years ago on vacation, I spent three weeks with pools, nice restaurants, but we had two days per week to take showers with bottles. So it's not only an entrepreneur's responsibility to fix those problems. It's a state. It's a public responsibility. But but then when the public system cannot make the work because of many reasons, it's very interesting to see how entrepreneurs are, you know, the alternative and this is what I really appreciate.

Peter Creticos: [00:23:51] This has taken a great turn and I appreciate this conversation, because what you're basically saying is that the emerging business leaders that are supported through incubators and other devices are potentially the ones that can drive the idea of greater collective action. I would think that part of the challenge though, is that getting those who are beginning to succeed, to stay and to see that their best hope is, is in staying and growing. Other than leave and sort of take their their business and grow it elsewhere. I think, I mean, I see this as a challenge in rural USA. I see this in challenge in other places where the perception of opportunity is such that you have to take it to where the money is and where the market is. Is there a role for for businesses and studios and those kinds of organizing groups to foster stay at home growth?

Chrystèle Sanon: [00:24:54] If you choose a local problem, your market will be local. If you choose to serve a project that is, you know, addressing one of the SDGs, then you have a natural global market because it addresses your national market and the international one, no matter what, where you are, bringing value. It will at some point bring value to the place you belong. Look at France. France. Like when you have. We have a good engineers that couldn't find the best opportunities at the beginning of its careers. As soon as they get abroad in the US, in Asia and get experience, they will find opportunities, they will find people that will call them back and they will come back stronger, not only with their own skills, but also enriched by the culture they've made. The new processes the new approaches, the new strategies. So this is a challenge for countries now to keep their talents. You know, if you look at France, the way we lose our industries, because we thought at some point that it was a good investment, we had a strategy at this moment. And now we realize 20, 30 years later that we should have kept those industries. And we, we, we, we realize also that our investment in education in growing some good engineers is now is now serving all the other countries more than it is actually serving us. We have we have so few unicorns in France. We are depending on, on all the, you know, digital American services. And now it's, it's a big question.

Chrystèle Sanon: [00:27:02] So I see your point. But to be honest I think that it's, not only about how you treat entrepreneurs like founders or new new talents. I think it's a whole economic economical strategy that a country has to, to think very precisely and having a long term vision. You know, what is interesting as a former in-house lawyer who studied law, a technical, you know practice, we have rules, we have frameworks, we have systems serving the frameworks. After 12 years, I decided to, to support entrepreneurs like all kind of entrepreneurs. Everyone kept talking about the vision, the vision, the vision. I was like, okay, please, okay, we're not going to spend like hours talking about vision. Let's build things. And the more I understand how, how much it is important to have this vision, this clear vision, this shared vision, and what you're talking about, the way countries are choosing their focus. It's about vision. How do you see it and what what you consider a priority, what you consider strategic. It is critical. It is political more than anything. Even if we're talking about business, it is educational. And this is why I think that what you're doing, you know, and the importance of creators of podcasts in all countries now, we need to either to improve for Western countries or to reinvent for Western countries, but also to define for emerging markets clear vision. There's a saying that that says what is not planned will not happen.

Peter Creticos: [00:29:08] Well, that does it for today. Thank you to my guest, Chrystèle Sanon. I look forward to future collaborations with her. Also, thanks to William Edwards, who directs and edits this podcast. Support for today's podcast is provided by the Board of Directors of the Institute. You can learn more about the Institute at www.workandeconomy.org. Your comments and financial support are welcome. Finally, you are welcome to contact me directly at creticos@workandeconomy.org. Thank you for listening and have a great day.