Founding President Fotabe University & Rome Business School Representative Cameroon

Founding President Rome Business School

Faculty members, Alumni, Parents, Ladies & Gentlemen and Graduating Class

Emotional and proud parents, emotional and proud friends and loved ones, 365 days ago we started this amazing program and today here we are to celebrate this achievement. After all the memories, and challenges like “I could not attend the class because internet was down, my laptop is bad, I can only use my phone because I don’t have a laptop” you my friends and colleagues you are here today. Today is a day to be thankful and to be inspired. Welcome to the stage and moments made for legends

Everyone here in the graduating class has had their own share of excitement and stories that they will carry along in their life. The teaching style, the lecturers, procedures actually surprised many.

On behalf of the graduating class I want to extend special thanks to the lecturers and administrative staff of Rome Business School, Fotabe University for your commitment and for going through the headaches we gave you. You know, if you have students that don’t give you headache you are not a teacher (smiles). Rome Business School and Fotabe University encourages curiosity and the pursuit of knowledge. In RBS environment, it is good to ask questions and it’s well worthwhile to find out the answers.

To parents, wives, husbands, brothers and sisters, fiances and fiancées, girlfriends and boyfriends thank you for your sponsorship, pocket money, providing food and your warm love. We appreciate you

The end of the line is the beginning of a new race. There is no elevator to success. You have to take the stairs. Your hard work and dedication has led you to the end of this particular race. For some of us we will continue working in our present institutions and eventually get a promotion, for some they will resign to get better offers, for job seekers they will strive to land their dream jobs and for entrepreneurs like myself we will strive to scale our businesses, serve the society and make more money but in whatever you decide to do or have decided to do, the beginning of this new race for you will not be a cake walk. People will say no to you, we will fail more times than we can count. But it is in our failures that we may learn our greatest lessons and achieve our greatest successes.

As we graduate today, in our hands, lies the success of many institutions, the Cameroon and African economy so it is our responsibility to commit our skill, talent and time to creating the value and change this nation and continent eagerly awaits. New dreams, new hopes and new possibilities are waiting, please don’t be a disappointment. We are the mechanism of our success. As President Barrack Obama once said “Change requires more than righteous anger. It requires a program and it requires organizing. Passion is vital, but you have got to have a strategy.”

As we graduate today, if all we learned are only financial statements, drafting marketing plans, developing business growth strategies, creating better execution processes then we have failed but we have also learned to build vital relationships, serve the society through the value we create, give hope to the next human being around us and always help in solving problems that the ease pain.

This MBA certificate doesn’t change much, but the person whose name is on the certificate needs to change and become better. You are made to create something extraordinary not the certificate, you were trained to become competent not just to have an MBA certificate. To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream, not only plan, but also believe.

My work for the past 6 to 7 years has put me in a place where I get to travel across the continent providing skills, business and corporate solutions. The uniqueness of the African continent’s emerging markets put young professionals like us graduating today at the cross road if we don’t step up our game and be part of the active economy.

The entrepreneurial drive in Africa is significantly larger than the rest of the world with new businesses springing up at an exponential rate. In 2014, a report created by the GEM Global Entrepreneurship Monitor showed that sub-Saharan Africa had the highest number of people involved in the early-stage entrepreneurial activity, therefore what can MBA students from Rome Business School in Cameroon do to effectively harness these opportunities

1. Give your life a cause greater than yourself.

2. Align yourself consistently with the current market conditions as a professional because if you don’t, you will lose your right to lead, and you won’t have the impact you desire.

3. Develop an innovative learning curriculum that will enable you to always grow in skill and competence

4. Follow the Japanese KAIZEN Law: Improving the world with everyone, everywhere and every day

Dear fellow graduates, today, we are part of the legacy of Rome Business School. The legacy of forming better managers and leading reforms in the business world. Take pride in how far you have come and have faith in how far you can go. Embrace new challenges, seize opportunities, do crazy things and have fun. We are the extraordinary people living in these extraordinary times. We are the “shapers” of the future.

Congratulations!!