Building Africa Through Technical Talent: A Chat with Andela Co-Founder Christina Sass

Ebola. Corruption. Civil War. Danger. Africa: The Hopeless Continent. 

Sound familiar? Over the past century this is the lens through which the Western World has viewed and repeatedly portrayed the entire continent of Africa. Many who subscribe to this viewpoint have never visited the continent or perhaps even met someone born in Africa. If they had they’d quickly realize how drastic their misperceptions are. For instance, as Ashish Thakkar points out on Inside Africa, only 3 of Africa’s 54 countries have an Ebola issue. Instead of hopelessness, they’d see a group of independent nations driven by hustle, access to information, mobile technology, a deep desire to give back, and exceptional talent. In reality The Economist’s re-visited headline: Africa Rising, The Hopeful Continent, is far more fitting.

Unfortunately, it takes us far longer to unlearn our truths, than it does for us to learn them in the first place. As a result our perceptions are steeply ingrained in business decision-making. This leads most company's to prioritize every possible other region, starting with BRICs (Brazil, Russia, India, China). Even the progressive mindset suggests that Africa won’t be viable as a marketplace, investment, or source of talent for another 5 or more years. 

Yet this couldn’t be further from the truth. As Christina Sass Co-Founder and COO of Andela states:

 “The biggest challenges is changing hearts and mind about Africa as a source of talent. The value proposition is clearly there and this shouldn’t come as any surprise to you but there is resistance in thinking of the continent as a viable source of world class talent. People just don’t believe it at first.”

Andela is a Nigerian-based software company which trains developers in Lagos, Nigeria and Nairobi, Kenya, to then work for elite-technology and business companies for rotating year-long contracts. Today Andela is widely heralded as an success story as a socially transformative and financially sustainable company. This was only accentuated by their recent Series B fundraising round of 24 Million, including an investment from Mark Zuckerberg.

The problem in Africa is often misattributed to talent or economic opportunity (e.g. enterprise and business), when in fact neither is true. African nations have both incredible talent and a strong entrepreneurial spirit which creates economic opportunities. The real problem is bridging the two together: essentially the connective tissue. It’s a conclusion that’s visible, even to visitors, particularly in booming capitals like Nairobi, Accra, Lagos, Kampala, and Addis Ababa, to name a few. 

Christina and the founding team at Andela (Jeremy, Ian, Iyinoluwa, Brice, and Nadayar) saw this gap in reality and perception of Africa and were able to see a parallel to a trend that no one saw a relation too: The Global Technical Talent War. In 2011 Marc Andressen famously coined “Software is Eating the World” and that was just the tip of the iceberg. According to TechCrunch 1 in every 20 job opening in the United States today is for a software developer, and this demand shows no signs of slowing. This has created a massive hole in the talent marketplace as Christina points out: "There’s 1.89 million open jobs for developers alone in the United States.”

With Andela, Christina saw an opportunity to fill that hole and simultaneously transform the system of education offered on the continent: 

" We saw an opportunity in online education and localized training programs with the right subjects to built a disruptive talent pipeline on the continent.” - Christina Sass

Christina’s vision for education is a product of a lifetime in the education sector:

"Over the course of 10 years working on the ground, I was constantly in conversations with young people in these critical educational transition phases like high school or college. I listened and grew from each conversation and swung from the vantage point of an idealistic educator to looking for educational outcomes or opportunities for young people that lead to tangible job and economic access. If we cannot provide students with jobs post-education then our education systems have failed.”

Christina saw that the best way to ensure the optimal educational outcome was to train ambitious and talented Africans in a field there would always be a demand in: software. As such, Andela defines it’s mission as training 100,000 developers on the continent over the next 10 years.

Christina’s vision doesn’t stop there. Training and company placements is a model that can only be scaled with deliberation, and the team at Andela is striving to have a far greater reach. Enough to truly transform the continents talent pipeline: 

"We are on target to crack the nut of how you find and transform a world class developer. Our current model will not scale to 100,000 in terms of the subset of people who work with clients through Andela. But the framework and exact tools to transform a world class software developer from any stage is something we are developing. That is what will get us to a stage where we can successfully reach 100,000 developers and provide them with the tools they need.”

Imagine that? A large percent of the world’s most sought out talent coming from Africa. Actually, it’s not too surprising given that by 2050 Africa will have 2.4 billion people and projects to have a 6 percent year over year growth in GDP in the coming years. Both trends that Christina and the Andela team are well-positioned to take advantage of as they continue too build their world-class software training program. 

Andela plans to graduate their first class in 2018 and from there the ripple effects of their work will be even more exponential as Christina notes: 

"While we have yet to observe what our developers do after Andela, as our program is four years, our goal is to empower the next generation of technology leaders across the globe. Whether they take their talents to the companies they've been placed with through Andela, or focus their efforts on impacting their local economy, we are confident that they will follow their passions to change the world with skills and abilities gained through Andela.”

Andela recognized the massive opportunity that Africa provides the rest of the world, and were able to capitalize on it, most recently being recognized as FastCompany’s most innovative company focused on Africa in 2017. Andela’s success is attributable to many factors but at its core is a willingness to challenge assumptions. It's a valuable lesson for aspiring entrepreneurs, businesses, and just about anyone, as the largest opportunities lie in reimagining what people ‘know’ to be true.

I've been a huge Andela fan for a long time. When I started this interview series they were one of a handful of companies that I was determined to include. Fortunately my good friend Paul Diarye was able to make introductions to Christine Magee and Justin Burr on Andela's communications team and they ensured that Christina and I were able to connect for an interview. Check out the full excerpt below where we chat about Christina's role, Andela's growth, industry trends, personal practices, and much more.

SG: Christine, you do a lot of different things, how would you describe what you do? Basically a day in your life...

CS: A day in the life of Christina involves a lot of looking out for the health and wellness of all our developers. I also always want to make sure they are feeling motivated and inspired by what they are doing and the vision moving forward. There’s another piece that includes representing the company as a founder and breaking down our culture and vision. I’ll spend a lot of my time working on the operations and growth of each of our offices over time. I spend some time on operations in NYC but it’s quite small when compared to our operations in Lagos or even Nairobi. 

SG: Wow, so what are the relative sizes of each office?

CS: In terms of rough numbers, Lagos is our biggest with over 200 people, Nairobi is closer to 100, and we have around 50 in New York City.

SG: Going back to your role, how have you seen that change over time? It’s been quite the massive growth cycle. 

CS: Oh yes, it absolutely has been. I guess what ironically snuck up on me is the NY office. I feel like I turned around and the sales and marketing floor exploded. It’s one thing to look at the spreadsheets and chart out our growth and even to see the numbers come in but to see the literal space transform and grow is much more real. One of the things I love about Andela is that you really see and feel the growth and progress. We’ve moved offices repeatedly over the past few years and its been a journey of its own to go from small spaces to then an entire floor and then to see that floor explode and fill up with people. It’s even more pronounced every time I go to Lagos. We’ll make a prototype for a new space, and when I visit a couple months later its halfway built, and then the next time I’m there it’s already finished and all our teams and developers sit there.

SG: I was listening to a podcast that talked about the ‘rule of 3s’. Essentially every time the company triples in size your job completely transforms. I'd imagine that's been a recurring theme for you.

CS: Definitely. Your entire calendar, your goals, and KPI’s overhaul every 6 months. Thats been quite an experience. It’s a series of massive transformations. In a microcosm you go from designing an office to a full team working out of it. Or you put together the structure for one class and all of a sudden you’ll have four classes, and then soon you are operating in multiple cities.

SG: You've spent your entire career in the education and access space, what convinced you Andela was the missing solution?

CS: I started out as a grassroots educator and someone very idealistic about education. My core belief was that if you can bring quality education to where people need it, 1000s of flowers would bloom. It was a very liberal outlook in the sense that I believed in letting people fall into their passion and pursue it wherever it took them. I then went out there and did just that: grassroots education. I started in my home state of Georgia where is some significant education disparity, then worked on education in China, the Middle East, and finally Kenya and other parts of the African continent. Over the course of 10 years working on the ground, I was constantly in conversations with young people in these critical educational transition phases like high school or college. I listened and grew from each conversation and swung from the vantage point of an idealistic educator to looking for educational outcomes or opportunities for young people that lead to tangible job and economic access. If we cannot provide students with jobs post-education then our education systems have failed. So my outlook transitioned directly to thinking through how to create education systems can ensure job opportunities for individuals in need. 

I felt like that was were the most work needed to be done. As a result I started exploring cutting edge educational technology and where it could be applied to fill the gaps in systems. In the process I came across an online education platform 2U that my friend Jeremy launched. Their system translated into better results and outcomes for students then being in the classroom itself. In my mind that was huge. It turned the assumptions and narratives about education completely upside down. I looped Jeremy into the work I was doing with educators and leaders with the African education space and invited him to come out and speak to them. They loved him. Afterwards I proposed building a program in partnership for creating a talent pipeline on the continent. I still hope we are able to partner with these NGOs and Education Practitioners in this way but when that didn’t happen off the bat, Jeremy and I could not get this idea out of our heads. We started thinking about how we could do it ourselves and what it would take and here we are today.

To shorten a long response we saw an incredible opportunity in online education and localized training programs in the right subjects to built a disruptive talent pipeline on the continent. 

SG: Wow that’s quite the story… I think what people miss is that it’s not the talent thats missing or the job opportunities but really that connective tissue between the two

CS: Yes, the opportunities are boundless. There’s 1.89 million open jobs for developers alone in the United States. The value proposition is clearly there and this shouldn’t come as any surprise to you but there is resistance in thinking of the continent as a viable source of world class talent. People just don’t believe it at first. You a know a lot of times when I start of presentations, I ask people when the first time they transferred money with their phones was. I then show them a picture of someone in Africa transferring money from their phones that was taken in 2007.

SG: Absolutely, there was that terribly inaccurate headline ‘The Hopeless Continent’ that still showcases how a lot of people think about Africa. In reality there is so much incredible talent particularly in the entrepreneurship realm and such a deep desire grow and contribute to something bigger than themselves.

CS: 100 percent. There’s a lot of innovation and I think Lagos is one of the most entrepreneurial cities in world.. and there’s so much hustle and drive. To be honest, New York has got nothing on Lagos on the hustle. 

SG: I know the vision is to train 100K world class software developers in Africa over the next 10 years, do you feel like you are on track for that right now?

CS: We are on target to crack the nut of how you find and transform a world class developer. Our current model will not scale to 100,000 in terms of the subset of people who work with clients through Andela. But the framework and exact tools to transform a world class software developer from any stage is something we are developing. That is what will get us to a stage where we can successfully reach 100,000 developers and provide them with the tools they need. We’ve implemented an incredibly tight feedback loop in our current operation both from our developers directly and from the clients they work with. When we first started we made a promise to ourselves and more importantly the developers we were training that we were not going to waste their time. We wanted to teach them exactly what they would need to be successful on the job and in the business world. If we don’t teach and train them the right things, our clients are less satisfied and they will let us know almost immediately. This helps us maintain the tight feedback loop necessary to constantly iterate on our software developer toolkit until it’s ready.

SG: What do you see as the biggest roadblock to achieving that vision?

CS: The biggest challenges is changing hearts and mind about Africa as a source of talent. When we started out we were just four people who had to be unreasonably passionate about our idea because no one wanted to hear it. It didn’t exist and was far off the beaten path. Today, when we get pushback we can just introduce them to an incredible developer they can connect with. Our current developers are always our best selling point. Upon introduction they can immediately be talking with the client about the specifics of the job but also find commonalities to bond over, for instance: Arsenal’s latest season. At that stage our clients would be sold with their skills and communications ability. 

However, there is still resistance to get to that conversation stage where we can prove our value. Once we do and we actually engage the company, everything flows. A great indicator is that over the last two quarters, 25 percent of sales have been upsell. However to get from that to becoming a household name where we can move past the resistance and miseducation on Africa will take time. 

SG: Andela is widely recognized as one of the most innovative and socially impactful companies out there - what do you think the company needs to do differently or better?

CS: What i would love to be able to do is inject the unbelievable culture from each operations center into another. Each culture is wonderful and having a strong culture is important to us, but each location also has a very different culture. What i see is that a lot of people join this company to be a part of a movement, something that is truly bigger than themselves. I’d love to be able to fuse it all together. 

SG: Are there certain industries that are more or less open to working with Andela? Where are your most consist/regular clients?

CS: I haven’t seen a trend in industries but have definitely seen a trend in the type of company that we work well with. The optimal company we look to partner with isn't necessarily dictated by size or industry, but someone looking to grow and scale quickly. That's where we can really have an impact because we eliminate so many issues that are associated with building an engineering team quickly

SG: Do you see a lot of Andela engineers taking their talents toward entrepreneurship and building their own companies or do they stay with the companies they are placed at?

CS: While we have yet to observe what our developers do after Andela, as our program is four years, our goal is to empower the next generation of technology leaders across the globe. Whether they take their talents to the companies they've been placed with through Andela, or focus their efforts on impacting their local economy, we are confident that they will follow their passions to change the world with skills and abilities gained through Andela.

SG: How have the software engineer and talent industries shifted since Andela? How do you see them changing in the future?

CS: What I see is that the languages that are most popular do ebb and flow. A lot of people are struggling to keep the pulse on where that is going. Andela solves for that challenge by finding exceptional people who are proficient in learning quickly and train them in highly flexible stacks. This is what we mean by world-class, they are the swiss army knife of developers. Someone who can adapt to shifts in technology or and coding needs quickly and with poise. 

The other thing we are seeing is that we get lots of requests for additional support. People want to be able to bring on a full team for their technical support and so we’ve started adding on project managers, consultants, and other experienced trained Andela developers to staff different technology functions.

SG: To take to a more personal note, What is the number one skill/practice you are working on developing?

CS: One piece of our mission-statement is that we are life-long learners. Scaling is a huge beast and it constantly transforms in the challenges and work. As a founder of this beautiful thing we’ve created it’s important to be at the top of my game and constantly rise to the occasion. For me that means surrounding myself with the right people and constantly learning from people who know all about scale. People who have done it before and executed at a high level so that I can learn from their experiences as we go through the same scaling challenges.. 

Going back to cultural staple at Andela about being a life long learner, it’s something deeply ingrained in all our team members and developers across the board. For instance in addition to learning to become world class developers we have seen multiple sports clubs and even bands form in both Lagos and Nairobi. It only goes to show how multi-faceted and resonate learning is in our company. I’m constantly striving to embody that and live it, for instance, at the present I'm learning about computer programming. 

Want more from Christina? Check out her talk at Techcrunch below and Andela's website here.