Happy Birthday Professor Robert "Bobby" Ebo Hinson

I would like to start off this post by clearing the air on three (3) main caveats.

First, I don't usually do this. 

Second, I just examined a PhD viva (2 February 2021) at the University of Ghana Business School (UGBS)/ School of Graduate Studies, University of Ghana - albeit via Zoom this time.

Third, I just got reminded that I was at the founding of the PhD programme at the UGBS way back in 2011/2012 by one of the pioneering crop who is now Associate Professor. 

Celebrating an acquaintance, friend, and a colleague: Happy Birthday,

Professor Robert "Bobby" Ebo Hinson 

Professor of Marketing, Head of Department of Marketing and Entrepreneurship at the University of Ghana Business School, and Acting Director of Institutional Advancement, University of Ghana.

I met Professor Robert "Bobby" Ebo Hinson for the first time at the International Academy of African Business and Development (now shedding the International) conference when it was hosted by the University of Dar Es Salaam in 2005. We, not long afterwards, struck up an interesting conversation weighing up on our mutual research interests, even if this was an initial struggle to align until he visited me at the University of East London 2 years later in 2007. The rest, as the saying goes, is history. 

Running short of adjectives, I can only describe "Bobby" - as I have grown fond of calling him - as a man of charm, and an eloquent and confident speaker, "Bobby." Rather unusually, his charm convinced me to align with him on an important topic for African Development.

Why not? I asked myself. The answer culminated in a co-authored book chapter "Challenges of Internet Adoption of Banks in Ghana." 

Another 2 years later, I made my first trip to Ghana at his invitation. That was when the PhD programme was launched at the University of Ghana Business School (UGBS). Since 2011/2012, I have become a friend of the UGBS. I recall the visit I made sometime in 2015 where I almost spent an unplanned Christmas due to flight availability. That trip was an audit of consistency in approach, resilience and quality assurance for all the values UGBS espoused. 

For the full month of January 2020, I was back in a different capacity five years on.

So while I have changed affiliation about 5 times since my first visit in 2011, Bobby has remained in place and grown his vision for the Department of Marketing and Entrepreneurship consistently over these years. Indeed, my last trip was in 2020, just before the lockdown, and only a few days away from his birthday of 6 February. 

So why not?

The Department of Marketing and Entrepreneurship started off with a different label, but has been adaptive and innovative under the leadership of Bobby. Welding Marketing with Entrepreneurship in a climate that serves society is not commonplace in that region, so kudos for the foresight, Bobby!

I know I'm a voracious reader, and what many of my friends have described as an "on the whim writer," but both of these attributes cannot, surely, be considered key ingredients to keeping pace with the likes of "Bobby."

The man is as agile, effervescent, and fluid, as everything I learnt about the periodic table in my chemistry lessons while in secondary school. Yes, chemistry has lessons for business and management - fluidity, effervescence, agility and foresight - which we sometimes now refer to as "creativity, entrepreneurship and innovation" in business management parlance.

His research weaves in and out of discourses ranging from brand communications; through corporate social responsibility; to customer service and entrepreneurship, especially in the African continent - well beyond the confines of his base, i.e., Ghana.

Does this make him a Pan-African scholar? Your guess is as good as mine. All I can say for now is that Bobby exudes "Simplicity" in a rather Complex manner.

I celebrate you, my acquaintance, colleague, and dear friend. 

Happy Birthday Bobby!

6 February 2021.