Meet Agri Frontier's Founder, Andrew Ritchie

We would love to introduce you to our CEO, Andrew Ritchie. We interviewed Andrew about his role and his motivation for setting up Agri Frontier.?

WHAT IS YOUR BACKGROUND?

“My parents are multi generation farmers in the UK and so I grew up immersed in farming, which I loved. I spent all my spare time helping on the farm before going to university to study Agri Business Management. After university I took a year out to go travelling around South America which really influenced the course of my career as I became hooked on travel, adventure and diversity of other cultures. I spent 4 years working in Agri Business Advisory in the UK advising UK farmers, which was a really great foundation but I couldn’t settle for long as the lure of overseas stuck with me. After a year of searching I moved to Kenya in 2002 to work for Dicky Evans, the entrepreneurial founder of Flamingo Holdings and apart from a 2 year stint in London for a Private Equity fund remained in Kenya until 2014 as CFO for Finlays.”

WHY DID YOU START THE BUSINESS??

“In the UK, specialised agri-business advisory firms like the ones I began my career with are common, whereas in Africa they are rare, instead advisory firms tend to be generalists and the quality of advice is quite poor. Advisory services also tend to be prohibitively expensive for SME businesses. The untapped potential for African agriculture is huge, we are only just scratching the surface of what is possible to achieve, while at the same time the need for increased food security has never been greater.? I started Agri Frontier - a specialised agri sector firm, to fill this gap in services and help achieve Africa’s future potential.”?

WHAT IS YOUR VISION FOR THE BUSINESS??

“The vision is for Agri Frontier to become the leading agri business sector advisory firm across Africa, offering affordable impactful services to both SME and corporate clients.? We have offices in Kenya supporting East African countries, in Nigeria supporting West Africa, with future plans to open an office to support Southern Africa.? Longer term we would like to work more in South America and Asia, as there are shared problems and learnings across continents.”?

WHAT DO YOU LOVE MOST ABOUT WHAT YOU DO?

“Many of our clients are long term who we refer to as partners, I love supporting our partners to achieve their multi-year objectives and being part of that journey.? I also enjoy the diversity from working currently in over 10 countries, we see what works, what doesn’t, and we utilise these learnings across the continent.”?

WHAT CHALLENGES DO FRONTIER MARKETS FACE AT PRESENT?

“Lack of affordable early stage financing of SMEs, what we refer to as “the missing middle”, is possibly the most significant barrier to growth that we see. There is no shortage of talent, no shortage of proven entrepreneurs but lack of affordable growth funding is a significant barrier.??

Also, Africa is blessed with a wide range of climatic conditions and natural resources (soil and water) perfect for a wide range of crops and yet fails to capitalise on this natural advantage for many reasons, lack of investment in water storage, irrigation, soil management, crop storage and processing, access to markets, being some examples. Africa has the long term potential to solve the world's food problems if these challenges are overcome.”?

WHAT DO YOU ENJOY DOING OUTSIDE OF WORK?

“Spending time with my family, being outdoors, mountain biking, fly fishing, hiking.”?

Finally, we asked Andrew:?

WHAT IS YOUR SECRET TALENT?

“Everyone knows I am a chartered accountant but few know I am a qualified agronomist. I’m also not a bad cook!”