Nduom’s empire takes shot at industrialisation
Long before Groupe Nduom became a household name in Ghana's business circles, the brains behind the conglomerate, Dr Paa Kwesi Nduom, and his wife, Yvonne, were employees just like any of the thousands of people now working for the over 50 GN subsidiaries worldwide.
After successfully completing his tertiary education in the United States of America, which he personally funded using money from menial jobs in a meat factory, a parking lot, a cannery and an insurance company, the business magnate spent his last days in the USA, working for accounting and auditing firm, Deloitte & Touche.
While there, he developed a passion for entrepreneurship, which he nurtured by playing lead roles in the establishment of Deloitte & Touche's African office in Ghana in the late 1980s.
Although the initiative was commendable, Dr Nduom saw it as a means to an end – entrepreneurship – and not the end itself.
As a result, he soon moved out of formal employment after a brief stint with the auditing firm into the entrepreneurial realm, where he first established Gold Coast Securities Limited, now Gold Coast Fund Management, to provide investment advisory services for companies and individuals nationwide.
With tact and diligence, the company soon became a success and that prompted Dr Nduom and his wife to quickly convert their makeshift leisure time residence at Elmina in the Central Region into a hotel.
Bit by bit, the number of entities established by Dr and Mrs Nduom increased. They rose from the investment advisory firm and the hotel established in the 1990s to now include over 50 entities in Ghana and five other countries worldwide.
Although the road has been largely successful, the couple is the least satisfied, as their passion for job creation to absorb the teeming youth in the country continues to increase day by day.
This has caused them to continue to expand from their current crop of businesses, which are largely in the services sector, into industrialisation under the GN Industrial Estate in Elmina.
The enclave comprises of the GN Electronics, FresPak, GN Printing and GN Logistics, which were incorporated late 2014 and early this year in line with Dr Nduom's vision of creating "an economy (in Elmina) within the broader Ghanaian economy."
"Our goal is to directly support education from kindergarten to university levels," he said about the estate in July, this year.
The estate is due to be launched on October 27 to officially mark the beginning of its operations.
Stadium and university
The estate, which is in-between Essaman and Pershie in the Komenda-Edina-Eguafo-Abirem (KEEA) municipality, sits on a vast mass of land, almost the size of two football pitches.
Facing its main entrance is the administrative block, which serves as offices and showrooms for the four subsidiaries.
Apart from the logistics business, which operates from the administrative block with other offices in Accra and Tema, each of the three subsidiaries has manufacturing plants at strategic locations inside the walled estate.
To the immediate left is the factory that produces the FreshPak brand of trays, ‘takeaway’ packs and ancillary products that are fast becoming a household name, barely six months into the start of production.
To the right is the printing business, which serves the printing needs of the GN brand and other businesses within the country and the region in particular.
Behind the administrative block is the factory of GN Electronics, which is now under construction to augment an existing one inside the building.
Beyond the four manufacturing subsidiaries, the estate and its environs also host the Nduom Stadium, a 25,000-seater sports arena that is about five minutes’ drive from the enclave and due to be completed next year.
Also under construction is the Nduom University, which, when completed, would serve as a learning ground for most of the group's human resource pool.
The benefits
Beyond serving as a source of employment to many young people in and outside the KEEA municipality, the GN Industrial Estates is the latest testament of the group's incessant belief that given the right leadership and conducive operating environment, indigenous businesses can thrive and contribute meaningfully to the socio-economic development of the country.
The four companies currently employ scores of young people, most of them natives of the KEEA area, who facilitate the achievement of the group's goal in exchange for their livelihoods.
Most of them expressed delight at the opportunities offered them to generate income for their upkeep and prayed for God's blessing on the group, its founders and the management to be able to expand and create more jobs for their peers.