Efosa Ojomo

Last updated
Efosa Ojomo
Born
Nigeria
NationalityNigerian
Alma mater Fisk University
Vanderbilt University
Harvard Business School
Occupation(s)Author, Researcher
Known for"The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty"
Website efosaojomo.com

Efosa Ojomo is a Nigerian author, researcher and speaker. He leads the Global Prosperity research group at the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, a think tank based in Boston and Silicon Valley [1] and is a senior research fellow at the Harvard Business School. Efosa speaks regularly on innovation and has presented his work at TED, [2] the Aspen Ideas Festival, the World Bank, Harvard, Yale, Oxford and at several other conferences and institutions. In January 2019, Efosa and Harvard Business School professor, Clayton Christensen published "The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty". [3]

Contents

Early life and education

Efosa was born in Nigeria. He attended Secondary School in Nigeria. After failing college entry exams twice, he proceeded to the Fisk University and later to Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tennessee where he obtained a bachelor's degree in computer engineering. He also holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he worked as a researcher under Late Professor Clayton Christensen at the Forum for Growth and Innovation. [4] He also worked as an engineer for National Instruments right after graduation.

Professional career

Efosa Ojomo is the director of Global Prosperity at the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation. He was formerly a senior research fellow at the Forum for Growth and Innovation at the Harvard Business School. He was mentored by Late Professor Clay Christensen, one of the world's top experts on strategy, growth, and innovation. [5] Efosa's research examines how emerging economies, or what he now refers to as growth economies, including sub-Saharan Africa, can engender prosperity for their citizens by focusing on investments in market-creating innovations. [6] He also works with firms to help them develop a market-creating innovation strategy.

Efosa was also the President and co-founder of “Poverty Stops Here”. He was a Co-President, Harvard Business School Africa Business Club from 2014 till 2015. [7] He worked as an engineer and in business development for National Instruments for eight years following graduation. He was named THINKER S50 Radar Class of 2020. [8]

The Prosperity Paradox: How innovation can lift nations out of poverty

Efosa Ojomo co-authored “The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty” with Late Clayton Christensen and Karen Dillon. They reveal why so many investments in economic development fail to generate sustainable prosperity and offers a groundbreaking solution for true and lasting change. [9]

The book provides actionable solutions to growing sustainable economies. “The Prosperity Paradox” expertly offers cases of successful market-creating innovations, including the Ford Model T, which made cars accessible to ordinary Americans, and Tolaram instant noodles, inexpensive, convenient food made available to millions of Nigerians, rich and poor. Essentially, what Nigeria and other low- and middle-income countries need (and what America needed when it was still a poor country) is not for well-meaning charities and NGOs to “push” resources into its communities but for innovations to “pull” those resources in. “The Prosperity Paradox” was awarded an Axiom Business Book Awards “Gold Medal” [10] in the category of Business Ethics for 2019 and a review on Wall Street Journal by Rupert Darwall tagged “Paradox of Prosperity- A better way to fight poverty”. [11]

TED Talk: Reducing Corruption takes a specific kind of Investment

Efosa has spoken in several TED events. In 2019, he was a speaker at the TED Salon where he delivered a compelling talk on “Reducing Corruption takes a specific kind of Investment”. The talk has garnered over 2 million views. Efosa argues that to potentially eliminate corruption worldwide, we need to focus on scarcity. "Societies don't develop because they've reduced corruption, they're able to reduce corruption because they've developed" he says. [12]

Article publications

Personal life

Efosa married Priscila in 2019. [15]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Disruptive innovation</span> Technological change

In business theory, disruptive innovation is innovation that creates a new market and value network or enters at the bottom of an existing market and eventually displaces established market-leading firms, products, and alliances. The term, "disruptive innovation" was popularized by the American academic Clayton Christensen and his collaborators beginning in 1995,, but the concept had been previously described in Richard N. Foster's book "Innovation: The Attacker's Advantage" and in the paper Strategic Responses to Technological Threats.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Innovation</span> Practical implementation of improvements

Innovation is the practical implementation of ideas that result in the introduction of new goods or services or improvement in offering goods or services. ISO TC 279 in the standard ISO 56000:2020 defines innovation as "a new or changed entity realizing or redistributing value". Others have different definitions; a common element in the definitions is a focus on newness, improvement, and spread of ideas or technologies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Clayton Christensen</span> American academic and business consultant (1952–2020)

Clayton Magleby Christensen was an American academic and business consultant who developed the theory of "disruptive innovation", which has been called the most influential business idea of the early 21st century. Christensen introduced "disruption" in his 1997 book The Innovator's Dilemma, and it led The Economist to term him "the most influential management thinker of his time." He served as the Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School (HBS), and was also a leader and writer in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. One of the founders of the Jobs to Be Done development methodology.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cash cow</span> Business jargon

A cash cow is product or service that generates significant revenue over a long period of time for the company that sells it. Revenue “milked” from cash cows is often used to subsidise less profitable parts of a business.

<i>Harvard Business Review</i> Management magazine published by Harvard Business Publishing

Harvard Business Review (HBR) is a general management magazine published by Harvard Business Publishing, a wholly owned subsidiary of Harvard University. HBR is published six times a year and is headquartered in Brighton, Massachusetts.

Theodore Levitt was a German-born American economist and a professor at the Harvard Business School. He was editor of the Harvard Business Review, noted for increasing the Review's circulation and popularizing the term globalization. In 1983, he proposed a definition for corporate purpose: "Rather than merely making money, it is to create and keep a customer".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ted London</span> American scholar and teacher

Ted London is an American scholar and teacher on Base of the Pyramid (BoP) business strategies. He is the Ford Motor Company Clinical Professor of Business Administration at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. London is an internationally recognized expert on the intersection of business strategy and poverty alleviation. In 2016 London authored The Base of the Pyramid Promise: Building Businesses with Impact and Scale, which translates over 25 years of research and experience into actionable strategies, frameworks, and tools for managers seeking inclusive growth. The book won the Responsible Research in Management Award in 2018 and the Humanistic Management Book Award in 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Galanz</span>

Guangdong Galanz Enterprises Co., Ltd. is a manufacturer of electronic home appliances, headquartered in Foshan, Guangdong and founded on 28 September 1978. As of January 2019, Galanz manufactures about half of the world's microwaves.

Michael E. Raynor is a Canadian writer, director at Deloitte Services LP, and an expert on business management practices.

Mark W. Johnson is co-founder and senior partner at Innosight, a growth strategy consulting firm, which he co-founded with Clayton Christensen in 2000.

Outcome-Driven Innovation (ODI) is a strategy and innovation process developed by Anthony W. Ulwick. It is built around the theory that people buy products and services to get jobs done. As people complete these jobs, they have certain measurable outcomes that they are attempting to achieve. It links a company's value creation activities to customer-defined metrics.

<i>The Innovators Dilemma</i> 1997 book by Clayton M. Christensen

The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, first published in 1997, is the best-known work of the Harvard professor and businessman Clayton Christensen. It expands on the concept of disruptive technologies, a term he coined in a 1995 article "Disruptive Technologies: Catching the Wave". It describes how large incumbent companies lose market share by listening to their customers and providing what appears to be the highest-value products, but new companies that serve low-value customers with poorly developed technology can improve that technology incrementally until it is good enough to quickly take market share from established business. Christensen recommends that large companies maintain small, nimble divisions that attempt to replicate this phenomenon internally to avoid being blindsided and overtaken by startup competitors.

Scott D. Anthony is an author and senior partner at growth strategy consulting firm Innosight.

Anthony (Tony) W. Ulwick is the founder and chief executive officer of Strategyn, LLC. an innovation consulting firm based in San Francisco. He is the creator of Outcome-Driven Innovation (ODI).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sangeet Paul Choudary</span> Business scholar, entrepreneur, advisor and author

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Matthias Chika Mordi is from Delta State, in Nigeria and was a refugee during Nigeria’s civil war. He is an economist by training and a banker. He is the Chief Executive Officer of National Competitiveness Council of Nigeria and is the current Chairman of United Capital PLC. He is an Honourable Senior member of the Chartered Institute of Bankers of Nigeria and alternate president of the West African Institute of Bankers (2005-2008).

William F. Maloney is Chief Economist for the Latin America and Caribbean region in the World Bank Group. Previously he was Chief Economist for Equitable Growth, Finance and Institutions, and Trade and Competitiveness; he was also Global Lead on Innovation and Productivity. Prior to the Bank, he was an assistant professor of Economics at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (1990-1997) and then Lead Economist in the Office of the Chief Economist for Latin America until 2009. From 2009 to 2014, he was Lead Economist in the Development Economics Research Group. From 2011 to 2014, he was visiting professor at the University of the Andes and worked closely with the Colombian government on innovation and firm upgrading issues.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Julie Battilana</span> Social Scientist

Julie Battilana is a scholar, educator, and advisor in the areas of social innovation and social change at Harvard University. She is the Joseph C. Wilson Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and the Alan L. Gleitsman Professor of Social Innovation at the Harvard Kennedy School.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Solomon Darwin</span>

Solomon Darwin is an American professor of business and the director of the Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation and the executive director of the Center for Growth Markets at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. He is known as the visionary leader of the Smart Village Movement and for developing "smart village frameworks" for rural villages with the support of state and local governments in India and UC Berkeley. He published four books to support his thesis : "How to Create Smart Villages: Open Innovation Solutions for Emerging Markets", "How to Think like the CEO of the Planet", "The Untouchables" and "Smart Villages of Tomorrow: The Road to Mori" and is known as the Father of the Smart Village Movement.

Howard Yu is a Hong Kong-born academic and author who is the LEGO® professor of management and innovation at IMD Business School. He has been the director of the IMD's Center for Future Readiness since 2020. He is also the director of Advanced Management Program (AMP) and Future Readiness Strategy (FRS) open program of IMD.

References

  1. ↑ "Interview: Creating a prosperous Africa". Christensen Institute.
  2. ↑ Ojomo, Efosa. "Efosa Ojomo | Speaker | TED". www.ted.com.
  3. ↑ "The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty". www.hks.harvard.edu.
  4. ↑ "BIO | Efosa Ojomo LLC". efosaojomo.com. Archived from the original on 2021-01-16.
  5. 1 2 Auerswald, Philip E.; Gay, Gabrielle Daines; Ojomo, Efosa (August 4, 2020). "A Decade In, It's Time to Supercharge the Giving Pledge". Harvard Business Review– via hbr.org.
  6. ↑ "Efosa Ojomo". May 18, 2016.
  7. ↑ "Efosa Ojomo | Research fellow at the Forum for Growth and Innovation at the Harvard Business School".
  8. ↑ "Efosa Ojomo". February 2, 2020.
  9. ↑ The Prosperity Paradox: How Innovation Can Lift Nations Out of Poverty. Harper Business. 15 January 2019.
  10. ↑ "2019 Winners". www.axiomawards.com.
  11. ↑ Darwall, Rupert (January 30, 2019). "'The Prosperity Paradox' Review: A Better Way to Fight Poverty". Wall Street Journal– via www.wsj.com.
  12. ↑ Ojomo, Efosa. "A Counterintuitive Solution to Poverty: Stop Trying to Eradicate It" – via www.ted.com.
  13. ↑ "Cracking Frontier Markets". Harvard Business Review. January 1, 2019 – via hbr.org.
  14. ↑ Christensen, Clayton M.; Ojomo, Efosa; Bever, Derek van (January 1, 2017). "Africa's New Generation of Innovators". Harvard Business Review– via hbr.org.
  15. ↑ "Priscila + Efosa | Inn on Boltwood Elopement". July 29, 2019.
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