Executive In Residence Ge Africas Todd Johnson Visits Carey Business School

Main navigation Johns Hopkins Legacy Online applications Faculty Directory Experiential studying Career assets Alumni mentoring program Util Nav CTA CTA Breadcrumb Executive in Residence: GE Africa's Todd Johnson Visits Carey Business School Todd Johnson’s resume exhibits a career that has taken many intriguing turns. Senior research supervisor at a New York consulting agency. University professor. Africa professional at a leading threat management operation in London. Washington-based mostly, Africa-focused analyst for the U.S. authorities. The latest stop on his career journey has taken him even farther afield â€" as danger and market growth supervisor at General Electric Africa, based mostly in Johannesburg, South Africa. The Kansas native’s broad experience and analytical expertise give him the ability to define the continent more exactly for his team in Africa and for colleagues at GE headquarters in Connecticut. On a recent stateside journey, Johnson shared some career insights with Johns Hopkins Carey Business School college students in Baltimore and with college students at Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. He made his remarks as a visiting Executive in Residence on the Carey School. Among the Carey Global MBA students who met with Johnson for a Q&A session hosted by Dean Bernard T. Ferrari, a number of had labored in Rwanda in early 2013 for their Innovation for Humanity residencies. In the I4H course, first-yr Global MBA college students spend three weeks in search of enterprise options to problems in emerging international locations across the globe. Also at the Q&A have been members of the present class of first-yr Global MBA students, together with some who will embark on their own I4H journey to Central Africa in January 2014. A Johns Hopkins SAIS alum who earned a master of worldwide public coverage degree with honors in 2008, Johnson spoke to the scholars about misconceptions of Africa, as well as in regards to the alternatives that he said become apparent to those that adopt a more mature and nuanced understanding of the continent, its countries, and its individuals. Africa is often considered a dangerous place to do business. However , in relation to alternatives for GE to develop on the continent, Johnson stated he focuses on the national and agency levels, somewhat than grouping all the nations of Africa into one financial or strategic category. He also famous that recent political brinksmanship in Washington over the U.S. budget has put the thought of abroad market risk into perspective. Risk is all over the place, he noticed, alluding to the hazards created by America’s political gridlock. Africans who've returned from residing and working overseas make up a substantial a part of the GE Africa workforce, Johnson stated. These staff have international enterprise experience and a good sense of what their house nations need to broaden alternative. That could imply plans involving energy plant tools, similar to GE turbines, or any of the hundreds of medical gadgets that GE produces. Leveraging local knowledge networks results in higher threat assessment and better return on funding for the nation’s individua ls and GE’s shareholders, Johnson stated. Global transportation and logistics challenges are notably acute in Africa, he advised the scholars in Baltimore. He pointed to World Bank statistics exhibiting that it takes 19 days to maneuver a shipping container 7,500 kilometers from Singapore to Mombasa, Kenya, and one other 18 days to get from Mombasa to Malaba, Uganda, simply 800 kilometers from the coast. Time is cash, so time is a major factor in Johnson’s threat assessments. Other challenges persist, such as variations within the gauge of railroad tracks, customs techniques that might be fully paper-based mostly and decentralized, and native joint-enterprise prospects with discouraging histories. In each case, Johnson’s function is to weigh potential acquire for GE towards the chance to the corporate’s finances and popularity. GE, as a worldwide industrial energy, does not have to tackle each deal it encounters. Johnson explained that his management strategy is to act with the future in thoughts, doing what’s best for a highly valued model that still has new markets to discover. The first responsibility of anybody trying to do business in Africa, stated Johnson, is to know the continent on a nuanced level. That advice goes equally for business college students, social entrepreneurs, and non-governmental organizations â€" as well as for the biggest industrial conglomerate on the planet. Posted 100 International Drive