Jean Manas is the Co-Founder and Board Chair of Ethiopia Education Initiatives and the founder and CEO of Foros, a premier M&A advisory firm in New York City. He is the other half of Haile-Manas Academy; you can read more about the story behind the name here. In his post, he explains why entrepreneurial skills are essential to EEI’s work, especially during crises like the COVID-19 pandemic.

An entrepreneurial person will ask, “If there’s a need, is there a solution out there? And if not, can I come up with a solution?” Contrary to common belief, entrepreneurship is not about reckless risk-taking. Entrepreneurs identify potential risks and find ways to mitigate them, without losing their vision or excitement for a new and better future. I started Foros in the middle of the financial crisis and that’s how I felt then: clear-eyed about the risks of striking out on my own, and passionately excited about what our brand new firm could do. 

From the first day Rebecca and I started thinking about how we could give back to Ethiopia through education, we have thought in that same way. What exactly were we solving for, and how would we do it? What were the pitfalls? Right now, as we are figuring out what a COVID-19 future will look like in Ethiopia, the same entrepreneurial skills apply. 

Starting a school in Ethiopia from the US is already an extraordinary endeavor. It requires certain exceptional qualities which the HMA team has displayed continually. That endeavor has now been compounded by a global crisis of unprecedented proportions. This has required a thoughtful approach to risk assessment, and not necessarily going with received wisdom, unless it is prudent to do so. As we consider next steps—opening a school in the middle of a pandemic, or pivoting to related educational projects if that seems the wiser course in the near term—we have not been sitting and waiting. We have been actively planning.

It might seem easier to be an entrepreneur in normal times because it is easier to measure opportunity and risk when there is no instability. But in some ways, it is more difficult—because so can everybody else. A crisis environment separates the entrepreneurial wheat from the chaff; differentiated approaches to opportunity and risk assessment will make or break a project. It’s hard for most people to take that step back, but entrepreneurs can do that. They can assess what is most critical in a situation, and make a recommendation to solve that need.

That kind of thinking is fundamental to managing an opportunity like HMA. I am blown away by how the team has been preparing for this fall. Our school leaders, Kari and Tesfaye, and Rebecca, my co-founder, are not waiting for a solution to be given to them. They are asking themselves, “How are we going to do this? How do we deliver a novel and exceptional educational outcome, while minimizing risks to our students? What are we going to put in place to ensure that happens?” It is an impressive thinking process, and exactly what we need not only to plan for this year, but for the next 100 years. We are committed to HMA and to the future of Ethiopia, and no matter what the pandemic requires now and means in the future, the skills we employ and the skills we want to teach are the same. These are the skills we want our students to hone while at HMA and deploy later as entrepreneurs and innovators leading their communities into a bright future.