By our staff reporter

East African Holding, one of the biggest manufacturing industry conglomerates in Ethiopia, has been recognized as an Industrialization Champion at the African Hidden Champions (AHC) summit, which is an initiative of the African Development Bank (AfDB), the Africa Foresight Group (AFG) and Deutsche Investitions- und Entwicklungsgesellschaft (DEG), a subsidiary of KfW.

The AHC initiative that was founded in 2020 primarily to promote the growth of African companies and aid their transformation into global champions, held its second summit in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe late last month which saw the convergence of key African business leaders, AHC partners and supporters who discussed Africa’s private sector at a time of great geo-political uncertainty.

This year’s summit stirred lively debate and surfaced new ideas for African businesses intent on competing with the world’s best companies.

The three day summit included the awards ceremony that saw select AHC members recognized. The awardees included; East African Holding Group from of Ethiopia who were awarded Industrialization Champions.

The other recognized African brands included; South African based innovative fintech company, MFS Africa, as Emerging Global Champions and Kenya’s pan-African payments company, Cellulant, for Resilient Leadership; and East African fruit and drinks giant, Kevian Kenya, as Eco-system Champions.

On his social media post, Buzuayehu Tadele, Founder and Group Chairperson of East Africa Holding, said that his firm had been recognized as the Industrialization Champions at the recently held AHC summit, expressing, “After our nomination by the global steering committee of the AHC initiative, a joint initiative of AfDB, the AFG and DEG, a subsidiary of KFW, one of the world’s largest private-sector development financiers, it’s a pleasure to see we came out on top.”

“It will further strengthen our efforts in achieving our vision of becoming a global champion,” he added.

Speaking at the close of the summit, Abdu Mukhtar, Director of the Industrial and Trade Development department at the AfDB Group said, “I am impressed by the work done by AHC companies and the passion and motivation of their leaders. The summit provided us with a platform to further understand the possibilities of what the AfDB can achieve together with these companies in the future.”

“The companies are working in sectors that are important to the development of the continent, which is something that we are also passionate about and committed to supporting. We believe that we must all contribute to the overall economic wellbeing and progress of the continent and this can be achieved by promoting enterprise development,” Mukhtar added.

Franziska Hollmann, Director Industries and Services Africa and EMECA at DEG, stated, “At DEG, we are committed in our support for African businesses. This includes financing as well as knowledge sharing especially with regard to sustainable and impactful investments. We value this summit as an opportunity to meet business leaders in an enclosed and intimate setting that allows for candid conversations on their experiences.”

On its website, AHC stated that the initiative seeks out and showcases the unique growth stories of exciting African companies that are secretly building up the muscle of global leadership, adding, “The stories are focused on attracting local and international investments and growth support for these companies.”