PATHFINDER

There are various categories of people in this world: those who watch things happen, those who marvel and wonder as things happen, and of course those who make things happen. But perhaps the most intriguing sub-class from the latter class are those who make things happen from virtually nothing, or from where, to the ordinary person, there is little or no hope at all.

When the Ethiopian-born Bekele Tadesse first stepped into the shores of Nigeria, he came, like many Africans who are enamoured by the sheer potential that is available in Nigeria, to see things for himself and convince himself that the confidence he has always had in Nigeria is not misplaced. Indeed, his self confidence in Nigeria being the hope of the African continent became buoyed when he entered the country.

Yet, he had come as a consultant for one of the world’s telecom greats: Harris Corporation. His mission was simple – or so it seemed: to study the telecommunications needs of Nigeria and prove that Harris could invest in this world’s most populous Black Nation. Interestingly, Bekele, as he is fondly called, had arrived in Nigeria at a time when to the ordinary eye, investment in telecom was like throwing your money into the ocean. But not for him; for, the more he saw through the needs of the country the more he was convinced that any investment in Nigeria in the telecom arena would be like digging gold – for real.

It was therefore not so difficult for him to convince Harris to come into Nigeria – with a full-fledged office; thus he would take the credit as the first man to bring a Harris Corporation office into Nigeria. Well, he didn’t appear quite occupied enough with the Harris assignment after submitting a report that showed the investment potential in Nigeria and several other African countries to the American company. He didn’t stop at that. Bekele was saddled with the challenge of establishing the Harris office in Nigeria, an assignment he carried out with ease to the admiration of those who sent him. And, he made Harris in Nigeria at the time a $150m annual sales company, a sales record that stands till date.

It is true that those who desire a change must go the extra mile to achieve it. In most cases, they do the unexpected, the unthinkable, yet, they are daring. Truly, Bekele Tadesse falls into this category with his revolutionary instincts.

Wherever and whenever the story of the Nigerian telecom revolution is being told, this man’s name will continue to feature as one of those who spearheaded the struggle for telephone for all. At a time when telephone lines were selling at exorbitant prices, which made ownership a luxury, and therefore only accessible to the rich in the country, Bekele stormed the scene with mass oriented marketing approach that soon brought telephone lines to the doorsteps of everyone at cheap prices.

He achieved this feat as pioneer Chief Executive Officer of Reliance Telecommunications Ltd (which later became Reltel Wireless and subsequently ZoomMobile). At the time, telephone lines from private telephone operators were going for as high as N150,000 per line. But, convinced that if you give the people the phone for much less you would empower them and make money from their calls, Bekele hit the market with the company’s line going for just N48,000! And, it was not long before his expectations paid off handsomely, as the company went on to win the Best Telephone Company of the Year for two consecutive years; it was also the first PTO to put its footprint on three cities – Lagos, Onitsha and Port Harcourt; because the people just simply could not wait to get Reltel’s phone lines.

Unbelievable as it sounded initially, more Nigerians became owners of a telephone line, even though it was predominantly fixed wireless lines. Sticking out his neck and ready to resign his job if his permutation failed, Bekele achieved the feat and because of his courage in the face of daunting obstacles, the many hitherto unconnected Nigerians became owners of Reltel phone lines.

His daring move forced other operators to reduce the prices of their telephone lines. Like a guardian angel, Bekele provided an answer to the prayers of numerous Nigerians who had before then pleaded for a reduction in price of telephone lines. This singular action of a dedicated man brought change to the face of the telecom sector and to date, the effect remains infectious. Bekele designed the organisational framework of Reltel, its business plan for the GSM and CDMA network, and documentation for the company’s eventual CDMA licence.

Having built Reltel at the time to an enviable position, Bekele had to leave both the company and the country as a result of some differences with the ownership of the company.  

But like the true pathfinder that he is, and a lover of Nigeria and its telecom sector, Bekele could hardly stay away from the country; at least not for long. With his wealth of experience, he was chosen again as first CEO of Harris Stratex Nigeria after the merger of Harris and Stratex and, he grew the business to over $100m annual sales for two years in a row.

Indeed, Bekele seems a natural choice whenever any new entrant comes into Nigeria. And so, when Ceragon Networks was shopping for the right person to establish and run their office in Nigeria as CEO, the name that readily came to mind was Bekele Tadesse! And so in 2010, he established Ceragon Nigeria as its first CEO and today has manpower of 45 staff with fast growing sales to major operators.

As Managing Director/Country Representative of Ceragon Networks Nigeria, Bekele oversees the company’s operations in Nigeria and Ghana. Bekele had his first true contact with the communications style of his African continent as a researcher with the old Harris Microwave Communications when he discovered that with the long talking hours of Africans, to deploy a telephone network, an operator could actually make quicker market entry by giving phone lines almost at no cost to a subscriber.

Based on his remarkable accomplishments in Nigeria’s telecoms industry, Bekele has been a receiver of many awards in the country, which include the ‘Lifetime Award for Inspiring Change in Telecom’ presented to him by Africa’s foremost and authoritative ICT Magazine, IT & Telecom Digest.

With his latest engagement as Managing Director of Ceragon Networks, Nigeria, Bekele sees another opportunity to make a difference in broadband revolution in Nigeria, which he aptly calls the second revolution. “For the Nigerian market, we are prepared and this is the right time for this company to show its strength and capability to contribute to the Nigerian telecom revolution. We have come into Nigeria to really contribute to the telecom sector because we know the kind of equipment and technology needed to make a revolution in the Nigerian telecom sector. That is why Ceragon has come out with very compact, very high capacity IP solutions and with these solutions we’ll like to beat the market”, he said.

He sees Ceragon as becoming one of the best transmission technology providers in Nigeria in the next few years. “We’ve made lots of investment in this market, we hired lots of people in this market, we created the capability to beat the competition in this country to make Ceragon the number one transmission technology provider in Nigeria”, he enthused.

According to him, Nigeria has made a big leap forward since 2001 and now he sees a new revolution coming, particularly with broadband. In his words, “Once the 2.3 GHz licence issue is resolved, we will see another revolution cropping up in this country. That is basically the policy of the Nigerian government to make sure every aspect of the Nigerian society communicates through broadband, and this is the only way we can fill the gap in development between the rich and poor.”

His long years of sojourn in Nigeria have placed him at a vantage position of understanding the country’s business climate, just as his understanding of the political and economic horizons in his native country, Ethiopia, have given him insights into how regulatory and marketing issues in the entire Africa can adequately be handled. Hence, he can confidently predict the system and take accurate managerial and policy decisions that are both forward-looking and beneficial to the ordinary person.

Before he relocated to Nigeria, Bekele had served his country, Ethiopia, as Minister of Industries. Little wonder he has such good grasp of government’s policy direction even while far away from his native country.

A graduate of the Haile Selassie University in Addis Ababa and Vanderbilt University in Nashville, USA where he obtained a Master of Arts degree in Industrial Economics; in Ethiopia, he aided in the design and execution of development schemes to support small business enterprises. He was later appointed as the managing director of the World Bank Coffee project and he turned around the fortunes of the project through intricate planning, re-organisation and computerisation.