A Small Multicultural Team with One Common Goal

A little over a decade ago in 2009, when I graduated as an engineer, I never imagined I would be working with a small multicultural and talented team. A team that has one common objective of helping emerging countries. Having had experience at an investment bank as a frontend investment banker and heading a family office VC fund back in India, it was really hard to step back and look at a completely new geography of East Africa; a region that has immense potential and needs to be seen from a truly different perspective.

In India, the winter had already arrived and my search for a job which shared my values of finding start-up unicorns was still on. Then, in January 2020, I was offered a job with RENEW. I joined RENEW with mixed feelings of happiness and also a fear of living up to the expectations of a truly diversified close-knit team with a serious common objective of helping the emerging economy of Ethiopia. I remember my first day, the weather was slowly starting to get warm during the day, and I immediately started feeling the warmth of the team with their warm and friendly emails, that started hitting my mailbox first thing and made me feel comfortable and welcome.

In the next couple of weeks, I started working with the team on several assignments and directly with the partners and I was amazed by the energy that each member brings to the table with the objective of helping a company to become the unicorn in their space. The way of monitoring the workflow through weekly legend calls was new to me, but I really liked the concept as these calls helped each member to achieve those small milestones every week, which collaboratively adds up to the company's bigger goals. Soon, I realized I belonged to a super-talented team that lives across the world and who are always ready to help you. Though I have never met with any of the team members physically, I have never felt that I am not there with the team because of all the calls happening throughout each day.

Life at RENEW is full of rewards and recognition, and lots of employee engagement. The feedback on the assignments by the team members and from the partners is a great way to enhance the quality of professional work. The shout-outs at the end of weekly calls are truly a wonderful way of motivating the employees and boosting them to continue the exceptional work they had done during the week. Being a small team, I never thought we would be getting involved with training at every level and I was amazed to see that each member of the team, including the partners, attends the training conducted by team members.

With 7 months completed at RENEW, I have not only grown in my professional journey but also as an individual. In the last few months, I’ve experienced many different cultures, made some good colleagues, and have met charismatic leaders. I definitely look forward to meeting the team in person by visiting the country some time soon.