Bernard is the Managing Partner of Laurendeau & Associates.
With roots in Ethiopia and France, and over 15 years of experience advising Fortune 500 companies, Bernard shares his unique journey from Silicon Valley to Addis Ababa.
When you spent a year advising the Jobs Creation Commission under the Office of Prime Minister in Ethiopia, what conclusions did you come away with?
When you break down Ethiopia’s demographics and the number of young people entering the labour market, you end up with this staggering figure: the country needs to create about 10,000 jobs every single day — roughly 3.5 million jobs per year. Once you accept that reality, it forces you to rethink everything. It’s obvious the public sector can’t absorb that demand, so the real task becomes figuring out where, realistically, those jobs can come from.
That’s why so much of the Commission’s work was strategic—mapping out which areas of the private sector could move quickly, and which ones needed longer-term investment. My own focus was on digital entrepreneurship, because if we need to go fast, digital is the only way.
We also looked closely at underemployment and the informal sector, and how freelancing, outsourcing and gig work — what we called “FROG” — could open new income streams. And interestingly, some of that has really taken off since, especially freelancing.
A key part of unleashing entrepreneurial potential is access to finance. You co-founded Arifpay, an Ethiopian fintech firm - can you talk us through the vision behind it?
When I got involved with Arifpay, the original vision wasn’t actually mine. I was working in Silicon Valley and becoming more interested in Ethiopia’s tech ecosystem when I met the founder, who said, essentially, “We need a Square for Ethiopia.” The idea was to enable small businesses to accept payments easily through a simple device and phone—very similar to how Square started in the US.
At that time, there was no regulatory framework at all for payment system operators in Ethiopia, so in many ways we were building something in a vacuum. But what drew me in was the broader vision: enabling SMEs.
When I eventually took the reins, things weren’t going well, so I rebuilt almost everything from scratch. The vision expanded from simply enabling payments to becoming part of Ethiopia’s core payment infrastructure. And for me, it was important that this be bank-led, not telco-led.
I’m sceptical about the benefit of telco-led financing solutions. Sure, sellers on the side of the street are accepting payments on their cell phones, but what has that changed in their ability to scale? Ultimately, I see the banking system as fundamental to strong economies. Weakening banks, in my view, ultimately weakens the entire private sector.
More recently, you launched Enkopa Summit, an annual industry summit in Ethiopia. What's the vision behind it?
With Enkopa Summit, the vision was never to create just another event where people sit around, chat, and drink tea. For me, it’s first and foremost a business—a startup in its own right—and a platform for real value creation. If people are going to show up, the summit has to help them do actual deals, make connections that matter, and move projects forward. So the idea is to bring together the right stakeholders across the value chain—entrepreneurs, corporates, integrators, consultants, investors—and get them in the same room to genuinely collaborate and align commercial interests .
We’re not reinventing the wheel. Events like Salesforce’s Dreamforce or Oracle OpenWorld work because they connect the ecosystem in a focused, practical way. That’s what Enkopa is trying to do in Ethiopia: identify the topics that are truly active, the sectors where things are happening, and then create space for the people driving those efforts to meet, workshop ideas, and strike partnerships.
Three years in, what have you learned along the way and where do you want it to be in ten years?
One of the biggest things I’ve learned from running Enkopa Summit is how different the real ecosystem looks once you strip away the noise. In the early days, there were all these glossy reports about the size of Ethiopia’s tech or entrepreneurship ecosystem, but when you looked closely, half the organisations listed were inactive—many were NGOs with no commercial role, or simply not doing what the reports claimed. Enkopa forced us to see who actually has commercial skin in the game—who’s willing to pay to show up, who’s serious enough to speak, who really has a stake in the sector.
That’s been incredibly valuable. It helped us understand the true size of the market, just like a country needs accurate population and employment data before policymaking. For us, it’s the foundation for realistic business development.
Ten years from now, I want Enkopa to be the platform that anchors Ethiopia’s—and increasingly Africa’s—technology and entrepreneurship ecosystem. And honestly, it already feels like it’s taking off.
What have you been watching, reading or listening to?
I’m not the biggest bookworm, but lately, I’ve been reading a number of pieces written by a friend of mine who wears several hats in Ethiopia: he runs one of the country’s major TV channels, does data analytics, and works in communications. His writing has got me thinking, especially around influencers and the ceiling that influencer-driven channels are now hitting [see substack link below].
He makes the case that, contrary to what many assume, TV isn’t dead in Africa—not yet. Big players like Canal+ are learning that the hard way. His writing digs into why certain promotional channels plateau and why legacy media still has real relevance on the continent.
