All posts by : Deborah Sedzifa

Emi-Beth Quantson is Changing the Narrative of Entrepreneurship in Africa – Match Group

Emi-Beth Quantson is Changing the Narrative of Entrepreneurship in Africa

Mary Iannone – Associate Manager, Internal Communications

When she was a student at Ashesi University in Ghana, Emi-Beth Quantson noticed an opportunity. “There were three buildings at my university, and two of them had cafes – but one of them, with a beautiful green space and gazebo, did not. I thought it would be such a cool hangout for students, a real connection place.” In her final year of school, and for the year after, Emi-Beth launched and ran her own coffee shop on campus, and even wrote her entrepreneurship thesis on the experience.

Then, for a while, she switched gears, working for PricewaterhouseCoopers in Ghana and Kenya for six years. “I was one of the youngest leaders in the

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6/1/22, 11:43 AM Emi-Beth Quantson is Changing the Narrative of Entrepreneurship in Africa – Match Group Company, but something was pulling me to do more,” says Emi-Beth. “Coffee is such a connector for business meetings and ideas, and I was in love with that. I took a roundabout way back to Ghana and started Kawa Moka in 2015.”

Kawa Moka is a 100% women-owned Ghanaian coffee company that specializes in the production of artisan small batch roasted coffee. While they have a broad group of 200 farmers, their core group is made of 32 women farmers. “We’re enabling them to have access to a global market. There is more disposable income for these women – that goes back to their homes, and their children have better access to healthcare, education, and better opportunities.” Kawa Moka also employs sustainable practices, allowing the business to increase yield through organic farming techniques.

“A lot of stories about Africa are about raw material going out to other countries and then coming back as imports,” says Emi-Beth. “We are changing that narrative by roasting our coffee in Ghana and sending it out to other countries.”

Emi-Beth’s next target market is the United States. As part of that goal, Emi Beth was selected to be a part of the 2022 Fortune-U.S. Department of State Global Women’s Mentoring Program. Working closely with Faye Iosotaluno, Chief Strategy Officer at Match Group and Interim Chief Operating Officer at Tinder, Emi-Beth has spent several months shadowing Faye and many other women leaders within Match Group, including Melissa Hobley, Global Chief Marketing Officer at OkCupid, Michelle Parsons, Chief Product Officer at Hinge, and Joanna Rice, Vice President and Head of Corporate Social Responsibility and ESG at Match Group.

“Match Group cares about its people,” reflects Emi-Beth. “It comes out very clearly in the work environment and how people treat each other. “Everyone has been great in sharing their knowledge, making time, and pulling other women with them, whether in the same room or across continents. It’s very refreshing to be surrounded by so many capable women.”

Not only can Emi-Beth walk away from her Match Group mentoring experience with practical and technical knowledge, she’s pleased to walk away with more strategies on how to succeed as a woman leader. “What is your driving force?” she asks. “How do you behave when you get that seat at the table? What is your leadership style? Melissa said I am too humble – that you have to put yourself out there, celebrate what you’ve achieved, and acknowledge that you are great. Faye was an excellent example of someone at the highest level juggling multiple positions and a family and still being able to pursue ambition as a woman. Michelle also gave me advice on handling a team, which differs greatly from how I’ve seen it done. [I can now] describe expectations, delegate, and empower my team.”

So what’s next for Emi-Beth and Kawa Moka? “The [OkCupid] marketing team took an hour just to brainstorm about my company and what markets we can plug into,” she says. “I’ve already made some connections to the U.S. market, which has opened doors I may not have been able to reach by myself. Now that the doors have been opened, I don’t want to just stay there – I want to walk through them.”

For more on Emi-Beth and the Fortune-U.S. Department of State Global Women’s Mentoring Program, check out Vital Voices. You can also support Emi Beth by following @kawa_moka on Instagram!

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Coffee; from  the  classic  black  to  the  modern  hipster  tri-whatever-lattes. Wherever  you  fall  along  this  spectrum, you’ve  probably  wondered  where  and  how  this  special  brew  came  to  be  discovered.  Or  was  this  a  quick  Google  search  on  coffee  on  a  whim? Either  ways, the  tale  of  where  coffee  originated  from   is  as  rich  as  the  brew  itself.

HOW  WAS  COFFEE  DISCOVERED? ETHIOPIA  AND  THE  DANCING  GOATS 

Many  stories  surround  the  origin  of  coffee, some  facts, others  legends  depending  on  who  you  ask.  One story  speaks  of  a  Kaldi  an  Ethiopian goat  herder.  He  noticed  his  herd  had  become  unusually  overactive  after  consuming  the  red  cherries  of  a  wild  coffee  shrub. Curiously, he  tasted  the  cherries  and  found  it  revitalizing. Afterwards, a group of monks spotted him dancing with goats.

Similarly, a  Muslim  devish  condemned  and  abandoned  in  the  dessert  to  die by his brethren stumbled  upon  a  coffee  tree. He was unable  to  soften  the  coffee  beans  with  water so he  drank  the  liquid. He took  his  renewed  strength  as  a  sign  from  God and returned  to  his  people  sharing his experience and recipe.

WHERE  THE  WORD  ‘COFFEE’  ORIGINATED  FROM

The  word  ‘coffee’  came  from the Dutch  “koffie”  borrowed  from  the  Ottoman  Turkish  “kahve”.  ‘Kahve’  was  derived  from  the  Arabic  “qahwah”  which  originally  referred  to a  type  of  wine.

  By  1414, coffee  had  spread  from  North  Africa  to  the  Yemeni  port  of  Mocha  then  to  other  parts  of  the  world. Originally, the  term ‘’mocha’’  referred to the city of Mocha in Yemen. Now,  mocha is   associated  with  chocolate flavored  coffee  drinks.

Caffeine  History Timeline

THE  COFFEE  ORIGIN  STORY  OF  EUROPE

Coffee  came  into  Europe  through  two  routes, the  Ottoman  Empire  and  the  port  of  Mocha. It  was  first  introduced  to  Europe  on  the  Island  of  Malta  in  the  16^th  century.

Trade  relations  between  the  republic  of  Venice  and  North  Africa, introduced  coffee  to  the  wealthy  in  Venice.

Coffee  became  available  in  the  UK  in  the  16^th  century. England  opened  it’s first coffeehouse in  Oxford  in  1652. In the same year, London  had  it’s  first  coffee  shop  at  St. Michael’s  alley, Cornhill. Subsequently, the  coffeehouses  grew  so  popular  that  they  became  social  hubs  for  the  sharing  of  information  and  discussion  of  social  and  other  issues.

In  France, an ambassador  named  Soleiman  Agha  arrived  in  1669  with  his  entourage  and  gave  large  amounts  of  coffee  beans to  the  royal  court  and  that  led  to  the  drinking  of  coffee  among  the  French.

COFFEE  IN  THE  AMERICAS

Coffee  reached  North America  in  1668  and  in South  America, a  French mariner  named  Gabriel du Clieu  took  a  sapling  of  the  coffee  plant  to  the  Island  of  Martinique  in  the  year  1723. By 1730, the  British  began  cultivating  coffee  in  Jamaica.

Many  Latin  American  countries experienced stunted   growth  the   coffee  farms  due  to  lack  of  manpower. In  addition, these  countries  lost  about  40%  of  their  market  due  to  the  Second  World  War. Yet, coffee  was  and  is  still  one  of  the  continent’s  top  cash  commodities. Brazil  is  the  largest  producer  of  coffee  in  the  world  accounting  for  40%  of  the  global  supply.

Read Also; How  To  Recycle  Used  Coffee  Grounds

BRIEF  HISTORY  OF  COFFEE  IN  AFRICA

Initially, some  East  African  tribes  took  in  coffee  as  food  and not  as  the  beverage  we  have  all  come  to  know. They  made  a  paste  by  grinding  coffee  cherries  and  mixing  the  paste  with  animal  fat. The mixture  was  rolled  into  little  balls.   At  the  time, warriors ate these coffee balls to  give  them  the  much  needed  energy  for  battle.

Around  the  year  1000 AD,  Ethiopians  made  a  wine-like  concoction  from  coffee  berries  by  fermenting  the  dried  beans  in  water.

In  Ghana, the  Germans  supervised  the  transportation  of  coffee  saplings  from  Togo  to  the  country  and  cultivation  began  in  the  year 1928  in  Leklebi.

Ultimately, there  will  always  different  versions  of  where  coffee  originated  from, but  boy  aren’t  we  glad  it  was  discovered.