Executive in Residence: GE Africa's Todd Johnson Visits Carey Business School

Todd Johnson’s resume shows a career that has taken many intriguing turns. Senior research manager at a New York consulting firm.  University professor. Africa expert at a leading risk management operation in London. Washington-based, Africa-focused analyst for the U.S. government.

The latest stop on his career journey has taken him even farther afield – as risk and market development manager at General Electric Africa, based in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The Kansas native’s broad experience and analytical skills give him the ability to define the continent more precisely for his team in Africa and for colleagues at GE headquarters in Connecticut. On a recent stateside trip, Johnson shared some career insights with Johns Hopkins Carey Business School students in Baltimore and with students at Johns Hopkins’ School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C. He made his remarks as a visiting Executive in Residence at the Carey School.

Among the Carey Global MBA students who met with Johnson for a Q&A session hosted by Dean Bernard T. Ferrari, several had worked in Rwanda in early 2013 for their Innovation for Humanity residencies. In the I4H course, first-year Global MBA students spend three weeks seeking business solutions to problems in emerging countries across the globe. Also at the Q&A were members of the current class of first-year Global MBA students, including some who will embark on their own I4H journey to Central Africa in January 2014.

A Johns Hopkins SAIS alum who earned a master of international public policy degree with honors in 2008, Johnson spoke to the students about misconceptions of Africa, as well as about the opportunities that he said become apparent to those who adopt a more mature and nuanced understanding of the continent, its countries, and its people.

Africa is often thought of as a risky place to do business. However, when it comes to opportunities for GE to grow on the continent, Johnson said he focuses on the national and firm levels, rather than grouping all the nations of Africa into one economic or strategic category. He also noted that recent political brinksmanship in Washington over the U.S. budget has put the idea of overseas market risk into perspective. Risk is everywhere, he observed, alluding to the hazards created by America’s political gridlock.

Africans who have returned from living and working overseas make up a considerable part of the GE Africa workforce, Johnson said. These employees have international business experience and a good sense of what their home countries need to expand opportunity. That could mean plans involving power plant equipment, such as GE turbines, or any of the hundreds of medical devices that GE produces. Leveraging local knowledge networks leads to better risk assessment and higher return on investment for the country’s people and GE’s shareholders, Johnson said.

Global transportation and logistics challenges are particularly acute in Africa, he told the students in Baltimore. He pointed to World Bank statistics showing that it takes 19 days to move a shipping container 7,500 kilometers from Singapore to Mombasa, Kenya, and another 18 days to get from Mombasa to Malaba, Uganda, just 800 kilometers from the coast. Time is money, so time is a major factor in Johnson’s risk assessments.

Other challenges persist, such as differences in the gauge of railroad tracks, customs systems that might be fully paper-based and decentralized, and local joint-venture prospects with discouraging histories. In every case, Johnson’s role is to weigh potential gain for GE against the risk to the company’s finances and reputation. GE, as a worldwide industrial power, does not have to take on every deal it encounters. Johnson explained that his management approach is to act with the future in mind, doing what’s best for a highly valued brand that still has new markets to explore.

The first duty of anyone looking to do business in Africa, said Johnson, is to understand the continent on a nuanced level. That advice goes equally for business school students, social entrepreneurs, and non-governmental organizations – as well as for the largest industrial conglomerate in the world.