Dr Mrs Ellen Hagan, the Founder and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the country’s premier human resource consultancy – L’AINE Services Limited, has tipped young and aspiring entrepreneurs on how they can be sure whether their interest in a business is genuine or not.
There have been instances where people have started businesses and given up at some point because they lost interest in it. However, speaking on the Y Leaderboard Series, Ellen Hagan gave a solution to this.
She observed that usually, when people put so much effort into starting a business that they think they have interest in, they may lose interest when they keep making mistakes, especially when it involves resources going waste and having to spend extra money replacing them, and hence, it is important to start as an apprentice.
“My suggestion is that you start off by being an apprentice or studying at the feet of someone so you develop some skills, including making some mistakes on an established businessman’s turf rather than yours,” she said.
She noted that starting off as an apprentice is ideal because it enables you to take your time to develop your expertise and build your confidence, as well as learn what not to do so as not to sink in the business.
About Dr Mrs Ellen Hagan
Dr Mrs Ellen Hagan is a human resource practitioner with over 25 years of experience. She is an alumna of Wesley Girls High School and the University of Ghana. She also holds an MBA from the University of Leicester.
Like most people, she started out as an employee, first as a national service person at Mfantsiman Girls’ Secondary School in her home town Saltpond, followed by stints at Volta River Authority, and nearly a decade at SGS Ghana Ltd. During this period and based on her work experiences and training in Human Resource Management she wondered about the absence of employment agencies in Ghana and most of West Africa. Wondering became a dream, to establish an employment agency and training centre for secretaries and administrative staff, which are key to the success of any enterprise.
Being Ellen, she had to live the dream, take the plunge and switch from being an employee to become an employer. Thus was the birth of L’AINE Services Limited (the word L’AINE is French for first-born or eldest), a self-owned, self-managed wholly Ghanaian company. The reality became much bigger than the dream which is now not only an employment and training organisation, but a human resource centre that includes such human resource services such as outsourcing, organisational development, salary surveys, rapporteur, staff performance appraisals, career guidance, CV preparation, interview grooming, psychometric tests, among others.
Additionally, she is a co-founder of Legacy Leadership Girls’ School, currently the only all-girls private school in Ghana with a strategically enhanced Ghanaian and British curriculum – that helps young female students develop critical thinking and life-long analytical skills to become successful leaders.
She also established the L’AINE Foundation, a not-for-profit entrepreneurship foundation, to assist in the development of youth entrepreneurship.
Dr Mrs Hagan has written three books; Soft Skills; What Gives One Jobseeker An Edge Over Another, All about Job Interviews and Why are you Here and published several articles in the Business and Financial Times and the HR Focus Magazine.
She also partners with the counselling units of the University of Ghana, Central University and Ashesi University to offer presentations on the corporate world, internship programs and how to run them well.
Dr Ellen serves on several boards including the University of Ghana Business School board and the Danish Sounding board.
Awards:
- CIMG Marketing Woman Of The Year 2011
- Strategic Leadership Awards 2011 World HRD Congress in India
- Africa’s Most Influential Woman In Business 2013
- The Ultimate Woman Of The Year at the 2017 Emy Awards
- Women Arising Entrepreneur Of The Year 2017
source: Yfm/Kuulpeeps
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