About Us
We are a business and economic development firm. Our strategic intent is to catalyze and capitalize on emerging opportunities on the African continent and leverage our collective knowledge, skills, and competencies for business and economic development. As partners, we collectively pool our unique personal, social, and professional identities and networks to create value and synergies for our clients—businesses or firms, industries, and local and national governments—with the fundamental objective of generating profits, stimulating interest in business, and accelerate economic activity.
Our Team
Extensive and In-depth Professional Experience
Joseph P. Eshun, Jr.
Dr. Joseph P. Eshun, Jr. is the Managing Partner of Diaspora for Development, LLC. He has an extensive academic background and professional experience in engineering and management as well as over 20 years as a management professor in business school. His professional career as Operations Officer at Music Television (MTV) in London, England; and continued as Management Analyst for Wall-Street-based Information Technologies firm; as Director of the Accelerated Degree Program in Business Administration at Muhlenberg College, and later as Director of Corporate Partnerships in the same institution. More recently, Dr. Eshun was Associate Professor of Business Management at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania, and prior to that as Assistant Professor of Management at Pennsylvania State University (Pennstate) in the division of Engineering, Computing and Business at the Lehigh Valley Campus. His eclectic research, spanning several disciplinary domains in business management and social sciences including but is not limited to entrepreneurship, strategy, human resource, and economic development where he integrates knowledge from these disciplines to inform and guide his understanding of the new organizational forms and practices.
In 2005, Dr. Eshun was invited by the Economic Development Administration unit of the United States Department of Commerce, Small Business Administration to serve as a panelist, speaker, and moderator for “Using Technology and Innovation to Generate Firm Formation” at the conference Putting It Together: The Role of Entrepreneurship in Economic Development”, which was sponsored by the United States Small Business Administration, Kauffman Research Foundation; The Council of State Governments; and The National Lieutenant Governors Association in Washington, DC. In 2008, Dr. Eshun was invited to present at the Entrepreneurship Boot Camp Program sponsored by Kauffman Research Foundation and organized under the auspices of the Urban Investment Strategies Center, Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Prior to that, in 2006, Dr. Eshun had been a participant in the Entrepreneurship Boot Camp Program, Emerging Scholars Research Conference Sponsored by Kauffman Foundation, and organized under the auspices of the Urban Investment Strategies Center, Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. In 2006, Dr. Eshun was invited to participate at the inauguration of the Partnership between United States Department of Commerce, Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA) and the Allentown Economic Development Corporation (AEDC) under the auspices of Bridgeworks Business Incubator. To better channel his passion and advocacy for the transference and diffusion of management knowledge and competencies, more recently, Dr. Eshun is collaborating and consulting with various organizations both home and abroad to implement and facilitate management development training programs through various professional seminars and workshops. Dr. Eshun holds a B.Sc. (Eng.) degree in Electronic Engineering at City College of Higher Education, London, England; M.S degree in Management and Policy Analysis from the State University of New York at Stony Brook; and M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees at Columbia University in the city of New York.
Mr. Felix Tamattey
Felix Tamattey is a past partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and now the Managing Partner of CFY Partners (www.cfypartners.org) and a freelance consultant/trainer in financial / strategic management with specific focus on business strategy and process improvement, and information technology. Felix has over 38 years of work experience spanning the private and public sectors in all aspects of financial management, strategic management, and capacity development through training. Prior to his consultancy practice career, Felix had been in various managerial positions including computer audit manager of the internal audit department of the Volta River Authority, Chief Internal Auditor of ABC Brewery Limited, Chief Accountant of Ghana Agro-food Company and a partner of PwC with specific mandate in business advisory services. Felix’s relevant skills and experience are summarized below: Summary of key skills and experience: In management consultancy, Felix has been involved in the provision of various forms of financial management and public sector restructuring services. He completed a multi-million project to set up an Office of Financial Management (OFM) for the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare of the Government of the Republic of Liberia between 2007 – 2010 to strengthen the financial management system, capacity and effective delivery of the Ministry to both central government and development partners. He also completed a two-year (2012 – 2013) contract for a business process re-engineering project and implementation of an Oracle e-Business ERP application for the financial and business management systems of the Volta River Authority (the major electric power generation company in Ghana).
Felix has for over the past 30 years led electrical engineers (both expatriate and local) for the revaluation of the fixed assets of utility companies such as VRA, GRIDCo, the Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG) and, since March 2019 leading a multi-disciplinary team to take stock and value all the power assets of Sierra Leone to help restructure the country’s two main electric power companies (EGTC and EDSA). In 2016 undertook the review of the financing and financial management of the health sector of Sierra Leone to restructure its pharmaceutical procurement agency to achieve value-for-money, accountability and transparency. The project was funded by the Department for International Development (DFID) of the UK.
Felix was also the PwC expert for change management on the VRA/GRIDCo Oracle e-business software implementation project. · CFY Partners engagement leader, business process/financial management expert that undertook the business process re-engineering for the Government of Ghana’s monopoly electricity grid transmission company – the Ghana Grid Company (GRIDCo) from February 2015 to July 2016. The project also included developing systems requirements for the selection and implementation of an efficient ERP application (world class enterprise resource planning software). · Felix was the PwC Project Manager for the World Bank funded project to develop a financial model for planning and budgeting to assist the Ghana Water Company Limited (GWCL) in its financial management systems. As part of the assignment, he travelled to the 10 regions of the country to interact with the various finance function operatives of GWCL to determine their definitive functional and system requirements for the development of a budgeting model. Early in 2009, MoFEP noted from a preliminary review that the outstanding (GoG) commitments and liabilities as at 31 December 2008 originating from the various MDAs appear to exceed the amount anticipated in the 2009 national Expenditure Budget. To facilitate proper financial planning, budgetary control and effective cash, MoFEP had to assess the viability of the outstanding GoG financial liabilities as well as identify the weaknesses within the established systems for tracking commitments and liabilities arising from MDAs. To achieve this objective, MoFEP contracted PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to carry out a review of the operating systems for tracking GoG commitments arising from the MDAs. Felix successfully oversaw the review of three key agencies of public financial management (i.e. MoFEP, CAGD and BoG) and all MDAs who were listed in the three agencies records of outstandings. Public Financial Management Reform Program (PUFMARP) and Budgeting and Public Expenditure Management System (BPEMS and now GIFMIS). Working with then Price Waterhouse, Felix designed the: integrated revenue management (that created the Ghana Revenue Authority); comprehensive auditing resulting in the creation of the Internal Audit Agency; and decentralized financial management. · PwC Partner that directed World Bank funded projects for the development of accounting manuals for Central Government and the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) in 2008. Felix also directed an evaluation project to assess MMDAs’ capacity to deliver their mandates through the Human Resources Development Program me (HRDP), which was implemented by the Institute of Local Government Studies (ILGS) with the objective of enhancing human capacity available to Ghana’s decentralization programme through the delivery of tailored training program in financial management, and project planning and management. b. Civil Service restructuring, staff rationalization and pay reforms · PwC project manager for developing Ghana’s public sector medium-to-long term salaries and wages policy funded by the World Bank. The main objective was to design and implement an effective government policy to “offer equal pay for work of equal worth”. The scope of the project involved the writing of job descriptions for all jobs, evaluating the jobs, placement of the jobs on the PwC proposed structure and offloading of Civil Service salaries onto the proposed scales.
Felix was the PwC project manager which conducted a staff rationalization assignment for the Customs Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) of Ghana. The objective of this assignment was to determine the age profile and skill mix of the staff of the CEPS in support of the implementation of a Ghana Government’s computerized revenue mobilization system. · PwC project manager responsible for the restructuring of subverted civil service agencies of Ghana. The key scope covered the review a cross section of restructuring reports produced by previous and present reform programmes to understand the main restructuring variables and to gain an appreciation of costs and time needed for such interventions. Recommendations were made for restructuring of organizations’ staffing arrangements and financial performance.
Felix has conducted and continues to provide various financial management training and capacity building projects for a variety of organizations in several African countries. He has since November 2012 and recently as January to May 2018 been conducting similar training assignments for staff engaged on development-partner sponsored projects in Malaysia, UAE (Dubai and Abu Dhabi), South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania and Malawi for selected financial management staff on the Bank’s funded social intervention projects. These World Bank funded projects trainings have been delivered mainly through the approach of facilitating courses for various participants through learning skills for accounting data capture (bookkeeping), analyses and reporting through the use of the World Bank’s eight (8) step Project Cycle methodology. Prior to this specialized training for development partners funded projects, Felix had trained several finance staff of Shell in over 17 African countries.
Mr. Festus B. Quaidoo
Mr. Festus B. Quaidoo holds an Executive master’s degree in business administration with speciality in Human Resource Management from the University of Ghana Business School - Legon, a B.A (Hons) Degree in Sociology also from the University of Ghana, as well as a post-graduate Certificate in Human Resource Strategic Management from the Galilee University in Israel.
Over the past 28 years, Festus has garnered extensive experience in Human Resource Management including Safety and Health functions. He is currently an HR Consultant at Volta Aluminium Company Limited (VALCO), providing strategic advice and insights regarding the management of the HR function on intermittent/part-time basis. Prior to his current role, Festus was the Director, Human Resources/Administration at VALCO where he managed the HR organization with oversight responsibility for the Safety and Medical departments for 5 years.
Before his re-engagement at VALCO, (first engagement 1991 – 2004 and second from 2017 to date) Festus was the General Manager, HR & Administration at Global Speciality Oils & Fats (GSOF) Limited, Tema. He joined GSOF from Tema Oil Refinery (TOR) Limited where he was the General Manager, HR & Administration and exercised leadership and managerial responsibility for the HR function from 2013 to 2015. Before his association with TOR, he worked as an independent Management Consultant. From 2005 to 2012, Festus worked with Merchant Bank (Ghana) Limited now Universal Merchant Bank as Compensation/Benefits Specialist, then as Head of Human Resource, and was later appointed Head of Learning & Development with primary accountability for managing training/development programs and other learning interventions in support of the Bank’s business objectives.
Festus has varied expertise and many years of progressively demonstrable work experience in the HR arena including Safety & Health Management Systems. His experience in HR includes, but not limited to HR Strategy, HR Policies/Procedures, Performance Management, Succession Management, Job Competency Profiling, Talent Management, Job Evaluation, HR Analytics, Salary & Compensation Administration, Employee Relations, Organizational Development, HR-Information based Systems as well as Safety/Health. He is also proficient in developing HR Systems as well as managing cross-functional business activities strategically.
Throughout his career, Festus has pioneered the design of several HR systems/projects. These include HR Database System for managing HR/Employees’ data, Employee Cultural Survey, Competency Framework for career development and learning interventions, Framework for Succession Planning/Management, Performance Management System (Balanced Scorecard Model) and Job Analysis and Evaluation, among others. He has also facilitated in several HR-related training, communication and safety/health program at the work environment; including safety & health audits and risk assessments and developed safety & health systems for organizations in Ghana.
Currently, Festus is a Board member of Greenline Logistics Limited, Ghana and a member (Member #:169) of the Chartered Institute of Human Resource Management, (CIHRM) Ghana.