Boston College graduates might opt for something different by moving to the West Coast after graduation. But for one 2010 graduate, that wasn’t nearly adventurous enough.
Alexander Storm Howe ventured all the way to Tanzania. And not just for a safari vacation.
“I left America because I was looking for adventure,” Howe said.
Originally, Howe wanted to pursue a career in Tanzania’s vast hunting industry.
“I had grown up hunting and being big on the outdoors,” Howe said. “I was in the Selous Game Reserve, I was living there with 25 Swahilis. The Selous Game Reserve—to give you a sense of scale—is twice the size of the state of Massachusetts. There’s no people, there’s no roads, it’s just a hunting area.”
This open road was the perfect contrast to the corporate atmosphere he was used to. After graduating from BC, Howe spent a few years working at a financial technology firm in Massachusetts.
“I ended up working from midnight to 10:00 in the morning doing back office support for international algorithmic trading for hedge funds,” Howe said. “I was 23, and the money was good and everything, but it wasn’t satisfying to me at all.”
The job left Howe feeling detached and largely unfulfilled, as it didn’t seem important or meaningful to him.
“It didn’t feel particularly real and particularly tangible,” Howe said. “At the end of the day, it’s just mainly hedge funds trading with other hedge funds. And it’s not real business, so to speak.”
The move to Africa wasn’t supposed to be permanent. But soon, he felt a connection to the continent that couldn’t be ignored.
“I didn’t expect to stay in Tanzania,” Howe said. “Everywhere you look there’s opportunity, right? There’s just so much that could be done. And so I just fell in love with Tanzania and just all the potential that I saw.”
Despite the opportunities in the hunting business, Howe chose to transition to a new career path. He took a job at the Alistar Group, a logistics company focused on expanding the oil and gas industries in southern Tanzania
Still, this wasn’t the career Howe had envisioned. He said his interests were more focused on the economic development of Africa.
He realized that many foreign companies don’t know how to enter the Tanzanian market due to its unique challenges. To address this challenge, he founded Africa Insight Advisors (AIA) in 2015, specializing in market-entry consulting.
AIA aims to help foreign businesses looking to enter into business in Africa. They also assist local businesses in expanding, modernizing, and attracting foreign investments. Their reach now spans beyond Tanzania, expanding into 13 different countries across Africa.
This is exactly the type of meaningful work Howe had been looking for.
“It’s really meaningful businesses,” Howe said. “It provides a lot of value. There’s a lot of businesses in the U.S. if they vanish tomorrow, it wouldn’t change. People would get along just fine.”
AIA operates in diverse industries that, according to Howe, play a major role in shaping the African economy.
“What I love is like we’re working in the food space, we’re working in manufacturing, we’re working in financial services,” Howe said. “And it’s really kind of central to quality of life and building and supporting Africa.”
Recently, AIA helped organize an $18 million fundraiser for the Irvine’s Group, a leading poultry company with operations across Sub-Saharan Africa, partially owned by the American food giant Tyson.
According to Howe, the Irvine’s Group’s success can be attributed to its ability to understand and adapt to the specific needs of the food industry in Tanzania.
“There’s a lot of parallels between what will work in America and East Africa, but the model will be different,” Howe said.
This is evident in the Irvine’s Group’s business model, Howe said.
“The chicken business here is largely around producing what’s called a day-old chick,” Howe said. “So just a small little chick, an animal feed, and they send those out to people. People raise those to full size and then they’re selling those chickens.”
This practice helps to further develop Tanzania’s rural economy, as selling day-old chicks allows those who raise and sell chickens to build and maintain wealth.
According to Howe, his wealth has amounted to $300 million in income for the 60,000 farmers working with the Irvine’s Group. This is having a tangible economic impact on the families involved Howe said.
“It’s predominantly women, so that’s a really cool impact—rural livelihoods and rural income generation where it wouldn’t be,” Howe said.
Howe’s business partners admire his creative business approaches. One of them, Remer Lane, met Howe while working on the Southern African Growth Corridor of Tanzania, where he was researching business strategies for the region.
Lane viewed Howe’s business strategy—developing a country’s manufacturing base and creating private-sector job opportunities—not just as successful, but also practical.
“I think that the business approach to helping a country is far more sustainable than pumping a lot of money right into a country to do short-term training and business development,” Lane said.
This approach helps the people maintain long-term wealth, rather than relying on foreign corporations that often come and go.
“When that money leaves, those people don’t have it anymore,” Lane said. “They just wait for the next development project to come to participate in.”
Howe’s focus on doing this type of work sets him apart from many others in the business field.
“He hasn’t been sucked into that world, which is to his credit,” Lane said. “I think it reflects strongly on his ethics and his belief in doing what’s right in the long-term for the companies and his clients.”
His clients are truly his top priority, Lane said.
“He’s dedicated,” Lane said. “His devotion and dedication to doing what’s right and really helping his customers was exceptional.”
This is reflected in the long-term relationships he fosters, as customers know they can rely on him.
“He is constantly looking for the best solution for his client more so than he’s looking for unbelievable and immediate profitability so he can move on to the next transaction,” Lane said. “It resonates because customers ultimately see you for someone they can count on and trust who’s actually going to stick with them.”
Howe’s business ventures aren’t without their challenges, especially given the unique obstacles the Tanzanian economy poses.
“Access to education and getting workers that are with the skills that you need in a company is a major challenge,” Howe said.
This was something Howe had not faced before while working in the U.S.
“The ability to find and hire people with the technical skills and with the motivation—so definitely human capital— I mean you just take it for granted,” Howe said. “Whereas here, from basic roles and getting basic staff that understand arithmetic in a meaningful way and whatever, that can be a challenge.”
AnnaJoyce Mbise, a former coworker of Howe, understands this dynamic firsthand. She, too, has also faced difficulties navigating an industry-wide shortage of human capital with her company, the Alistair Group.
“Working in an African environment, where not everything is clear, there isn’t a clear set process or even if there is a process, doesn’t mean it works in a timely manner or efficiently,” Mbise said.
Mbise applauds Howe for his ability to navigate this successfully.
“And to work in this environment, to come in as a foreigner, not know the lay of the land, know any regulations and have to learn everything from scratch, including the language, takes a certain type of person,” Mbise said.
Howe was exactly this type of person, Mbsie said.
“He’s definitely a go-getter,” Mbise said. “He is like a dog with a bone in a way. He doesn’t give up easy. Every day is a working day, and he is definitely tenacious.”
Lane attributes that drive and motivation to Howe’s love for Tanzania.
“Alex did have that call for Africa,” Lane said. “It’s a bug. You get it, and it’s in. You want to pursue it, and you just enjoy living on the edge and being in a place where so much can happen. Life can end in a day. It can begin in a day. He was, in my view, drawn to Africa from an early age and sought ways to get there and stay, create, and explore.”
Howe is grateful for the places his unconventional career path has taken him, and is only hopeful for a more adventurous future.
“I didn’t want to be a 20-year old stuck behind a desk for my whole life, living like that white picket-fence lifestyle,” Howe said. “I came for adventure, I’ve now had 13 years of adventures, and there’s a lot more places I want to see and things I want to experience.”
Howe hopes that other BC students can learn to write their own adventure.
“I just think that more people should think for yourselves more,” Howe said. “I definitely haven’t had the normal path, and I wouldn’t change it for the world. But at the end of the day, everyone’s got to march to the beat of their own drum.”
Howe encourages students to keep in mind that there’s always more out there than what others are doing.
“People should really think more about like, ‘What do I like?’” Howe said. “‘What do I value? What do I want to do, and am I not? Am I making sure I’m not just following the crowd?’”
And, of course, not everything has to go as planned—his life is living proof.
“My journey is, it hasn’t really gone how I planned it, but it’s probably better than the way I could have planned it,” Howe said.
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