Bethlehem Shiferaw
Bethlehem Shiferaw’s path to becoming a vice-president at ONCAP private equity firm started at a UNICEF internship in Nairobi. While helping the organization aid children in southern Sudan, Shiferaw was disheartened to see successful programs suffer when funding dried up. “I realized very quickly that the real power and ability to influence lay with individuals who controlled the flow of capital,” she said. Today Shiferaw identifies, negotiates and manages millions of dollars worth of investments for ONCAP, a firm that invests in businesses across North America. She believes that private equity investment is the most effective way to achieve sustainable development in developing African nations like Ethiopia, where she has roots… Continue reading >>
4 thoughts on “Bethlehem Shiferaw: A trail blazing venture capitalist and role model”
“THE REAL POWER AND ABILITY TO INFULWNCE LAY WITH INDIVIDUALS WHO CONTROLLS THE FLOW OF CAPITAL”
This is what we need to tell to our kids,and to prepare them, specialy here in the US wher we ethiopians fail to harnes our full potential as individual and as a comunity as well. A good example for this is our failur to pass HR2003.
well done beth.we are proude of you.
Our fathers and teachers have spoken to us hard work rewards the hard-working person as the Holy Bible affirms that idea by telling us: “If a man will not work, he shall not eat” (2Thessalonians 3:10).
We Ethiopians, except some of us, are hard-working people by nature; if it has not been that way, we could not have produced hard-working people such as Bethlehem Shiferaw and many other Ethiopian men and women in all our communities.
To succeed in any business, education is the key, and to get education, one has to have good, caring, reasonable, and responsible parents who know the value of education. This doesn’t mean those who are not blessed with good parents cannot go to school and get their higher education; many in fact do, especially Ethiopians whose parents do not afford to send them to one of the best schools in the country. If that is the case, how do they do it? Once again, it is hard work! Such students wash dishes, clean toilets, shine shoes, and sell books during their spare times and save some money for their education.
These are exceptional, smart, well-disciplined Ethiopian kids who have goals – to get their education and find a high-paying jobs anywhere in this world. Once they get their jobs, they help their parents, their communities, and their country. Most Ethiopians respect themselves, respect their jobs, respect their other fellow workers, and respect their employers. They are most of the time on time, and they excel the other employees in producing quality products. They never quit their jobs unless nature prohibits them to stay on their jobs. They are faithful, dependable, humorous, warm, friendly, and God-loving people.
Some times, westerners take advantages of such hard-working Ethiopians and exploit them by not raising their salaries and by cheating and abusing them every time. It is sad we have employers like that in the west, especially in the Arab world where many Ethiopians work as laborers. Any way, the cruelties of some of these employers would not prevent a determined Ethiopian to fulfill his dream – to be, one day, one of his own bosses, manage millions of dollar, open businesses everywhere and becomes a bilinear. Then he will make others happy as he has been a happy and a generous person himself. The Scripture says something about such a person: “A generous man will prosper; he who refreshes others will himself be refreshed” (Proverbs 11:25).
No doubt that the happiness of a successful, rich, and a generous person is the delight of others. Most Ethiopians know hard work brings prosperity, respect, pleasure, and even spirituality as the Ethiopian saying goes: “genzeb kalle, besemy minged alle.” This means, if there is money, there is a way in heaven. So hard work gets a person educated, and an educated person like Bethlehem Shiferaw gets the profits of his/her education – wealth, happiness, generosity, and fame. Once again, the Holy Bible informs us: “All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty” (Proverbs 14:23).
we are very proud of you. keep up the good work.