Why I Left Defense Work to Build in Africa — And What Most Investors Still Get Wrong
By Alicia Kay Lewis
This Wasn’t a Strategy—It Became One
I didn’t plan to build my life or work around Africa.
There was no five-year roadmap. No clean pivot. No slide deck pointing to “emerging markets” with arrows pretending the path was obvious.
I fell in love.
First with a man. Then, gradually, with everything around that relationship—the people, the pace, the contradictions, the warmth, the frustration, the humor, the resilience, and the possibility.
But my connection to Africa didn’t start there.
Over 16 years ago, my father took me on a work trip to Guinea Conakry. We were looking at the expiration of Rusal mining contracts and exploring how U.S. operators could step in. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that trip was my first exposure to how global capital, infrastructure, and politics intersect on the ground.
Since then, I’ve spent months at a time living and working across Ethiopia, Kenya, Egypt, Ghana, Zambia, and South Africa—and traveled through Gabon, Togo, Morocco, and many others.
And one thing became very clear:
Africa is not one market. It’s dozens of completely different ones.
What started as exposure became experience. What started as personal became professional.
And that shift—from observing to building—is where most people underestimate Africa.
The First Lesson: Adaptation Is the System
I remember sitting in a house one night when the power went out.
No warning. Just darkness.
I paused. Everyone else didn’t.
Someone kept cooking. Someone laughed mid-story. Someone grabbed a flashlight and kept going like this was completely normal.
I was the only one thinking, should we be concerned?
They had already solved it.
By adapting.
That moment reframed something fundamental:
What outsiders call instability, people living it call life.
And more importantly—life doesn’t stop.
That lesson stayed with me because it changed how I understood complexity.
From Defense to Reality: A Different Kind of Complexity
Before this, I worked in defense-related environments.
Which means I was used to rooms where people speak in acronyms, lean back slightly, and say things like “that’s classified”—usually right after they’ve already told you half the story… and occasionally a version of the story that feels a little too confident to be entirely accurate.
It’s a fascinating dynamic.
Information is both tightly controlled and casually leaked at the same time.
You’ll have one person who won’t confirm anything—and another who will walk you through an entire situation in detail, only for you to later realize parts of it were… flexible.
I never fully figured out where the line actually was.
There’s a kind of accepted gray zone—where everyone operates with partial information, selective transparency, and just enough storytelling to keep momentum.
It’s a world of brilliant people, controlled ambiguity, and very confident explanations that may or may not survive contact with reality.
So naturally, I thought I understood complexity.
I didn’t.
Because Africa introduced a completely different kind—one that has less to do with secrecy and more to do with translation, trust, timing, and context.
And the first thing that context taught me was this: you cannot talk about Africa like it is one place.
Africa Is Not One Market—And That Matters
One of the biggest mistakes people make is talking about Africa like it’s a single place.
It’s not.
In Zambia, the pace is more relaxed. More relationship-driven. Things move—but they move with rhythm, not urgency. You follow up, then follow up again, then gently follow up again.
In Ghana, the energy is different.
Faster. More direct. More commercially driven. Decisions can move quickly—but expectations are sharper.
Same continent. Completely different operating environments.
If you approach them the same way, you will misread both.
That misreading shows up most clearly in how people talk about risk.
The Core Misdiagnosis: “Africa Is Risky”
When I started working more directly in finance over the past year—after seeing the gap firsthand—I began working alongside former bankers and operators to structure deals.
That’s when the pattern became undeniable.
“Africa is risky” is the common narrative.
But what I saw was different.
I saw real businesses. Real demand. Real operators.
What I also saw—over and over again—was this:
Deals weren’t failing because they weren’t real.
They were failing because they weren’t structured.
And often, that lack of structure shows up first in the way time, communication, and expectations are handled.
The “Next Week” Problem
One deal was “closing next week.”
For three months.
Then it became “tomorrow.”
Repeatedly.
Every update sounded reasonable:
“We’re waiting on one signature.” “Forex is delayed.” “The signer is traveling.” “Tomorrow for sure.”
At first, I read this the way many outsiders do: as delay, avoidance, or lack of seriousness.
But over time, I realized something more complicated was happening.
In many business environments across Africa, directness does not always operate the same way it does in the U.S. People may avoid saying “no,” “not yet,” or “there is a problem” because they do not want to damage the relationship, embarrass someone, or make the deal feel dead before it has to be.
So instead of hearing the hard truth, you hear:
“Tomorrow.” “Next week.” “We are working on it.” “It is coming.”
Sometimes that means real progress is happening behind the scenes.
Sometimes it means no one wants to be the person who says what is actually blocking the deal.
The same is true with time.
A late meeting, missed call, or slow response does not automatically mean disrespect. Sometimes another obligation became urgent. Sometimes the day moved differently than planned. Sometimes people are simply operating on a different rhythm.
That can be frustrating if you come from a culture where time is treated as a hard signal of seriousness.
But if you misread it, you may walk away from a deal that is still alive—or stay too long in one that is quietly stuck.
The skill is learning how to read intent beneath behavior.
Because the issue is not always whether people care.
Often, they do.
The real question is whether anyone is willing to name the problem, own the next step, and move the deal from politeness into execution.
And that is the difference between being patient and being stuck.
The Reality of Building
Building in Africa isn’t one big cinematic moment.
It’s execution over time.
It’s calling again.
Adjusting timelines.
Waiting on real constraints.
Chasing documents across multiple stakeholders.
There were weeks where progress looked like persistence—not outcomes.
Africa taught me patience.
But it also taught me that patience, on its own, doesn’t move anything.
Left alone, it turns into a loop of “next week” and “tomorrow”—where everything sounds aligned, everything feels respectful, and nothing actually moves.
And if you don’t interrupt that cycle with structure, ownership, and real deadlines—you can stay in it for a very long time.
That same lesson applies to where decisions actually happen.
Where Real Decisions Actually Happen
The same is true for decision-making: if you only pay attention to the formal meeting, you may miss where the decision is actually being made.
Some of the most important insights didn’t come in meetings.
They came at dinner.
Long dinners where you think you’re just there to eat—and then realize you’re also there to understand the person.
Their family. Their pressures. How they think. How they communicate. Who they respect. What they need to feel comfortable moving forward.
You learn what matters to them before you ask them to move a deal.
Who speaks first. Who defers. Who people actually listen to. Who everyone waits for before saying yes.
The meeting is often just the formal version.
The real decisions happen before—or after.
Sometimes not in the room at all.
And if you don’t understand that, you may leave thinking you have alignment when the actual decision-maker hasn’t even weighed in yet.
This is true in Africa—but it’s also true in any deal, anywhere. The difference is how visible it is, and how much it shapes the outcome.
That is why relationships matter so much—but only when they are paired with execution.
Relationships: The Real Infrastructure
In his book Take It Personal, David Grutman talks about a simple truth in hospitality: people come back because of how you make them feel.
In Africa, that principle becomes operational.
Relationships are not a soft advantage. They are infrastructure.
They determine whether someone tells you the real problem before it becomes expensive.
Whether they make the call you could never make yourself.
Whether they warn you when a deal is drifting.
Whether they stay engaged when the timeline gets uncomfortable.
But relationships are not a substitute for execution.
They are a stress test for it.
I’ve seen people with impressive access fail because they had no follow-through.
I’ve seen unknown operators win because they delivered consistently, quietly, and on time.
Access may get you the meeting.
Trust may keep the conversation going.
But without structure and follow-through, neither turns into a result.
Relationships create the opening.
Execution creates the outcome.
And over time, those observations became rules.
The Rules That Actually Make Deals Move
Over time, I stopped treating these as observations and started treating them as rules—because without them, deals don’t usually fail dramatically.
They just quietly stop moving.
1. Verify before you trust
People are not always misleading you. Often, they are working with partial information themselves.
But unless you have seen the document, confirmed the authority, and validated the process, you are operating on belief, not fact.
And belief does not close deals.
2. Leave every meeting with clear next steps
A good meeting should not end with everyone feeling aligned but no one knowing what happens next.
Before anyone walks away, there should be clarity on who owns the next step, what they are delivering, when it is due, and what they need from others.
Otherwise, you do not have momentum.
You just had a good conversation.
3. Tie money to milestones—not promises
Money should follow progress, not conversations or optimistic updates.
If a deliverable is expected, the milestone is the deliverable.
If it shows up, the deal moves forward. If it does not, the timeline, payment, or structure changes.
4. Force clarity early
Ambiguity can feel polite and collaborative.
But it does not preserve momentum.
It delays reality.
If authority, structure, ownership, or timelines are unclear, address it early—before it becomes expensive.
5. Have a local truth-teller
Not just someone well-connected or impressive in a room.
You need someone who will quietly tell you what is actually happening: who has authority, what is real, what is delayed, and what is not moving.
That person can save you weeks—sometimes months.
6. Get the documentation right upfront
Once timelines tighten, money is involved, or expectations shift, everyone remembers the agreement differently.
Clear documentation does not slow a deal down.
It protects it when things get difficult.
None of these rules are complicated.
But they are the difference between a deal that moves—and one that stays stuck in conversation.
And that brings me back to the bigger point: many opportunities are not bad. They are simply not fully built yet.
The Opportunity Is Real—But It’s Not Fully Built Yet
There’s a lot of conversation about investing in Africa.
Far less about building in it.
Sub-Saharan Africa is projected to reach over 1.5 billion people by 2050, yet the continent faces an infrastructure financing gap of roughly $100 billion annually. Small and medium-sized businesses face a financing gap of over $300 billion.
The opportunity is not abstract.
It’s just not fully built yet.
That is what I mean when I say many projects are underbuilt.
What “Underbuilt” Really Means
Most “unbankable” projects are not hopeless.
Many are underbuilt.
And when I say underbuilt, I don’t mean the entrepreneur lacks vision.
Often, it’s the opposite.
They know their business. Their market. Where demand is. What they could expand if they had the right support.
What they often don’t know is how to turn that into something investors can understand.
They may need:
offtake agreements feasibility studies licensing clarity financial models governance structures stronger contracts supply chain clarity a way to present the project in the language of capital
That’s not failure.
That’s the missing middle.
And that missing middle takes time, money, and people who know how to build it.
Not just investors waiting at the finish line.
Not just governments announcing pipelines.
Not just entrepreneurs trying to figure it out alone.
We need more people working alongside investment arms, promoters, and local teams to help structure projects—so they can actually become bankable and de-risked.
Because many entrepreneurs are not unqualified.
They are unsupported.
And that is why the real gap is not just capital. It is alignment.
The Real Gap: Alignment
Africa doesn’t only need outside builders.
The builders are already here.
Entrepreneurs. Promoters. Operators. Government teams.
What many of them lack is access.
Access to capital.
Access to the right partners.
Access to people willing to help structure—not just evaluate.
On the other side, you have capital waiting for something to already be perfect.
The opportunity is in the middle.
Where I Sit
That’s where I sit.
Between what exists—and what capital is willing to engage with.
Between entrepreneurs and investors.
Between government priorities and private capital.
Between potential and execution.
And I’ll be honest—that gap is hard.
Getting into the right rooms takes time.
Getting investors to look early takes work.
Translating real projects into something financeable is a process.
But if everything were already clean, structured, and de-risked—
the opportunity would already be gone.
That is why I built Zaza Connect.
Not to observe the gap.
To work inside it.
To help move projects from “this could work” to “this can be financed, structured, and scaled.”
And I stayed because I’ve seen what happens when it works.
I’ve seen projects that looked messy start to move.
I’ve seen entrepreneurs build real businesses with very little.
I’ve seen alignment turn conversation into execution.
No, it’s not always fast.
No, it’s not always clean.
But it’s real.
And that is the part investors, institutions, and outside partners need to understand.
Final Thought
Africa will test you.
It will challenge your timelines.
Expose weak assumptions.
Force clarity.
And it will ask one simple question:
Are you actually here to build—
or do you just like the idea of it?
Because the builders are already here.
The opportunity is already here.
What’s missing is alignment.
And if you’re an entrepreneur, promoter, government team, family office, banker, or investor serious about closing that gap—we should be in the same room.