Mercy Erhiawarien left Africa. She returned convinced it is the future
Africa is brimming with untapped potential, investor Mercy Erhiawarien believes. She argues the continent's biggest challenge isn't a lack of talent, but a scarcity of patient capital for innovation.
The maître d ‘s phone rings every few minutes. Maybe a reservation, dinner enquiry, or just someone asking if the terrace is open. We choose a quiet table tucked behind the reception desk at Somerset Westview Restaurant in Nairobi’s leafy Kilimani neighbourhood, but the restaurant has its own flow. Mercy Erhiawarien, Head of International Programmes at Halcyon , a nonprofit startup accelerator, hardly notices. She sits upright, almost intimidating at first glance, with the kind of posture that makes you instinctively straighten your own back. But the seriousness dissolves quickly. She laughs easily, often at herself, and answers questions with long pauses, not because she is searching for the right words, but because she seems determined not to waste them. Over nearly an hour, our conversation wandered from Lagos and Nairobi to venture capital, village life, housing, artificial intelligence (AI) and why she believes Africa’s greatest shortage is not entrepreneurial talent but patient capital.
