Bernie Borges [00:00:00]:
Sean Illanry, welcome to the Midlife Fulfill podcast, a maximum episode.
Sean Illanry [00:00:07]:
Thank you. I’m happy to be here, and I love what you’re doing with the platform.
Bernie Borges [00:00:10]:
Well, thank you, Sean. I appreciate that. I am looking forward to our conversation. Let me give my listener a little bit of an introduction. You have quite a background, Sean. It’s, it’s very different. Very different than, all the backgrounds that I’ve had the privilege of featuring before. You were once upon a time homeless in high school.
Bernie Borges [00:00:32]:
You were a high school dropout and you were homeless. And today, you’re an award winning executive in tech, and you’re a keynote speaker. And, basically, by turning your life around, that inspired you to help other professionals achieve their own personal success according to their definition of success. I love that about the way you think. Today, you’re the CEO and founder of a company called Value Centric. You’re also the author of the groundbreaking book, You Don’t Owe Happiness. I’m sure we heard something about that. I know the book teaches six key principles of what you call value centric leadership, and that’s where you believe that when a team feels valued and valuable, they are optimally satisfied and they feel achieved.
Bernie Borges [00:01:23]:
And just a big amen to that. And then through your company value centric, you are driving towards a very ambitious mission of creating 100,000,000 jobs in Africa by the year 2050. And when I saw that, Sean, I had to get you on the podcast and invite you to talk about that because I know among my five pillars that this is really your legacy building. Right? So let’s get into it. You wanna build your legacy by bringing a hundred million jobs to Africa. Let’s start with the why, and then we’ll get into the how.
Sean Illanry [00:01:59]:
Oh, yes. So so thank you. I I think there’s two different answers when it comes to why. There’s the personal, and there’s also the global mission. Personally, both of my parents from Nigeria, and they met here in The US, and I was born here. And I didn’t have the opportunity to really go back home until really the last couple of years where I’ve gone back and I’ve experienced it. But I’ve always said that I wanna be able to go back to the continent and be able to provide opportunities to others there because I know what an a job can do or a career could do to unlock a market and also unlock, individual’s ability to take care of their family. So I’ve been thinking about this since about 2010, ’20 ’12 because I worked in the outsourcing industry for eleven years, and I saw what we did there.
Sean Illanry [00:02:44]:
I saw that we could go into Latin America, Southeast Asia, India, India, and be able to bring opportunities that were global, Whether the jobs came from The UK, Europe, or The US, and we were able to put that in a market where when we would hire one person, we would actually impact 10 families. And that to me sparked, a desire to say one day, when I’m maybe thirty, forty years from now, when I’m later in life, when I’m retired, I’m gonna go and do the same thing. And then I had an opportunity to be invited to to go to Africa towards the end of twenty twenty three to go for the global employment challenge. And I I visited Kenya and South Africa and immediately knew I don’t have to wait until I’m in my sixties or seventies to do this. I can make an impact right now. So my personal mission is I wanna be able to to do what my parents didn’t have the opportunity to do before they passed away and go home and create opportunities. But there’s also a global mission. The global reality is that Africa is the youngest continent on the planet with an average age of 19 years old.
Sean Illanry [00:03:44]:
For context, The US and China are about an average of 38 years old. So when we look at 2050, we’re gonna be in a position where over 40% of the youth across the world are in Africa. And that puts us in a position where if our primary labor force is in Africa, yet we don’t have the jobs, it’s gonna create not only, turmoil for the the nations there, but it also will negatively impact the rest of the world as well because we’ll need to make sure that if we wanna see a thriving global economy, we wanna make sure we have strong industries everywhere, not just in one segment of the planet.
Bernie Borges [00:04:18]:
Okay. That is very well thought out. Not surprising at all. Before we get into the how, I I wanna know in terms of the types of jobs, I’m gonna oversimplify and just say there’s two types of jobs. There’s knowledge worker jobs and sort of manual labor. Right?
Sean Illanry [00:04:35]:
Yeah.
Bernie Borges [00:04:36]:
So how is that factoring into your planning? Is it both that you wanna create, or is it one more than the other?
Sean Illanry [00:04:42]:
Yeah. So one more than the other, and it’s it’s primarily knowledge based jobs. And and but there’s three tiers to that. When you have a knowledge bay based opportunity where you essentially get paid for what you know versus what you do, there’s gonna be that entry level, which let’s say that’s gonna be 70% of the jobs that come. Those are gonna be those frontline opportunities, whether it’s contact center work, back office work, data analysis, etcetera. But it’s really that entry level to be able to get you started in your career. From there, we’re gonna have the next tier of inter intermediate jobs where you have the analysts that are brought out of those roles. You have, more specialized skill sets, forecasters, planners, maybe even accountants.
Sean Illanry [00:05:25]:
And then you have that higher upper echelon, that elite level of job where you’re gonna have those front end, back end engineers, those database, administrators, etcetera, where they’re gonna have to have a much heavier skill set. And and we understand that you have to bring those frontline jobs first. Because then out once you bring those roles, you’re gonna need the support staff. You’re gonna need the the finance team to be able to support them. You’re gonna need leaders in place, multi levels of leaders in place. And then by having a high abundance of those frontline jobs, you’ve now improved the economy of that community. And then then that that community can then say, we have entrepreneurs. Let me raise my hand up.
Sean Illanry [00:06:02]:
I can start a business, and the community can afford to buy my product because there’s an abundance of jobs here. So we really look at it from that standpoint, not necessarily manufacturing, but how do we bring a lot of those knowledge led roles to Africa?
Bernie Borges [00:06:15]:
Okay. So knowledge workers. And so I’ve gotta ask, what do you see as the role of AI as it relates to, the youth? You know, you mentioned that it’s the youngest continent in the world. And as you know, AI is just exploding on a daily basis. It’s advancing. So it’s everyone knows that it it is having and will continue to have an impact on just jobs in general globally. So do you see any specific way that it can have an impact in that community in terms of the job market?
Sean Illanry [00:06:52]:
Absolutely. When I started this journey, it’s it’s funny that there were two things that I said were gonna be the primary driver of where my industry, which was customer experience at the time, is going. AI in Africa. Reason being that they’re both frontiers that are growing rapidly and we’re just now tapping into. When I look at AI, we do have, for example, there are certain roles where, in Kenya, they have companies who are bringing these AI product, products there, but they still need workers to be on the back end to challenge and audit and see whether or not the AI is even accurate. So even though AI is prevalent, it still needs human intervention and human information to know what’s going on. And the best way I heard it described was that we’re heading to the future where it’s not necessarily about what you know, but it’s gonna be about the wisdom you have. And, essentially, what that means is that it’s not that I I have the answers, that I know what question to ask AI in order to get a better answer.
Sean Illanry [00:07:52]:
So in addition, what we’re starting to see is that even as an AI becomes more prevalent, it’s taking away a lot of the mundane easy work. But that complex work is still gonna have to go to the human workforce, and we still have customers who want that human touch. So the opportunity that we’re seeing is that a as AI allows to scale more businesses faster, they are gonna meet an expanded workforce, and they’re able to do that by expanding to other regions like Africa.
Bernie Borges [00:08:18]:
Okay. So let’s get into the how. Because, you know, personally, I’ve got a mission as well. I wanna reach 3,000,000,000 people across the planet. And what’s meaningful about that number, Sean, is that it’s estimated there’s about 3,000,000,000 people over the 40 in the world. And so I wanna reach everybody over the age of 40 with my platform. Right? Seek fulfillment across the five pillars, health, fitness, career, relationships, and legacy. So the way that I’m planning to do this through leaders who lead people.
Bernie Borges [00:08:47]:
So I know you’ve got a plan. Right? How are you gonna create a hundred million jobs in Africa by 2050?
Sean Illanry [00:08:53]:
Yes. And and I wanna give some context. So a hundred million sounds very ambitious. The one thing we’re doing is we’re not doing it alone. These are gonna make be through partnerships and and ensuring that the awareness is there and the structure is in place. But that 100,000,000 is very small in the sense of by 2050, there’s gonna be an additional 1,100,000,000 people living in Africa in comparison to where we are today. Their workforce alone will be 1,400,000,000 people. So that 100,000,000 is barely even 10% of of what we’re looking at.
Sean Illanry [00:09:24]:
So there’s still a much greater need. There’s gonna be they need to be more companies helping with this outside of just myself. But the way we do it is we believe in that we approach it in a model that we call from soil to seed to plant. And what that means is that we look at the government like soil. If you are trying to plant crops crops in a place where there’s bad soil, you will yield a few plants but not a lot because the environment is not conducive for it to grow. So we wanna make sure the soil is right. So by partnering with government strategic partnerships and setting up better regulations, better incentives, better structures and infrastructure for entrepreneurs to come in and now create businesses that’ll do better. When we think of seed, those are entrepreneurs.
Sean Illanry [00:10:08]:
We’re working with a lot of early stage startups in Africa, really right now in Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Kenya, and South Africa. And really helping them understand how do you actually compete on the global market? How do you set yourself up for funding? And how do you make sure you have a product that can actually impact the world? Because we believe with the seed, it’ll spark, of course, the community. Then from there, we have the plant. The plant, that’s your plants are your established corporations. What we do there is we look at workforce development and leadership development. And we say, great. You have a strong company in play. But learning is what happens every single day.
Sean Illanry [00:10:43]:
It’s not a one time thing. So what can we do to go into these organizations and teach them the best practices we know and help them bring the best out of their teams? So, really, as I’ve mentioned, it’s about soil to seed to plant, and we’re hoping that we can create a forest across the continent.
Bernie Borges [00:10:57]:
So it sounds like you you’ve really thought through the infrastructure. What about the educational infrastructure? You mentioned that there’s gonna be an additional 1,200,000,000 people Yeah. On the continent, I think, by by that time. Right? Twenty fifty. Is is the educational infrastructure in place both the elementary as well as higher ed on the continent?
Sean Illanry [00:11:17]:
So there’s opportunities in both areas. I think that the good thing is that we’re approaching it from we’re feeling better about education. We’re seeing education improve across the continent. We’re seeing better data and Internet speeds. So now they’re able to actually do a lot more online learning as well. So the information is there. The disconnect we’ve seen is that going from receiving your education in school versus being able to apply that to the workforce, there’s still a gap. So what we’ve been heavily focusing on is that workforce development training on the in between.
Sean Illanry [00:11:49]:
For example, in Nigeria, my strategic partner, we we have an initiative going on where she’s owning the workforce development side, and we have almost a thousand centers across the the nation that we believe that we can add workforce development classrooms. And what’s gonna happen is that these are gonna be students who have already graduated college, but now they’re gonna come into these environments and learn how what are the additional things you’d know in order to be successful in a corporate environment. If you’re doing work that’s international, how do you make sure you understand their cultures, you understand their working habits, and the disciplines you need to be able to have in place? So I believe to your point, we still have to focus on the education and continue to develop that from, you know, a a primary and secondary school. But then also, when they do graduate, there still needs to be that hand holding that helping us to the next level.
Bernie Borges [00:12:35]:
Okay. Now, Sean, I know that you’re located, here in The US, and, obviously, the this initiative is on the continent of Africa. From a partner standpoint, are you working with people globally? I mean, to what extent are you do you have collaboration with partners here in The US or maybe in other parts of the world that are not necessarily on the ground in Africa?
Sean Illanry [00:12:58]:
Yes. So right now, we do have partners here in The US. We also have partners in Australia. We have partners, in Europe as well. And, of course, across Africa with the primary comp countries right now, we have a relationship in Ghana that we just launched. The key thing is making sure that if we’re approaching the businesses and we’re we’re telling them, you have a great product, you have a great culture, you have a great standard of quality, we want you to be able to do business here in Africa. What’s holding you back? And that’s a competition that doesn’t just happen with, let’s say, the big brands and the big corporation. That competition also has to happen with the outsourcers who are those third parties in between who tend to bring those jobs there.
Sean Illanry [00:13:38]:
So we need to make sure that the environment is conducive for both of those, for both outsourcers and the the actual, clients. Now in having those conversations, what we’re doing is a survey to get their feedback. So we wanna be able to take that information and have conversations with the government officials and have honest conversations and say, these are the top things that are holding them from doing business in your nation. This is why South Africa is succeeding in this sector, but you’re still further behind even though you have the stronger population economy.
Bernie Borges [00:14:08]:
So let’s, look into the crystal ball, Sean. And I wanna ask you, if you could think through reasons that you could reach that goal of a hundred million before 2050, what might they be? And then conversely, let’s fast forward to 2050 and say you don’t reach the goal of a hundred million. What might those reasons be? So one one being you get there sooner. Right? The other being you don’t get there by the 2050 goal.
Sean Illanry [00:14:38]:
Yeah. I love that question. You know, getting there sooner, a big reason for why we wanna do that is right now, we still have very high unemployment rates across the nation or across the continent. I believe Nigeria is still sitting at about 40% unemployment, and a lot of the unemployment that we’re seeing is coming from college graduates. When I was in Kenya, we saw the same thing where we had, you know, thousands of of students who they did the right thing. They went through school. They got their degree. But when it was time to actually have a job, it wasn’t there for them.
Sean Illanry [00:15:08]:
What we’ve also noticed is that when it comes to unemployment, women are are primarily negatively impacted, specifically black women. Of course, in a lot of these nations, we have multiethnic, but we’re seeing a a big segment of black women find fall further behind where they’re two to three x the unemployment rate of the entire nation. So by being able to come into these places and provide these opportunities earlier, we can close that gap and start solving problems today. The problem needs to be solved today, but we wanna be realistic about what we can do. But it’s not really a twenty fifty problem. It is a twenty twenty five problem. If it takes longer to solve, I think what what can hold us back the the longest, if I’m being fully honest, would be our ability to partner with the soil of the government regulations. How do we partner with our our governments to be able to set up an environment where the infrastructure is where it needs to be? We know that power can be a problem in a lot of African nations where you don’t know if your power is gonna be on or not tomorrow.
Sean Illanry [00:16:03]:
And for a business, that’s, something that you just can’t deal with. So we wanna make sure that we have the right generators in place and partner with those companies and be able to have a list of approved vendors who can go in and say, we’re supplying power to your specific building in case anything happens. The same thing with data and Internet speeds. They have to be up to par. But the other thing that we have to think about is just bias, you know, where a lot of times in the media and the reports that we get, they’re not always the most positive about these African nations. So how do we start telling a better story and saying, this is actually what’s going on. Here’s what the community looks like, and here’s how you can do business there successfully. I think if we miss our target, we’ll still get to a place we’ve learned so much.
Sean Illanry [00:16:43]:
We’ve also made a big enough impact to be ready for the next fifty years. But it’s something that we have to move towards because if we don’t, we will, like, as I mentioned earlier, be facing a global crisis.
Bernie Borges [00:16:54]:
And I don’t have to tell you, Sean, you know that, you know, money talks and businesses, when something is is beneficial to a business for business purposes, then, you know, they get involved. Right? Then they they have a reason. They they’re motivated. So how do you motivate businesses to participate in in this movement?
Sean Illanry [00:17:12]:
Yeah. There there’s several factors. The one thing I’ll hone in on because, of course, you’re gonna see that price compression where the the cost of labor is much more affordable. But to me, the biggest driver and what opened my eyes was that the talent is there. Some of the best engineers that I’ve ever met, the best web designers, even just best from a customer service standpoint, even accounting. The talent is so abundant. It’s so concentrated that if I’m a business owner and I’m saying I’m in the market to outsource, I’m not encouraging business owners to outsource if they don’t have to or if it’s not a part of their strategy. But if you’re already planning to outsource or already outsourcing, Africa is gonna be a wealth of of information knowledge and success for you because the talent is there in abundance.
Sean Illanry [00:18:00]:
So I think that businesses not only was gonna see the financial benefit, but they’ll also be able to have the talent. Then also they get the diversity. The diversity not necessarily, of ethnic background, but the diversity of information didn’t understand, okay, if this market performs this way, can I do can I replicate that in a different market? And I’ve seen that a lot throughout my career where, let’s say, I have my team in in Mexico, and I have my team in The Philippines, and I have my team in Iowa. And there’s something my team in The Philippines is doing that we wouldn’t have thought of, but because they’re in a different environment and they have a different approach culturally, it’s successful where they are. Now we can replicate that across the entire business, and we can make the entire business better. So, I think from a business standpoint, you are gonna see the financial benefits. You are gonna increase your talent pool. But in addition, you’re gonna be able to get insights and innovations of things that you didn’t think about before.
Bernie Borges [00:18:52]:
What about philanthropic organizations? You know, Bill the Bill Gates Foundation comes to mind. Whether or not that specifically that organization is involved, Are organizations like that involved?
Sean Illanry [00:19:04]:
Absolutely. One of the ones that I’m partnering with, which is, like I mentioned before, the Global Employment Challenge, that’s exactly what they’re doing. I believe they’ve received funding from the Mandela Foundation as well, where there is an effort of from a nonprofit sector as well on how do we bring these opportunities to the nations, that are there on the continent. But the key is they need to make sure that we have the right partnerships across the the palm. You they can’t do it alone. And that’s the reason why I was initially pulled into it, and it opened my eyes. But there’s a lot of work to be done. And I think that, even when I look at what The US is doing now from a policy standpoint in Africa and the World Bank is doing, there’s a lot of funding being allocated to solve this problem.
Sean Illanry [00:19:45]:
Where we see the challenge happening happen is that there’s not a lot of work to operationalize it. So the funding is actually being put out there, but who’s actually gonna take the expertise and actually build the proper infrastructure and pipeline to make this work?
Bernie Borges [00:19:58]:
Sean, I I wanna, shift gears a little bit here, and I wanna get personal. Talk to me about the impact of your legacy and and share with me, if you if you will, you know, conversations that you’ve had with your kids about this. Right? So I know you’re you’re a dad, and, I don’t know how old your kids are. You know, have you had conversations with them about this whole initiative, this whole mission you’re on?
Sean Illanry [00:20:26]:
Yes. You know, my kids, I have three boys. My oldest one is 16. My youngest one is five. So my house is busy. You know, they’ve they’ve witnessed me go, and they’re excited whenever I go and always asking how was it. I think for my boys, it’s provided a lot of perspective. Because even on our worst day, it’s better than a lot of the days that we experienced there in Nigeria.
Sean Illanry [00:20:48]:
And when I was there recently, I went there for the Global Entrepreneurship, Festival. And on the way there, we decided to charter. So we had a giant bus, couple vans, and trucks, and we’re all chartering. And halfway on our five hour journey from city to city, our bus breaks down in the middle of nowhere near, you know, a local town where there was a lot of park poverty. And, you know, watching these young kids who should probably be in school right now, essentially selling snacks on the side of the road to make a living, you know, it just opens your mind and heart to say, that’s my son. You know, that’s my daughter. You know, I can see that there was a young man there where I could just see he could do so much more in life. But given his circumstances and lack of opportunity, he was put in a position where survival came first.
Sean Illanry [00:21:35]:
And so to give my boys that con context and look and see those pictures and kind of see this is what the real world looks like. And no matter how comfortable we get, we can’t forget that there’s somebody else out there that we can possibly make an impact on. And at the same time, it could have easily been us. You know? Where we were born, it was chance. And and I’m a person who I love I love The US. I love America. I still believe we’re the nation of opportunity. So to be able to share a little bit of that with someone else on the other side of the planet, I think it’s important for my voice to know that.
Bernie Borges [00:22:07]:
Yeah. That’s awesome. Have they made a trip with you?
Sean Illanry [00:22:09]:
Not yet. They keep asking me. So I will bring them on my third trip to Nigeria. I just went to Nigeria recently. I’m gonna go back again, then I’ll go with my wife, and then I will bring the kids. So I I wanna make sure I know exactly what I’m doing and where I’m going.
Bernie Borges [00:22:23]:
Yeah. Yeah. I remember, both of my kids, not together, at different ages, they were both probably in the same age range. Let’s call it around age 16 when each of them was at that age because they’re five years apart, and they’re they’re now 34 and 29. But when they were around 16, they did a mission trip through our church to Kenya. Wow. And, they came back and said it was life changing. Yeah.
Bernie Borges [00:22:49]:
Because of, you know, the stories you’ve just shared where they just they witnessed kids living in very different conditions yet being happy and joyful and enjoying life, and they said it was just, you know, life changing for them. So I’m sure your kids will will have the same experience.
Sean Illanry [00:23:08]:
I hope so.
Bernie Borges [00:23:10]:
So, so this is your legacy, and I love something you said at the very beginning of our conversation, Sean, and that is that, you know, you realize that you don’t have to wait until you’re 60 or whatever, you know, thirty years from now or x number of years from now to do this, that you could do this now. And you’re taking the action to do it, and I just I’m so impressed by that, and I’m just so, moved by it. And just really wanna thank you for for what you’re doing because you are making a mark. You’re having an impact. So why don’t you share with us, you know, how can people just connect with you and learn more about everything you’ve got going on in your world?
Sean Illanry [00:23:49]:
Absolutely. And and thank you again. To your point, this was something that it it it scares me. You know? And that’s why I know I should do it. The thing I’m the most afraid of means thing I need to tackle because it’s way bigger than me. And because it’s so much bigger than my capabilities alone, it requires me to become a better partner, a better collaborator. So I’m enjoying the process of even opening up and and understanding that I’m not gonna be the smartest person in the room by far. But as long as I put in enough effort, we can make sure the smart people are on the job.
Sean Illanry [00:24:20]:
But, of course, you can find me, at value dash centric dot net, to learn more about our organization and what we’re doing. You can also find me, Sean Elinory, on LinkedIn. And if you’re on Instagram, I’m I’m I’m actually taking it seriously now because I never did. You can find me at sean, s e a n, the speaker. But, of course, I’d love to stay connected with you.
Bernie Borges [00:24:42]:
Fantastic. Well, all that will be linked up in the show notes. And I just wanna add that my sense is that you feel called to do this. Whether you acknowledge the calling from God or the universe or however whatever source you attribute it to, it’s clear to me that you feel called to do this, and you’re answering the call. And I just can’t say enough how, wonderful that is. You know? I I it’s it’s inspiring to me, and it’s a valuable lesson to me as well, and, I’m sure to the listener as well. And that is when, you know, when we feel called to do something to really leave our our mark in the world, we need to take some action. So I thank you for what you’re doing, and I thank you for sharing it here today on this maximum episode of the Midlife Fulfilled podcast.
Sean Illanry [00:25:32]:
Thank you so much.
