Eric Kacou’s passion is enterprise solutions to poverty for Africa and the rest of the developing world. Eric is actively engaged in consulting and investing across Africa.

In his book, Entrepreneurial Solutions for Prosperity in BoP Markets (Wharton School Publishing), Eric identifies breakthrough approaches that can help businesses in low-income countries with a large Base of the Pyramid (BoP) grow successfully, and profitably. Drawing from his on-the-ground experience, Eric shows how companies and nations can overcome the Survival Trap that breeds dependence, mistrust, and failure. By integrating mindset, business and development, Eric offers solutions that not only lead the way to success for businesses but also for communities and countries.

Over the past ten years, Eric has advised CEOs and leaders in over a dozen developing nations in Africa and the Caribbean. Eric served as Managing Director of OTF Group, a competitiveness consultancy focused on emerging markets. An expert in post-conflict economic reconstruction, he led the Rwanda National Innovation and Competitiveness Program, an initiative by President Paul Kagame to upgrade Rwanda’s economy. Eric also co-founded the Academy for Leadership in Competitiveness and Prosperity (ALCP) to train young Rwandan leaders in owning their nation’s development agenda.

He was honoured by the World Economic Forum as a Young Global Leader and was selected as an Archbishop Desmond Tutu fellow in 2010.

Eric earned his MBA at the Wharton School and received a Mason Fellowship in Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School at Harvard University. Eric also serves on the Wharton Executive Board for Europe, Africa and the Middle East.