Description
About This Book
Writing this book, Yibrah Tesfazghi says, was not an act of literary ambition. It was an act of protest.
For nearly four decades, Tesfazghi worked at the General Electric Company — one of the most powerful corporations in American history. He upheld its policies on integrity and compliance with pride. He built relationships, won markets, and assembled a team that delivered results that GE’s own leadership could not ignore. And then he watched as the institution he had served systematically dismantled everything he had built, not because it had failed, but because it had succeeded under the wrong kind of leadership.
Glass Ceilings & Hidden Walls: A Tale of an African Executive & His African Dream Team — in Corporate America is the documented account of that journey. It spans 56 chapters, four continents, and four decades — from a childhood in Eritrea’s Sere’e highlands, through a career that took him to Baghdad, Nairobi, Johannesburg, London, and New York, to the corridors of GE’s global headquarters where the real battles were fought.
The GE Africa Dream Team
In 2003, Tesfazghi was appointed President & CEO of GE Africa. He inherited two offices, roughly 150 employees, and revenues of approximately US$150 million. By 2007, the GE Africa Dream Team he assembled had grown the region to 20 offices across 20 African countries, nearly 2,000 employees — predominantly indigenous Africans — and revenues approaching US$4.5 billion, with a minimum annual growth rate of 40%.
The Dream Team was deliberate by design. Tesfazghi recruited the best talent from across the African diaspora: Swaady Martin, Allan Kilavuka (now Group Managing Director and CEO of Kenya Airways), Oswald Mkhonto (now Sales Director at Air Liquide), and Romel Diaz. Together, they did what GE Corporate had insisted could not be done.
Their story — how they built it, what they faced, and how it was taken from them — is the heart of this book.
What This Book Covers
- From Eritrea to Corporate America: a childhood shaped by colonialism, football, and a father’s quiet wisdom
- 28 years inside General Electric: from Saudi Arabia to Baghdad, surviving the Gulf War and a deliberate smear campaign
- Building the GE Africa Dream Team: recruitment, mission, and the bold strategy to Africanize one of the world’s largest corporations
- The real Africa: dismantling Western media myths country by country, from Ghana to Rwanda to the DRC’s Grand Inga hydroelectric project
- Institutional racism: documented, named, and confronted — inside GE’s own regional offices, hiring processes, and boardrooms
- Neocolonialism, corruption, and Africa’s economic sovereignty: a forensic analysis grounded in lived experience
- The demise of GE Africa: how a $4.5 billion operation was systematically dismantled by the forces it had outperformed
- The INSEAD case study: Professor Loïc Sadoulet’s independent investigation into the strategies behind GE Africa’s growth
- The Ombudsman case: the 60-page formal claim submitted to GE’s Chairman and CEO, a decade after the damage was done
- A return to Sere’e: funding a school and a church in the village that made him — a final word on what leadership is really for
What Readers and Colleagues Say
“For readers, this book is more than just a corporate biography; it is an intimate, engaging, and deeply moving account of an African business leader navigating the complex world of multinational corporations. A must-read for those who seek to understand the realities of business in Africa.”
— Allan Kilavuka, Group Managing Director & CEO, Kenya Airways
“From the humble village of Sere’e in Eritrea comes a tale of integrity, confidence, resilience, and, above all, the power of dreams. I hope this book ignites a fire for Africa in the hearts of all who read it.”
— Felgonah Oyuga, Creator and Writer, Adua Chronicles
“Please place a copy in the hands of as many young Africans as possible.”
— Oswald Mkhonto, Sales Director, Air Liquide Global Engineering & Construction Solutions — Sub-Saharan Africa
“Thank you Yibrah for blessing my life with your extraordinary leadership. You inspired, nurtured, supported and shaped me as a Leader.”
— Swaady Martin, Entrepreneur, Author, and Sacred Activist
Who This Book Is For
- African and diaspora professionals navigating corporate institutions not designed for them
- Business leaders who want an unfiltered account of what African markets actually look like from the inside
- DEI practitioners and HR leaders who need documented evidence of what institutional racism costs organisations
- Students of leadership looking for a case study that no business school has published — until now
- Anyone who has ever been told that the system is fair, and suspected otherwise
Book Details
| Author | Yibrah Tesfazghi |
| Full Title | Glass Ceilings & Hidden Walls: A Tale of an African Executive & His African Dream Team — in Corporate America |
| Chapters | 56 chapters + Forewords + Acknowledgements + Glossary |
| Language | English |
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