The World is a Supply Chain

Brain talks about his upbringing, his multiple degrees, and how his passion for supply chain will change the world

When Brain Laung Aoaeh was a young primary school pupil, he helped his entrepreneurial mother to make meat pies for students in Kano, Nigeria. His job was to peel the potatoes and he might peel between 100 to 300 potatoes daily. Irish potatoes. The nationality of the spuds drew my attention. Who knew that Irish potato farmers exported their spuds to Nigeria of all places? I certainly did not.

Brian comes from a Ghanaian family who moved to Nigeria for work. However, when it came to secondary schooling, his parents wanted him to return to Ghana and so he was sent to a boarding school in Wa where his paternal grand-uncle, the local Catholic bishop, was the proprietor of the school

Two things jumped out to me at this stage. The first was that he was sent home to boarding school. When I quiz this move (bearing in mind he was peeling Irish spuds as a youngster) Brian tells me that, in contrast to other counties, the great majority of secondary school students went to boarding school. The second was that a family member was on the board of management which might have proven handy. “It certainly did,” declared Brian and he reckons he might have been expelled without his grand-uncle’s presence.

However, upon further digging, the misdemeanours practiced by Brian turned out to be minor: studying after lights-out, raiding the mango orchard on campus — which he’s quick to point out was…