Yordanos Asmare: Closing the divide for African Talent

Inkonversation S03 Ep 6
Tune in as Yordanos Asmare Head of Talent & Partnerships at A2SV with Barbara Mutoni, Inkomoko's regional Director of People and Culture discuss bridging the opportunity gap for African talent to tackle critical issues  and  advance tech-driven change.

Transcript

Transcript:

**Barbara:**  
Welcome to *The INKOnversation* podcast. My name is Barbara Mutoni, the Director of People and Culture at Inkomoko. With a passion for talent identification and management, I'm looking forward to an engaging conversation with the talented Yordanos Asmare, Head of Talent and Partnerships at Africa to Silicon Valley. To kick things off, could you introduce yourself and your career?


**Yordanos:**  
Thank you for having me. As you said, I am Yordanos Asmare, currently heading Talent and Partnerships at Africa to Silicon Valley. A bit about my background: I was born and raised in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, a country in the Horn of Africa. I graduated from Stanford after receiving a merit-based scholarship, and since then, I have built my career in Silicon Valley. It's wild to think about how long it's been—over a decade now—but the majority of my career, as I mentioned, was spent in Silicon Valley. I’ve worked with a diverse set of companies at various growth stages and complexities of business. Fortunately, I’ve had the opportunity to work at a venture capital firm, a boutique recruiting firm, and in-house as well. I’ve also consulted and advised different startups and organizations on various challenges in recruiting, program management, operations, etc. Before starting my career in Silicon Valley, right after college, I was involved in community advocacy and community organizing.


Besides work, I’m an avid reader. I like to think of myself as a poet and writer in progress. Knock on wood, there will be a book published in the future—that’s the dream. I also enjoy watching sports like football—not American football, the actual football—the NBA, volleyball, track. I was a varsity athlete myself in high school, so I still enjoy that and connecting with different arts communities, finding time to nurture relationships outside of work.


**Barbara:**  
As the saying goes, poetry can be the breath that gives life to your own unique voice. It must be interesting to be interested in poetry. How do you find the intersection between your creative side, tech life, and values?


**Yordanos:**  
Interestingly, there is a natural synergy, if you will, between the three things you just mentioned. For me, without even knowing it, from an early age, I’ve been attracted to words. As an adult, I’ve described myself as a logophile, which is someone who loves words. So reading books and creating my own poetry have been a constant. In middle school, I wrote a lot of poetry—at least to my young mind—enough that I thought it could be published into a book. That never happened, but the dream lived on. In high school and college, I continued writing, and even after college, I continued as well. I had blogs where I used to share my work, and it was all very fun, but it was also cathartic.


In addition to that, connecting to the professional world, it helped me be very deliberate and learn how to express complex emotions and thoughts in ways that are easily accessible and digestible to others. Taking that understanding and realizing how it is such a key skill in the professional world, whether in my own job search—translating what I’ve done into experiential packages that help me present myself well and ultimately land a job—or helping others do the same for their careers and experiences. 
If it’s about community or a company value, how do you create a story that connects with others? That’s a lot of what you learn in creative writing, whether it’s poetry, prose, or other forms. So it’s very much connected, and thankfully, it all flows together. I haven’t had to struggle to bring those connections to life.


**Barbara:**  
As someone who has studied and worked in Silicon Valley, how would you describe its culture in comparison to other cultures you have experienced?


**Yordanos:**  
Usually, for people like me who come to America as immigrants, the culture shock happens when you start life in America. For me, that’s not really when it happened. I went to an American international high school, so I had that early experience that prepared me well for what to expect in America. The big culture shock for me really happened when I entered Silicon Valley and the workforce after college. The reason was multifaceted. What I mean by that is Silicon Valley is such a different world in terms of how much money flows, how ideas are celebrated, and how a simple idea can mature into a full-fledged business that creates billions of dollars in market value and returns to investors and employees. It’s such a wildly different world than what I grew up hearing about or even envisioning. It was certainly not something my parents or my community knew about or prepared me for. Growing up, you know, mostly what I heard and what I was preparing for was: you’re a smart student, you do well in school, you go to college, you get a job, you save monthly, maybe have a family afterward, and you help your community and family back home. That was it—a very linear sort of path. But Silicon Valley, with college dropouts and folks coming from different backgrounds and walks of life, doing this sometimes impossible dream of building something that never existed before or optimizing something that existed in a very specific or rigid form and taking it in a different manner—that was very exciting to be close to and to be part of that world.
At the same time, it was very jarring to see millions of dollars being invested in these ideas that weren’t yet adding value to society, or invested in ideas that were just apps and were contributing in ways that didn’t really feel impactful, especially considering my background. I felt tech had such potential, and it wasn’t really reaching that potential in the way I was seeing it being used in Silicon Valley. Another thing was that young people had such capital in Silicon Valley. These 20-year-olds, either right out of college or having dropped out of college, were receiving tens of millions of dollars to build companies. In my community, it’s usually the older people who are revered, shown deference, and followed, but it was the opposite in Silicon Valley. So there were just a lot of differences in the culture and the lifestyle. For me, I was taking notes, and it also helped me get over my imposter syndrome in a lot of ways because it made me question what I bring to the table, how I work, where I want to work, and what I want to invest my energy and time in. You know, I worked hard to get to that point, but I was still questioning myself. Working with these investors and young people who were taking their dreams and making them a reality really pushed me to consider possibilities beyond those I had thought were possible for me, so it was eye-opening, to say the least.


**Barbara:**  
It’s always great to see someone who embraces diverse cultures. We have a lot to learn from each other within our global communities. Thank you. So, what inspired you to join Africa to Silicon Valley, and what excites you most about its mission and impact?


**Yordanos:**  
As I mentioned earlier, I felt Silicon Valley was insular, and I still feel that way. You see a lot of the ways tech is being used, but it’s still not reaching its full potential, especially in serving and impacting communities that could really benefit from the power of tech. At one of my employers, I was serving as the head of talent at a global tech company. During one of my conversations with a machine learning engineer, who was also a non-U.S. team member from Turkey, we were chatting about what we were seeing and growing disenchanted with how we saw tech being realized. Both of us felt there was more to be done, especially using tech to impact the broader community. I talked to him about Ethiopia, my background, and how we both wanted to use tech to do more. That sparked the original idea for A2SV. He took the idea and the suggestions I shared with him about Ethiopia and came to Ethiopia to start lecturing and helping students find opportunities at top tech companies, helping them prepare for their engineering interviews. That later on became Africa to Silicon Valley, A2SV. So, for both of us, it became a personal mission to share this opportunity and that potential for tech, and more specifically, to minimize the gap that exists between talent and opportunity. Both of us are a testament that talent exists beyond the walls of Silicon Valley or the U.S., and we wanted to nurture that and show the world. So, joining as a full-time executive member was a no-brainer. I was helping out as a board member and consultant before then, and the mission still resonates with me personally. So, since 2019, we've been doing this work, and since 2022 as a formally incorporated NGO, we've had over 60 of our students gain placement either as full-time employees or interns at companies like Google, Meta, Bloomberg, Databricks, etc. These students come back and help us now create these ventures that are vehicles for other students to learn, but also vehicles to give back to the community by addressing real challenges faced locally. So, I'm excited to see A2SV launched in every country in Africa. Currently, we're reaching about 25 African countries through in-person and remote education. Our in-person hubs are in Ethiopia and Ghana, so it's a dream for us to have A2SV in all 54-plus countries in Africa. 


**Barbara:** Talking about identifying talent—how do you identify and select these talented students for the programs? Maybe you can share with us the qualities you look for in potential candidates?


**Yordanos:** Yes. So, we partner with universities because our main demographic currently is college and university students, undergraduates. We do these partnerships with universities; currently, we have partnerships with four universities—three in Ethiopia and one in Ghana. We're continuously looking for more partners to bring A2SV to other African countries. Another way is through what we call community education. We use our marketing efforts, channels, and initiatives such as hackathons to create broader visibility for our programs and offerings. That brings a lot of interest in being part of the ethos of the program. Through our community education, we currently have about 8,000 members. 
First, we create a way for these students to really show us, beyond their grades and enrolment in a university or college program, their commitment to improving, learning, and giving back to their community. There's an assessment we do before students start their journey with us, and there are daily coding challenges they do as well. We look at their improvement over time to really see their dedication and commitment to learning new things and improvement from that. So, through those initiatives, it gives us a pipeline of enthusiastic and committed students. 


**Barbara:** 19:52Great opportunities for students. Yeah, so you mentioned something about A2SV having partnerships with leading tech companies like Google and Meta. What are some of the challenges students overcame? Can you share some success stories of A2SV students who have benefited from these partnerships?


**Yordanos:** What we've seen—and I've seen this through one-on-one coaching sessions with students as well—is that after they go through the training, technical skills-wise, they're excellent. We've seen our students are 35 times more likely to succeed in a Google engineering interview than other candidates. Where they struggle is in the soft skills part, especially in interview prep, where it connects to them presenting their experiences, their strengths, and really making a good case that differentiates them from other candidates. To be fair, I'll say that I've seen this challenge with experienced candidates as well. When I worked in Silicon Valley companies helping other candidates, whether it’s a tenured candidate with 10-plus years of experience or junior candidates, this seems to be a consistent issue: 21:23 how do you tell your story? How do you present your experiences from a position of strength? And connecting that to our students, it becomes even more difficult because they haven't seen how what they bring is actually valuable to these companies. So there’s that second-guessing, that imposter syndrome. In addition, at least with Ethiopian culture—and I've seen this also in other African cultures—talking about yourself is considered overconfidence and not a good trait to have, so they usually shy away from talking about themselves and their experiences to avoid that. But unfortunately, that backfires and doesn't help them during interviews or during their entrepreneurship and other training skills. So we really focus on bringing that up and helping them understand that this part is not about being overconfident; it's about showing what you can bring to the table and how you create that effective narrative about your experiences and your talent. So it's a combination of life coaching, problem-solving, and really giving them the right mindset to succeed. Soft skills have become a key point of training for us because of that. 
As far as success stories, like I mentioned, we've had over 60 students reach placement, whether that’s full-time or internships. Also, beyond that, we have these projects that we're developing to really address some of the community challenges we're facing. We were able to exhibit six of our projects at GITEX Marrakesh recently, where the students presented the project, the impact, the value to the world, and they were received very well. One of the projects even reached the semifinals at the pitch competition. All of the projects are doing really well, and more and more projects are coming from each generation of our students. So we're really excited about that possibility of giving back to the community in concrete ways too.


**Barbara:** Thank you so much, and you’re right, soft skills are incredibly important in jobs, and they complement technical and hard skills, yeah.
You are quoted in the *Experts Guide to Data-Driven Recruiting* as saying, "If you incorporate data in every step of the recruiting and hiring process, it surfaces things that surprise you and makes the team more efficient." Could you expand on that?


**Yordanos:** Yes. So, the numbers can be intimidating, especially in a world where you are dealing with huge volumes of candidates and stakeholders, both internally and externally, and where it feels like you have to really focus on the experience you're providing while at the same time striving for a certain performance. Recruiting is very much like that. I've learned that when you use data as a complementary and integrative tool, it can really help you become efficient. What I mean specifically by this is that in recruiting, there is a funnel. Each part of the funnel and the process you follow to scale a team or create a team has data points you track, both to predict, diagnose, and fix what might be broken or not going as well before it gets to a critical point. 
Having the right data metrics can really help create that trust, build it, and identify where there are areas for further collaboration. If you know from the beginning that there are a certain number of candidates you need to talk to at the recruiter stage in order to hit the next goal of having, say, a certain number go into the homework assessment or hiring manager interview, but that is not happening as predicted, then going back, you know exactly what to look for and what to dig deep into. Instead of feeling disconnected and not really knowing where to tackle the issue or what to focus on, it's a great way to really surface the important factors and save time by allowing for a very targeted approach in the way you diagnose and prognosticate from there. 


**Barbara:** I fully agree. Making data-driven decisions is as smart as strategic approach. So probably in line with what you’re sharing with us, thank you.
I've been lucky to work with you for the last couple of months in revamping our hiring processes as we scale. How has this process looked to you?


**Yordanos:** It's been really fun and wonderful to work with you and the Inkomoko people and culture team. It's similar to some of the other organizations that I've worked with, where you're figuring out some of the foundational practices as you look to scale and optimize. You're in that transition point where what you have works to an extent, but you also want to have the long-term view of how to scale it and make sure it's optimized enough to support that projected scale. There are growing pains that are not unique to Inkomoko of course, and this exciting vision you’re working towards. What’s been really thrilling and encouraging is that you have a great team, as I've shared with you in person as well—a team devoted to creating a great culture, a great candidate experience, and helping the company achieve this future goal in the best way possible. Seeing that commitment and alignment on vision and value is always wonderful and a great indicator of success, both in the present and in the future. So, it’s been wonderful to work on that. The humility and desire to change, learn, and grow have been so great to see. It’s made me even more excited to offer what I can, do more research, pull in other resources as well, and really support you and the team to achieve the goals we've set out at the beginning.


**Barbara:** Thank you so much. It’s been humbling learning from you, and I’m sure the team can say the same. 
**Barbara:** So, at inkomoko we believe that all problems on the continent already have solutions on the continent. I forget if Silicon Valley shares that, you know? What unique strengths do African talents bring to the global stage, and how can this be better recognized and used to solve the continent's problems?


**Yordanos:** I cannot agree with you more on this. We definitely share that sentiment, and we've proven that through the work we do as well. Like you said, at Africa Silicon Valley, the unique strength that African talent brings to the global stage is, one, you may know this already, but Africa has the youngest majority population currently. There is this energy and desire to build, to own their narratives, and to own their future, which is propelling the youth toward different futures and possibilities. But that comes with an understanding of the community and how one small thing could go a long way. In the US, there’s a lot of saturation, and the dollar doesn’t go as far as it would on the continent. So there is that understanding that what you do can have a large ripple effect. We see that, for example, with our students—after having internships at Google or Databricks, they’re coming back to their communities and native countries and building projects that have a larger impact. 


**Yordanos:** That strength of being able to merge that possibility beyond what they see locally, while bridging that global mindset to local connections in a way that’s going to have broader ripple effects, is such a huge strength. I see a lot of that in African talent. Tech is just a tool to better lives—it’s not the end-all. That is a unique strength I see in the groups we work with and beyond, even among the talent coming out of Africa. I hope with the work we do, as we continue to nurture that, there will be more opportunities to really help the youth succeed and accomplish their vision.


**Barbara:** So Inkomoko, we’ve actually created roughly about 40,000 jobs through our numbers, but that doesn’t change the entirety of the problem. What is your view on how we can combine the desire to display African talent on a global stage with the need to address the continental climate crisis?


**Yordanos:** I heard a line that resonated with me. The founder was talking about how she always sought to be at the tables others created, and she realized, “Why don’t I create the table, and they can come? I can invite them.” That perspective was very powerful. Connecting it to your question—displaying African talent on a global stage and showing it to others, yes, it works to bridge the gap, to show what we can do. But we can create these successful companies on the continent ourselves. We can use our talent, and the world will see. It’s a matter of time, yes, but it’s also about doing it well so that they have no choice but to see what is possible and what is accomplished. We’re already seeing a lot more investments and interest coming into the continent, and that will only continue, but it needs to be done with an understanding of the unique value we’re creating for ourselves first and taking that into the global world.


**Barbara:** As we come to the close of this, what advice would you give to young African students aspiring to enter the tech industry?


**Yordanos:** One is, like I said, to understand what it is that you want to do with tech because it’s really a tool—it’s not the end-all. So, connect it to the bigger purpose and value that drives and motivates you to your purpose in the world. 
Second, understand that you have strength to offer the world, to offer the tech industry, so really think about your story and the experiences and skills that make you a solid, if not differentiated, candidate in the market.
Third, be intentional about where you’re seeking employment, mentorship, and experience because not all doors or paths are beneficial and fruitful. So be intentional and targeted in that. And the last thing I’ll say is right now, there’s a lot coming out of the tech world—a lot of shiny tools and all this noise. So, find a way not to be distracted by all that noise and really find ways to identify the signal from that noise.


**Barbara:** Thank you so much again, Yordanos. We do appreciate you speaking with us and sharing your experiences with us.


**Yordanos:** Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, Barbara.