Why tomorrow-driven governance is the missing engine of the African Dream

By Professor Douglas Boateng,
Chartered Director (UK IoD) | Chartered Engineer (UK) | Social Entrepreneur | Governance and Industrialisation Strategist

A MIRROR AND A MAP

Africa’s youth do not live in policy papers. They live in the consequences of boardroom choices. The streets, schools, clinics, plants, ports, and platforms they encounter each day are not accidents. They are outcomes of agendas set, risks weighed, and trade-offs agreed by directors and chairs who decide what gets funded, who gets paid on time, which suppliers are trusted, which skills are grown, and how long the horizon really is. If the African Dream is to be more than a rallying cry, it must acquire a daily address in the boardroom. That is where optimism turns into payrolls, where strategy becomes service, and where the next decade is either designed with care or left to chance.

FROM SHORT-TERM NOISE TO LONG-TERM VALUE

Quarterly heat can drown out generational light. Many boards still devote most of their time to reports and matters arising, leaving minutes for strategy, talent, technology, climate risk, and supply continuity. Nations then pay the price through stalled projects, fragile services, and missed opportunities. Tomorrow driven boards reverse the ratio. They assure today while making patient investments that compound over time. These include reliable procurement, resilient supply chains, modern plants, strong balance sheets, skilled people, trusted data, and credible succession plans.

THE CHAIR DECIDES THE WEATHER

The most critical determinant of boardroom effectiveness is the chair. A capable chief executive can deliver today. Only a capable chair can position the institution for tomorrow. The chair sets the cadence, frames trade-offs, protects independence, and turns an agenda into a discipline. Where the chair is clear, consistent, and future-focused, boards become instruments of continuity rather than mirrors of the news cycle. The chair does not manage operations. The chair supervises time, innovation, attention, the future, and standards.

SIX DUTIES THAT CANNOT BE DELEGATED

• Set the horizon. Ensure every meeting balances today’s assurance with tomorrow’s advantage. Protect time for strategy, risk, technology, and talent.
• Curate the board. Build complementary expertise and cognitive diversity. Invite challenge, protect dissent in the room, insist on unity outside it.
• Guard the boundary. Keep oversight sharp and non-executive. Support management yet resist operational drift.
• Tie pay to purpose. Link rewards to long term value. Include customer trust, uptime, local content, capability building, climate resilience, and innovation.
• Institutionalise integrity. Keep conflict registers current, rotate sensitive roles, activate whistleblower channels, and apply predictable sanctions.
• Make time a strategy. Sequence decisions so the urgent does not devour the important. Put succession, technology, supply resilience, and balance sheet strength on a standing annual cycle.

FROM TODAY DRIVEN TO TOMORROW DRIVEN

A today-driven board focuses on headlines and quarter ends, while a tomorrow-driven one builds long-term advantage. The pivot starts with questions the chair insists on: What will customers need in 3-5 years that we must build now? Which two capabilities, if world-class, would change our trajectory? Where are we, rent-seeking rather than creating value? Which single supply chain failure could halt us, and how to prevent it? What’s our succession bench at two levels down? Which slow risks, like climate, cyber, and regulation, are underpriced? What will we stop doing this year to fund next year’s priorities? How will we halve payment days to small suppliers to grow our ecosystem? What would a disciplined competitor do to us, and why aren’t we doing it first? Questions like these are not rhetorical. They are weekly work.

RITUALS THAT PULL THE BOARD FORWARD

• Start every meeting with a forward item, not minutes, focusing on the future and ending with the past.
• Adopt twin dashboards: one for operational health and one for future readiness, covering innovation pipeline, skills, supply resilience, data quality, emissions, and customer trust.
• Use post-mortems and pre-mortems to learn from failures and simulate potential issues.
• Bring in external perspectives three times a year to stress test assumptions.
• Hold site days by visiting the office, plants, wards, labs, and branches, and speak with apprentices and customers, not just managers. These rituals add breath, not bureaucracy.

THE CHAIR AS CULTURE CARRIER

Culture is what the chair tolerates and rewards. The chair normalises curiosity, brevity, and evidence. Meetings end on decisions, owners, and dates. Dissent is welcomed. Data is demanded. Shortcuts are refused. Above all, the chair models patience with long games and impatience with avoidable waste. When the chair treats time as a scarce asset, everyone else does too.

DIRECTORS AS STEWARDS, NOT SPECTATORS

Directors are not guests. They are fiduciaries of public trust or shareholder capital. The board calendar is a policy instrument. When it prioritises long-term investment and capability building, the institution compounds. When it prioritises ceremony, the institution coasts. The difference shows up in service reliability, unit costs, staff morale, credit ratings, and market confidence. A director who reads but does not inquire is a passenger. A director who inquires and prepares is a steward.

TALENT, SUCCESSION, AND THE PATIENCE TO BUILD

A board that waits for perfect resumes will wait forever. Tomorrow driven boards grow talent. They identify the next generation two levels down, fund apprenticeships, and back leadership on the shop floor, at the ward, in the plant, and at the branch. Succession is not gossip about names. It is an investment in skills that keep assets running and customers served. The best time to grow a successor was yesterday. The second best time is today.

THE HARD ECONOMICS OF DISCIPLINED GOVERNANCE

Life cycle costing beats sticker price. Paying small suppliers within thirty days grows capacity and reduces total cost. Standardising parts and contracts improves uptime. Publishing delivery dates strengthens focus. These are not slogans. They are levers that move cash flow, unit costs, and national competitiveness. Boards that insist on these basics create space for innovation and growth. Boards that neglect them court fragility.

CASE LESSONS THAT POINT THE WAY

• Morocco demonstrates that patient industrial policy can attract global value chains in autos and aerospace.
• Kenya proves that technology paired with regulation can expand inclusion at scale.
• Ethiopia and South Africa remind us that when logistics falter everything else pays.

None of these examples is perfect. All are instructive. They reveal that steady governance compounds.

A ONE YEAR PLAN THAT SERVES THE NEXT TEN

A long game starts with small steps. The chair and board can set a pace that builds value.

1. Quarter one: Approve twin dashboards, adopt life cycle costing for key categories, and publish payment times to small suppliers.
2. Quarter two: Create a board committee for technology and supply, run a pre mortem on a critical project, and launch an apprenticeship tied to asset maintenance and digital skills.
3. Quarter three: Transition top awards to electronic procurement with verified local content, and review data and cyber posture.
4. Quarter four: Publish a future readiness report, retire legacy programs to fund new capabilities, and finalise succession plans.

Small commitments create momentum, which builds confidence and attracts capital and talent.

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR THE AFRICAN DREAM

The African Dream is not a passport. It is a practice. It is visible when power plants run, when port dwell times fall, when farmers are paid on time, when apprentices become supervisors, when local suppliers graduate to exporters, and when customers trust service without escalation. Those outcomes begin in an agenda the chair signs and a culture the board keeps.

A RESPECTFUL WORD TO LEADERS

Trade the comfort of applause for the discipline of delivery. Resist the temptation to manage headlines. Reward engineers, operators, nurses, teachers, coders, procurement, and other professionals who turn plans into performance. Protect professionals from improper pressure and hold them accountable for results. The future will thank you more than a podium ever will. Set the tone that tomorrow matters, and the present will improve.

CLOSING REFLECTION: CHAIR THE DECADE, NOT THE NEWS CYCLE

The choice before Africans is simple. Will our boards be today driven or tomorrow driven? The continent’s young majority is listening for a rhythm they can build to. Chairs set that rhythm. Directors keep it. Management turns it into music. If Africans choose patience over theatre, evidence over noise, and continuity over impulse, the African Dream will no longer be a speech. It will be a schedule, a payslip, a shipment, a clinic that works, a school with books, a plant with uptime, a port that clears, and a passport used for trade rather than escape. The inconvenient truth is that a chief executive can win a quarter, but only a chair can win a decade. Let us chair with that responsibility in mind and board with that hope in our hands.