The African World Features Joseph Richards, a Liberian Author/Mining Engineer
On this African World A-File special, Joseph G. Richards, the first black to graduate from the University of Utah as a mining engineer, is featured launching his recently published biography that tells the story of a remarkable life and provides useful insights into the history, culture, and people of Liberia.
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Alex Cummings: Atop the Corporate Ladder
When Alex Cummings left Liberia over 20 years ago to pursue education in the United States, he no doubt dreamt of achieving big goals. But it is fair to say that his achievements in the top flights of blue chip corporate America far exceed, by any measure, whatever goals he had set.
In less than 15 years after joining Coca-Cola, Cummings has risen like a rocket through the ranks to become Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer, a perch from which he controls key areas of the company, including: legal affairs, strategic planning, global community connections, information technology, and research & development.
Joining Coca-Cola in 1997 from Pillsbury where he had served as Vice President for Finance for Pillsbury International, Cummings made his early mark at the company’s Africa operations, where he started as Regional Manager for its Nigeria branch, then head of it North and West Africa division and eventually the overall boss for all of Coca-Cola’s Africa operation, encompassing 56 countries and territories.
In this A-File profile, Cummings talks about his career and the simple values rooted in his Liberian upbringing that explains his success.
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A scion of the family that founded the American corporate behemoth, Levi Strauss, Bob Haas could choose anything he wanted to do when he graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1964.
However, like many young Americans of his generation, Haas, inspired by President John F. Kennedy, would do the untraditional—leave the comfort of the United States and go to Africa, where for two years he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in a remote village in the Ivory Coast.
In this video profile, Haas, who has served as CEO and Chairman of the Board of Levis Strauss, the popular jeans manufacturer, with major operations in South Africa, talks to the African World about why he chose to serve in Africa.
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Isibor Nosegbe: From Refugee to Owner and CEO of a Highly-Rated Nursing School in the US
What explains the remarkable rise of a young Liberian from the status of a refugee, fleeing the brutal civil war in her country, to founder and CEO of a high-rated nursing school in Virginia?
This A-File video profiles Isibor Joy Nosegbe who, shortly after arriving penniless in the United States in 1993 from a refugee camp in Guinea, rose to the position of director of nursing at a retirment home where she started off as a nursing assistant and today owns and operates the Standard Nursing School in Northern Virginia that consistently graduates students with a 90% pass rate in the Virginia Nursing State Board Exam.
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