Benedict Ashiedu is a Nigerian-born engineer turned strategy consultant whose career has spanned telecom infrastructure, financial advisory, and global leadership development.
With field experience managing fiber networks and M&A experience at PwC Nigeria, he recently earned his MBA from Duke University. In this exclusive interview with Chisom Michael, he reflects on the lessons he’s learned across disciplines and his mission to build smarter systems across Africa. Excerpts:
You began your career in electrical engineering. but you’ve since transitioned into business strategy. What prompted the shift?
It began with a desire to fix Nigeria’s chronic power problems. I studied electrical engineering because I wanted to be part of the solution. But when I started working with IHS Nigeria, then later in Ghana, I realised something: the real bottlenecks weren’t just technical.
They were structural and strategic. The decisions shaping infrastructure weren’t being made by the engineers on the ground. That pushed me to pivot into business so I could help influence the bigger picture.
Overseeing 660 kilometres of fiber infrastructure in northern Ghana must have come with its challenges. What did that experience teach you about crisis management and leadership in high-pressure environments?
It was a deeply formative time. I was overseeing 660 kilometres of fibre optic infrastructure across northern Ghana. I was based in Techiman, in the Bono East region, and while it was a beautiful part of the country, the work could be incredibly demanding.
The two main issues I dealt with constantly were fibre cuts and power outages. Since the area was experiencing rapid development, construction crews frequently damaged our lines, sometimes multiple times a week. I was always on edge. I could get called at any hour, and we’d have to drive for hours trying to trace the exact location of the fault.
One night, there was a power outage at the Mobile Switching Centre that connected the entire northern region to Accra. It happened around midnight. I had to wake the team, get us moving, and troubleshoot the issue on-site as quickly as possible. Every minute the centre was offline, the company was losing money.
That experience taught me a lot—how to manage crises in real time, think fast under pressure, and motivate a tired team in extreme conditions. That kind of learning stays with you.
Transitioning from field engineering to financial advisory is a major shift. How did your technical background inform your approach to complex business problems at PwC?
In a word: intense. I went from tracking power loads and cable faults to working on financial models and client strategy. I felt like I was playing catch-up for the first few months. But gradually, I found my rhythm. My engineering background helped me think structurally and solve problems.
At PwC, I worked on deals across fintech, agriculture, oil & gas, and hospitality. One moment I’m proud of was working on a microlender’s loan book for foreign investors. I used my data analytics background to speed up the analysis and uncover that 49% of the portfolio was underperforming. That insight shifted the deal’s direction entirely. It showed me that data and business intuition can work hand in hand.
I also developed a tool that automated staffing processes within our team, improving efficiency and reducing burnout. That tool was eventually adopted by PwC Kenya as well. This achievement led to me winning the PwC Spotlight Award. It was a proud moment—bringing my tech background into a business environment and making a real impact.
Due diligence can sound abstract to outsiders. How would you explain the process — and its real-world impact — to someone unfamiliar with the M&A world?
At its core, due diligence is about helping a potential investor or acquirer understand what they’re getting into. Imagine you’re thinking of buying a house—you’d want to check the plumbing, ask about past repairs, investigate the neighbourhood, and get a feel for what the place is worth. It’s the same idea in business.
In financial due diligence, we look at a company’s books—its revenues, expenses, debts, customer contracts, and sometimes even its culture. We verify whether the numbers the company is presenting make sense, whether there are risks hidden in the background, and whether the valuation is realistic. We use tools like Alteryx to clean and analyse data faster, and we often build models to forecast how the company might perform under different scenarios.
The goal is to help the buyer make an informed decision, not just based on hype, but on facts.
Serving on the NextGen Council gave you a front-row seat to organisational leadership. How did that experience shape your views on inclusion, advocacy, and leading at scale?
The NextGen Council is a leadership body within PwC that represents staff below the senior level. Members are elected by their peers, and the council serves as a bridge between staff and leadership.
During my time on the council, we dealt with some pretty weighty issues, like navigating the return to the office after COVID. We had to listen to concerns from staff, advocate for balanced solutions, and help maintain morale during a challenging time. We also supported a compensation review process that improved transparency and trust.
It really opened my eyes to what inclusive leadership can look like in practice. NextGen was a turning point. Until then, my leadership had mostly been about managing teams of 8 to 10 people. Suddenly, I was representing a staff body of over 1,000.
Even something as simple as approving snacks for a company offsite required deeper thought—what if someone has allergies? What’s inclusive? What’s culturally sensitive? It taught me that inclusive leadership means making decisions that work for people who aren’t in the room—and sometimes whose needs you haven’t encountered yet.
From managing midnight outages to guiding large teams through transitions, your leadership journey has evolved. How do you define effective leadership today?
It’s not about being the loudest voice. Leadership is about staying calm in a storm, making clear decisions, and creating an environment where others can do their best work, even when everything feels chaotic. Whether I was managing a network outage at midnight or supporting a team on a critical deal, that principle stayed the same.
It also means building people up to the point where they no longer need you. Right before I left PwC, I went through a major life event and had to step back. I wasn’t sure how the team would respond, but they stepped up in such a big way. It became one of my proudest moments, not just because the work got done, but because I saw how far they’d come. That’s leadership to me: creating an environment where others can thrive—even in your absence.
How has the MBA experience at Duke helped you synthesize your technical, strategic, and leadership experiences into a cohesive vision for impact?
The MBA brought structure to everything I’d been learning in the field and on the job. It helped me think at a systems level how infrastructure, business, and policy intersect. And it reaffirmed my goal: to drive change in Africa with not just global insight, but with better tools to help drive infrastructure development that’s practical, scalable, and people-centered.
What advice would you give to young Africans trying to bridge technical and business domains?
Don’t let your starting point define your destination. If you’re an engineer, great but don’t be afraid to learn the language of finance or policy. If you’re in business, try to understand how things work on the ground. Africa’s challenges are multidisciplinary. We need people who can translate across worlds.
Looking ahead, how do you plan to translate your experience and global insights into practical systems change across Africa?
I’m going to continue working toward my goal of improving infrastructure back home. As a strategy consultant, I’m not just focused on solving one problem, I’m developing frameworks to address the kinds of challenges that are common across the continent.
That’s something I’ve been refining during my MBA, and I’ve also been making the human connections I’ll need to implement change when the time comes. I also plan to keep bridging African and U.S. markets. There’s so much opportunity in creating stronger links between the two, and I want to be a part of that story.
