Miishe Addy: from Silicon Valley to Accra

Summary

Podcast Summary: Business Daily meets – Miishe Addy: From Silicon Valley to Accra

Podcast: Business Daily, BBC World Service
Host: Sam Fenwick
Episode Date: December 5, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode features an in-depth conversation with Miishe Addy, a Harvard-educated entrepreneur who transitioned from the startup scene of Silicon Valley to launch and scale Jetstream Africa, a logistics tech company in Ghana. The discussion explores Miishe's journey bridging two vastly different business cultures, the challenges of African trade, nuances of gender bias in leadership, and the broader movement of the diaspora returning to Africa to invest and drive innovation.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Contrasting Silicon Valley and Accra

• Community vs. Individualism:
  Miishe describes Accra as intensely communal, where “people will have your back” ([01:23]). In contrast, she notes that while San Francisco is densely populated, it often feels lonelier, and communities like her co-working space, Hacker Dojo, are the exception rather than the rule.

  “There's a sense here that people will have your back. You're always in community.” — Miishe Addy ([01:23])

2. Early Ventures and Identifying a Logistics Problem

• Skilltap and Pivoting After Failure:
  Miishe’s first startup in San Francisco, Skilltap, was a freelancer matching platform. After closing it in 2016, she shifted to Ghana aiming to start a plant-based food company, only to quickly confront the continent's fragmented logistics infrastructure ([04:25]-[05:03]).
• Trade & Supply Chain Challenge:
  She found moving goods between African countries (e.g., Ghana to Nigeria) incredibly challenging, often more so than trading within Europe.

  “There really is no formal supply chain. There is no formal logistics network that small businesses can tap into.” — Miishe Addy ([05:03])
  Sam underscores the absurdity:
  “If you look at trade across Africa, it can be cheaper sometimes and quicker to move stuff around Europe than it can between countries within Africa.” — Sam Fenwick ([05:59])

3. Founding Jetstream Africa

• Solving for Scale:
  The need for economies of scale in logistics inspired Jetstream Africa’s model—aggregating small businesses' cargo to lower shipping costs through shared containers.

  “We set up the business initially to aggregate cargo across small and mid sized businesses so that they take advantage of bulk freight pricing.” — Miishe Addy ([07:17])

• Growth & Impact:
  Jetstream now operates in 29 countries, including 12 in Africa, with revenues surging nearly 50% and its customer base more than doubling over the past year. In 2023, they raised $13 million, expanding their AI-powered shipment-tracking and financing platform ([07:38]).

  “Jetstream now operates in 29 countries... revenues have risen nearly 50% and its customer base has more than doubled in the past year.” — Sam Fenwick ([07:38])

4. Fundraising in Africa vs. Silicon Valley

• Abundance vs. Scrutiny:
  In Silicon Valley, funding was readily available—even unsolicited—while in Ghana, capital was hard-won and predominantly sourced from African investors, especially in Nigeria.

  “I remember an investor invited me to lunch before I even thought about fundraising and offered me money... I didn't even ask for it.” — Miishe Addy ([08:30])
  “Over 60% of the capital that Jetstream has raised has come from one country and that's Nigeria.” — Miishe Addy ([09:55])

5. Entrepreneurial Ecosystem & Mentorship

• Capacity Building:
  Miishe notes a fierce hunger for mentorship and training among Africa’s young workforce.

  “If you post office hours or give young people an opportunity to do meet and greets with you, you'll get a thousand replies... There’s just an incredible need.” — Miishe Addy ([10:17])

6. Navigating Gender Bias

• Challenges for Female Leaders:
  Although Ghana boasts high female entrepreneurship, sectors like banking and tech are still dominated by men. Miishe recounts being overlooked in meetings despite her CEO status in favor of her male co-founder ([13:09]).

  “The bank executives wouldn't look at me, they were looking directly at him. Even though technically I was CEO and he was CEO.” — Miishe Addy ([13:09])

• Resilience Over Confrontation:
  She chooses not to react emotionally but rises above, demonstrating competence and integrity until minds change.

  “It's to have perspective... I almost never take that as an opportunity to make a statement or to preach my gospel about feminism.” — Miishe Addy ([13:44])
  “If you show them your competence, you show them your integrity. Over time, their minds open.” — Miishe Addy ([14:16])

7. Influence of Background and Leadership Style

• Western Upbringing as Advantage:
  Miishe credits her Western upbringing for her confidence and directness in business, which contrasts with some local women’s more tentative communication styles. At Jetstream, she observes women becoming more assertive over time ([15:16]-[15:55]).

  “Over time... they're more direct, they're more forthright. They speak the way I speak to outsiders. And so I do see a little bit of learning that it's okay to speak your mind.” — Miishe Addy ([15:55])

  • “That's our minor Revolution.” — Miishe Addy ([16:45])

8. Returning to Ghana: The Diaspora Movement

• Personal Motivation vs. Trend:
  Miishe moved before Ghana's “Year of Return” diaspora campaign, motivated by curiosity and a desire for meaningful impact, especially in a context where innovation was desperately needed ([17:15]-[18:00]).

  “There's just no more true sense of purpose and true sense of meaning than helping to build the place where my grandmother passed away... There's no place in the world that needs innovation... more than my homeland.” — Miishe Addy ([18:00])
  Her advice to others in the diaspora:
  “The more we can encourage people from the diaspora to think of Africa as something that's... that belongs to them, something they can be a part of... the better off the continent will be.” — Miishe Addy ([18:00])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Community in Ghana:
  “There's a saying that in Ghana you're never alone, even when you want to be.” — Miishe Addy ([02:57])

• On the Reality of African Logistics:
  “Many of the flights between African countries will take a stop in London or Paris or Amsterdam before they come back down into the continent.” — Miishe Addy ([06:08])

• On Entrepreneurship in Africa:
  “Once you start solving one problem, you discover that there are five more problems behind it that you have to solve.” — Miishe Addy ([08:45])

• On Female Empowerment:
  “I do see a little bit of learning that it's okay to speak your mind, it's okay to say something definitively and not make it into a question. And I do think that sometimes by example, the message spreads.” — Miishe Addy ([15:55])

• Reflecting on Purpose:
  “It’s less for economic reasons than spiritual reasons. And it just so happens that there’s a lot of economic opportunity as well.” — Miishe Addy ([18:00])

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [01:23] — Sense of community in Ghana vs. individualism in San Francisco
• [04:25-05:03] — Launching and pivoting to logistics in Accra
• [07:17] — Jetstream’s aggregation model
• [08:30] — Fundraising: Silicon Valley vs. Ghana
• [10:17] — Mentorship and youth hunger for guidance
• [13:09] — Experiences of gender bias in boardrooms
• [15:55] — Empowering women inside Jetstream by example
• [17:15-18:00] — Personal motivations for returning to Ghana and advice for diaspora

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Episode Tone

Conversational, insightful, and candid. Miishe Addy speaks with warmth, humility, and a sense of purpose, while host Sam Fenwick brings curiosity and admiration for Addy’s achievements and resilience.

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Summary Takeaways

Miishe Addy’s story is emblematic of new waves of African entrepreneurship—grounded in global experience but committed to local impact. Through Jetstream Africa, she demonstrates how innovative thinking and community-driven leadership can begin to solve some of the continent’s toughest problems, even amid systemic logistical and cultural barriers. Her pragmatic optimism and commitment to empowerment serve as a call to both local African and diaspora communities to invest not only capital but also time, mentorship, and heart in Africa’s future.

Transcript

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[Mieshe Addy]

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[Sam Fenwick]

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[Mieshe Addy]

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[Sam Fenwick]

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[Mieshe Addy]

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[Sam Fenwick]

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[Mieshe Addy]

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[Sam Fenwick]

Hello and welcome to Business Daily meets from the BBC World Service. I'm Sam Fenwick. Today, what it's like to build one startup in Silicon Valley and then build another in West Africa's fastest growing tech hub, Accra.

[Mieshe Addy]

I think there's a sense here that people will have your back. You're always in community.

[Sam Fenwick]

It's a leap that says a lot about where global entrepreneurship is heading, from the well funded world of California venture capital to Africa's rapidly expanding digital economy.

[Mieshe Addy]

When people hear my accent, they assume that I took a flight back to San Francisco and raised all our money. But that's not true.

[Sam Fenwick]

My guest is Harvard graduate Mieshe Addy, who launched her first company in San Francisco in the United States before moving to Ghana where she founded a logistics firm.

[Mieshe Addy]

I was raised by parents who encouraged us to think about our impact on the world.

[Sam Fenwick]

We'll hear how she's bridging two very different business cultures. What she's learned about bias and resilience as a female founder and how her company is tackling some of the toughest challenges in African trade. That's all coming up on today's Business Daily.

[Mieshe Addy]

As soon as I stepped off of the plane, I felt just a different energy. You can feel in the air. There's a sense of possibility and an energy to it. It's also hot. That weather is very hot. There's a certain liveliness to the atmosphere that I think is really unique to West Africa, especially.

[Sam Fenwick]

Fresh off a plane from San Francisco, Misha arrived in Accra in 2017. She was full of hope for her own future and for Ghana's.

[Mieshe Addy]

So the first thing that struck me was the demographics. The population of Africa is young and you see that visually on the street. So the men and women walking around, it's people who are just graduated from school, people who are getting their start in life. The culture here is very communal and there's a saying that in Ghana you're never alone, even when you want to be. One day I went out to lunch with a friend and I came back and I got a call and it was my cousin on the other line asking me who I was with. And I said, how do you know I was with anyone? And he said, I saw you across the street and I was just checking in on you. And I think there's a sense here that people will have your back and people are watching what you do. For good or for bad, you're always in community.

[Sam Fenwick]

And that's very different to San Francisco then. Is that maybe a bit more of a lonely city?

[Mieshe Addy]

It is, I mean, I think it's obviously densely populated, but people are more individualistic. So I actually joined a co working space called Hacker Dojo which was in Silicon Valley and it's where the company Pinterest got its start, which brought together a community of entrepreneurs that wanted to build things together and share their ideas openly, et cetera. But that was a special space in Silicon Valley I find, like that sense of community, that sense of openness is everywhere in Ghana.

[Sam Fenwick]

Misha was taking a big risk, leaving San Francisco, the startup capital of the world, to begin a new chapter in Ghana, the country of her parents birthday. Her first startup in California was a freelancer matching platform called Skilltap, connecting consultants with young tech companies. But in 2016 she closed that business and a year later swapped Silicon Valley for Accra. Her plan was to launch a plant based food company, manufacturing in Ghana and exporting across the continent. But she quickly ran into a major obstacle.

[Mieshe Addy]

So we started with a coconut based product that used the old coconuts that aren't consumed commonly in Ghana, extracted the fat from those coconuts to make yogurt and oils and we packaged that product into consumer packaging and sent it to Lagos in Nigeria. It was easy to make sales in Nigeria. The first place that I picked was a marketplace called Ikeja, which is a big part of of Lagos, where there's just fast moving commerce, there are a lot of shopkeepers who are open to trying new products. It's an exciting place to sell. But the logistics of getting product to Acadia were nearly impossible for me to figure out. I couldn't figure out how to get from Ghana to Ikeja. There really is no formal supply chain. There is no formal logistics network that small businesses can tap into.

[Sam Fenwick]

And actually, if you look at trade across Africa, it can be cheaper sometimes and quicker to move stuff around Europe than it can between countries within Africa.

[Mieshe Addy]

Absolutely. And many of the flights, if you're sending air freight cargo to another African country, many of the flights between African countries will take a stop in London or Paris or Amsterdam before they come back down into the continent.

[Sam Fenwick]

So that's crazy, isn't it?

[Mieshe Addy]

Yeah.

[Sam Fenwick]

And if you think about the businesses that are in Africa, in Ghana, they are small, medium sized businesses that would do very well if they could trade between nations.

[Mieshe Addy]

Yeah. More than 50% of GDP and 80% of employment is coming from these small and mid sized businesses. And there's a lot of informal trade that happens at the borders.

[Sam Fenwick]

What's the biggest hurdle for that to get over and what are you now trying to do?

[Mieshe Addy]

Honestly, it's volume. So the economics of logistics are governed by economies of scale. So the bigger truckloads you can move, the cheaper it is per kg of item to move that cargo.

[Sam Fenwick]

In order to kind of solve this problem of trade across the continent of Africa, you set up another business which is a digital logistics business. How does that work?

[Mieshe Addy]

So we set up the business initially to aggregate cargo across small and mid sized businesses so that they take advantage of bulk freight pricing. So if you take 20 different SMEs and you put their goods into the same shipping container, they can ship in full volumes and at lower cost and they could ship individually.

[Sam Fenwick]

And that idea, helping small businesses share space in a shipping container, became the foundation for Jetstream Africa. Today, it's one of the continent's fastest growing logistic tech firms. Jetstream now operates in 29 countries, including 12 across Africa. Its revenues have risen nearly 50% and its customer base has more than doubled in the past year. In 2023, the company raised US$13 million in new funding to expand and develop an AI powered platform that tracks and finances shipments in real time, helping African traders compete on a global. The company's annual revenue is estimated at just over US$9 million. So how does building a business in Ghana compare with her earlier ventures in California's Silicon Valley?

[Mieshe Addy]

Yeah, so I think it's easier and harder in Silicon Valley. It's easier in the sense that money is just thrown at startups there. I remember an investor invited me to lunch before I even thought about fundraising and offered me money for the startup. And I was thinking, I didn't.

[Sam Fenwick]

That's.

[Mieshe Addy]

I didn't even ask for it. You're giving it to me. But the thing that's harder, I think, in Silicon Valley is the problems are sometimes less impactful and less obvious. In Africa, by contrast, the opportunities to make an impact are huge. The overwhelming thing at times in Africa is that once you start solving one problem, you discover that there are five more problems behind it that you have to solve in order to tackle the problem that you observe. So you'll see a lot of startups doing more than one thing because there's so much opportunity for change and for innovation. It's an engaging place to be. I think it's a more challenging place to build and it's harder to raise money.

[Sam Fenwick]

I wanted to ask you about that because you said that there were people basically throwing money at you in San Francisco, but I'm assuming that wasn't the case when you started your business in Ghana.

[Mieshe Addy]

No, it wasn't.

[Sam Fenwick]

So where did you get your money from?

[Mieshe Addy]

Africans.

[Sam Fenwick]

Because they understand the problems. Yes. And they understand the risk as well.

[Mieshe Addy]

I think sometimes when people hear my accent, they assume that I took a flight back to San Francisco and raised all our money from Silicon Valley. But that's not true. Over 60% of the capital that Jetstream has raised has come from one country and that's Nigeria.

[Sam Fenwick]

What's next for the African continent? Where does that investment need to go?

[Mieshe Addy]

There is an incredible hunger for mentorship, for training. If you post office hours or give young people an opportunity to do meet and greets with you, you'll get a thousand replies. I did a speed mentoring session and I was shocked to see the queue of young people lining up just to have a minute, to talk. A minute. What should I do with my career? How do I get jobs? There's just an incredible need for experienced people, people who built their careers and understand systems to contribute to the capacity building here on the continent.

[Sam Fenwick]

This is Business Daily from the BBC World Service.

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[Mieshe Addy]

Offer for first three months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes if network's.

[Sam Fenwick]

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I'm Sam Fenick and today I'm meeting Mishe Adi, the Harvard graduate who swapped Silicon Valley for Accra to build one of Africa's fastest growing logistics tech companies. Ghana's tech scene is growing fast, but women at the top are still rare. According to data from the Ghana Stock Exchange and the Boardroom Africa, only about one in eight listed companies are led by a woman. It's a figure that highlights how few female founders and CEOs there are in the country, especially in industries like logistics and technology. For Misha, it means stepping into boardrooms, where she's often the only woman in the room.

[Mieshe Addy]

In Ghana, there are very clear gender roles. So even though Ghana has one of the highest rates of female entrepreneurship in the world, the banks, et cetera, are mostly run by men. What I found is that there's a certain set of expectations that you have to conform to. I remember I was with my co founder who is man, and the bank executives wouldn't look at me, they were looking directly at him. Even though technically I was CEO and he was CEO.

[Sam Fenwick]

How did you cope with that?

[Mieshe Addy]

I think to be honest, it's to have perspective and to understand that we're Here to build something exciting. And it's new. It's change for the banks, it's change for a lot of our partners. So I almost never take that as an opportunity to make a statement or to preach my gospel about feminism.

[Sam Fenwick]

Are you saying that you have to sort of look beyond it, not get irritated by it, not react to it, but kind of rise above it?

[Mieshe Addy]

Exactly. And give people the benefit of doubt that they're capable of changing. There was one merchant that we do business with that invited me to a private party for who knows what reason. And, you know, after the invitation, I said, thank you very much, can I take my husband? And he sort of looked surprised and he said, okay, you can take your husband. So I think that there are ways to navigate the awkwardness of being a woman in a male dominated sector. So I maintain my integrity and always understand that the men, sometimes older men that we do business with, they're learning too. And for the most part, if you show them your competence, you show them your integrity. Over time, their minds open.

[Sam Fenwick]

Do you think that your accent made a difference or makes a difference? You were born in Texas, you grew up in the United States, and maybe they might look differently upon you because you are educated at Harvard.

[Mieshe Addy]

I do think it's in part my accent and also my confidence. So I formed my identity, my sense of who I was in the west, where the culture is more individualistic and where men and women are raised to believe that anything is possible. Coming to Ghana, my identity was already formed. I still have that sense of self, and so I do think it was easier for me to navigate those male dominated spaces.

[Sam Fenwick]

How then do women from Ghana who haven't had the same background as you, how do they navigate this business?

[Mieshe Addy]

What I've noticed is that when we hire women into the company at Jetstream, they speak a certain way. Sometimes they're soft spoken or they will ask questions instead of making declarative statements. Over time, the longer they've worked at Jetstream, I can just see it in their emails. They're more direct, they're more forthright. They speak the way I speak to outsiders. And so I do see a little bit of learning that it's okay to speak your mind, it's okay to say something definitively and not make it into a question. And I do think that sometimes by example, the message spreads.

[Sam Fenwick]

Look, I could see on your face when you were saying that that that clearly gives you empowerment in yourself. You're really pleased about that, aren't you?

[Mieshe Addy]

Yes.

[Sam Fenwick]

Yes.

[Mieshe Addy]

That's our minor Revolution.

[Sam Fenwick]

For Misha, moving to Ghana wasn't just a business decision. It was also a return to her family's roots. Both her parents were born there. Her father, an inventor and investor, worked on global manufacturing projects, while her mother, an economist, advises logistics companies in Ghana. Your story isn't just about gender. It's about a whole wider movement of people returning to Ghana to build and invest.

[Mieshe Addy]

Yes. So I was actually a year before the formal year of return that was organized by the government of Ghana to attract the diaspora, the African diaspora, to come to Ghana to visit and potentially to live. The reason that I came, at the time, it really was just curiosity.

[Sam Fenwick]

Misha moved to Accra in 2017, two years before Ghana's year of return campaign, which encouraged people of African descent to reconnect with their heritage and invest in the country's future. Mieshe's decision, though, was driven by her own assessment of where opportunities were and a sense that Ghana's growing tech and business sectors were entering a new phase.

[Mieshe Addy]

I was raised by parents who encourage us to think about our impact on the world and to think about our careers in terms of the service or the benefit that we could provide to other people. And the education and work experience that I got in the United States, for me was just preparation to do something meaningful in my career. And there's just no more true sense of purpose and true sense of meaning than helping to build the place where my grandmother passed away early when my father was a child because she couldn't access medical care, where my cousins have had to leave because they can't find jobs. There's no place in the world that needs innovation and the energy and networks that I've built more than my homeland. And so that's. That's why here I'm here, it's sort of for. It's less for economic reasons than spiritual reasons. And it just so happens that there's a lot of economic opportunity as well. The more we can encourage people from the diaspora to think of Africa as something that's. That belongs to them, something that they can be a part of, not come in with sort of an imperialist mindset, but come in with a curiosity about how to make a difference, I think the more we see of that, the better off the continent will be.

[Sam Fenwick]

That was Mishae Addy, the co founder and chief executive of Jetstream Africa, which is using technology to untangle one of the continent's toughest challenges, how to move goods across African borders. You've been listening to Business Daily meets from the BBC World Service. I'm Sam Fenwick. Thanks for listening. There's three of us sitting here thinking, where's that flight? We need to get on a flight.

[Mieshe Addy]

However, we have FUFU nights on Saturdays because you're always welcome.

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