Africa Top Success Ils font l'Afrique
At 50-year-old, Elisabeth Medou Badang has just been appointed as the boss of Orange Cameroon. It was for the first that the French company appointed an African woman to such a post. She was till then Chief Executive Officer at Orange Botstwana.
Her assignment will not be easier. She had to lead Orange Cameroon to face a market more and more competitive. MTN, the leader has more than 5 million subscribers and a new actor disembarked in the country. “What is important is to develop a market which really needs it, the penetration rate still being low”.
Élisabeth Medou Badang is mother of two children. She is reputed to be a demanding woman but who can easily delegate.
She is a native of Mfoulassi, near Sangmélina in the south of the country. She is a daughter of doctor and planter. She is of a sibship of 21 children; she inherited a strict education from their father trained in Germany. Every year during holidays, he obliges his children for practice in his plantations of banana and cocoa trees at Dimako or at Bertoua in the east of the country. “We should be capable of doing anything.” She learned the lesson well…
Élisabeth Medou Badang started her career in 1990 as managing director of Proparco, a branch of the French Agency for Development specialized in the financing of private sectors. She then managed an asset portfolio in pharmaceutical, food-processing and insurance domains. When she heard that Orange was going to settle down in Cameroon, she applied and was recruited in 1999.
Claire Paponneau, big boss at Orange, underlined the importance of her current responsibilities: “Orange Cameroon is one of the biggest African branches of the group. So we are particularly careful regarding the quality of the person we recruit”.
Elisabeth Medou Badang was certified of master’s degree in finance and in accountings, certified of Advanced Accounting Diploma, she participated in the Exécutive Programs regarding strategy and management by the Esc Paris, the Em of Lyon and Grand field Business School.
Whereby she said that it is in adversity that she draws this supplement of intimist resources which distinguishes her from most of the senior officials of the company.
A firm-handed woman about whom we will continue hearing.
