MTN Ghana has graduated 80 young professionals across Africa from its 2025 Graduate Development Programme, with a strong emphasis on increasing women’s participation in the telecoms and digital sectors.
The graduation ceremony took place on Thursday, November 20, at the Marriott Hotel in Accra, bringing together participants from across MTN’s African markets.
Acting Chief Human Resource Officer for MTN Ghana, Abdallah Ibrahim, highlighted the company’s deliberate efforts to use the programme to increase the number of women in its workforce.
“We also take advantage of the graduate development program to shore up our female numbers. About 6% of the graduate delegates are females. And it’s our own way of bringing more females into the workforce, towards achieving our ambition of reaching 50% of females by 2030.”
He added that MTN’s commitment is already yielding results, saying, “When we started this journey of bringing more females into the workforce for MTN Ghana, we’ve added about 5% since we started monitoring and being intentional about it in 2020. And today we’re sitting at about 43% representation of females in our organisation.”
Mr Ibrahim said MTN is proud to support young Africans and prepare them for leadership roles.
“We’re proud to graduate about 80 of them from across Africa. They’ve undertaken about 18 months of training, and all of it is really preparing the next cadre of leaders for Africa’s progress.”
He described the full pathway of the programme, saying, “We enrol young graduates from school. We take them through an internship. Then from there, they become part of our national service pool. And then we assess them further to put them in our graduate development program.”
According to him, the programme has already produced managers within MTN. “Some of our graduates who have gone through this programme in the past are now managers in our business and contributing to the bottom line.”
On selection, he explained MTN’s priorities: “Every national service personnel has an opportunity to be part of the Graduate Development Program. But we give a lot more focus on graduates with STEM backgrounds. And… we also prefer a lot more females because of the overall agenda to increase female representation.”
He said that the initiative is run across MTN’s footprint. “Today, we’re happy to have delegates from Nigeria, South Africa, Rwanda, and all across our footprint, about 18 countries,” he said.
Programmes Manager of MTN Global Development Program, Kagiso Malepe, in his remarks, described the ceremony as more than a celebration.
“Today is more than a ceremony. It’s a milestone, it’s a marker of resilience… every sacrifice, every challenge that you went through.”
He urged the graduates to live by two guiding principles: service and significance. “Service is showing up with kindness… offering your gifts, your mind, your skills, your compassion to something bigger than yourself.”
Mr Malepe added that significance comes from purpose. “Success might introduce you to the world. However, significance is what the world will remember you for,” he said.
He also encouraged the graduates to maintain hope, saying, “Hope is the quiet courage that says, even if today is hard, tomorrow can be better… The moment you give up, you lose the last bit of your strength.”
He also encouraged young people across Africa to join the programme, noting that “You get exposed to the best in the industry, telecoms, fintech, infrastructure, and you need the willingness to learn and go the extra mile.”
Chief Executive Officer of the Telecoms Chamber, Sylvia Owusu-Ankomah, in her keynote address, praised MTN for its role in developing African talent.
“The graduating cohort of the MTN Global Development Programme is one that I believe will transform your lives and make you go out there and make new paths.”
She noted the scale of MTN’s contribution to capacity building across Africa, saying, “Since its inception, over 500 graduates have been developed,” she said.
She commended the high participation of women in this year’s cohort. “It’s exciting that as I watch the room, over 60% of the graduates today are women,” she stated.
She urged the graduates to embrace authenticity in an increasingly competitive digital world: “We’re in an age where AI has taken over… to distinguish yourself, you’re going to break out your authentic self.”
Certificates were presented to the 80 graduates, who are expected to take up roles within MTN and contribute to the group’s ambition of developing future African leaders in technology, digital services, and business innovation.
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