Join a transformative 6-month journey to formalize your business structures, drive growth, and create lasting impact.
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About the Programme
The Aspire Business Growth Programme, in partnership with Stanford Seed, equips African entrepreneurs with the skills, tools, and mentorship to scale their businesses.
Designed for CEOs, founders, and managing directors, the program focuses on driving sustainable growth and fostering innovation tailored to African markets.
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Your Path to Success
How It Works
Apply Now:
Complete the application form online or submit an interest form to check your eligibility.
Get Qualified:
Once your application is submitted, your business profile will be reviewed and qualified for admission within 48 hours.
Join the Pan African Cohort:
After admission, complete your enrollment steps and embark on your journey with Aspire.
Transform Your Business:
Leverage Aspire’s tools and resources to scale sustainably and track your business growth effectively.
Who Should Apply For The Aspire Business Growth Program?
Applicant Profile
- Business Owner, CEO, or Founder of the Business accompanied by 1-2 senior leadership members
- Years In Business: Business in operation for more than 1 year
- Revenue: Generated between $30,000–$400,000 or more in annual revenue in the last financial year
- Employees: at least 1 full-time employee
- Internet Enabled: Smartphone/internet connection to access online tools, courses, and the online community
- Performance-oriented: Willing to share key performance/financial data so that you and we can learn about your growth progress)
Programme Requirement
- Programme Start Date: JANUARY 2025
- Duration: SIX-MONTHS
- Format: ONLINE
- Language: ENGLISH
- Programme Fee: $650 PER BUSINESS
(Subsidized by Stanford Seed)
** A 25% scholarship is available for early enrollees**
** The programme fee covers 3 participants i.e. the business owner plus 2 senior team members – to facilitate buy-in, implementation, and impact.**
What’s in it for you?
Expert Insights from Stanford Seed
Gain valuable management skills through a combination of experiential courses, including a live guest lecture from Stanford Graduate School of Business faculty.
Tailored Growth Tools
Learn proven business practices and leadership skills through through interactive virtual workshops, practical tools and strategies to grow your businesses, lead teams, acquire talents and diversify revenue streams.
Flexibility and Team Inclusion
Participate online with up to 2 senior members from your team from the convenience of home or office with a schedule designed for busy entrepreneurs.
Networking
Join a Pan-African support network of like-minded business owners to share experiences with and enhance your learning.
Mentorship
Receive a Pro bono mentorship access to Stanford Seed mentors and project-based Stanford Seed consultants, as determined by the level of commitment.
Submit an interest form
Your Aspire Learning Journey
Assess where you are now, where you want to go, and what strategic activities will help get you there. Develop a short-term action plan with key strategic priorities and learn how to measure progress.
Determine what it takes to lead your business to prosperity, including how to define a vision for the business, align your team toward this direction, and drive progress toward your strategic priorities.
Focus on understanding customers’ needs and finding product/market fit. Identify opportunities to either diversify your products, pivot your offering, or approach new markets/channels/delivery models to serve your customers.
Look at your financial trends and what it tells you about your business. Understand core drivers of profit and strategies to improve profit and cash flow to support sustainability and growth in the long term.
Do you have the right team to grow? Are you empowering your team to deliver? Does that team have the right processes to support maximum productivity and growth? Learn how to build great teams to support continuous improvement and growth.
Engage in strategic business planning. Understand how your core vision defines the strategy going forward, assess core strategic opportunities, and focus on execution to build a culture of continuous performance, review, and improvement.
Real Results from Aspire Entrepreneurs
“To say that the Aspire Programme is my most eventful and practically enriching programme is an understatement. As a company, we owe you, AMI and Stanford”
-Dankishiya Saleh Hadi, CEO & Principal Associate, Dankish & Associates Limited, Nigeria
“Joining Aspire was one of the best decisions we made in 2021. When we took the programme, we realized we needed to streamline our processes. Installations that would take us 5 days to complete, now take us 3 days. We are saving money and getting a lot more work done.”
-Delali Pearce Founder , Macht Energy Ltd, Ghana
“After college, 29 years ago, these classes definitely had the biggest impact. I want to also share my knowledge Aspire was just an amazing experience .”
– Mustafa Jacksi, Managing Director, Spik and Span Limited, Tanzania
“Getting the opportunity to engage and learn from other business owners especially those who run businesses unrelated to mine, opened my mind to a wealth of opportunities available there”
– Linda Nyambezi, Founder and Managing Partner, Insele Capital, South Africa.
Build & grow as you learn
Instead of talking at entrepreneurs about concepts and theories, AMI introduces practical business
and management tools that can be applied to business practices on day one. Participants navigate
their learning journey with our learning platform and apps, powerful facilitator-led learning
experiences, and peer-to-peer support.
YOUR TOOLKIT FOR BUSINESS
More than traditional training - practical tools that you’ll use immediately
HUMAN-CENTRED LEARNING
Expect engaging Learning Labs led by world-class facilitators and interactive peer group meetings
HUMAN-CENTRED LEARNING
Expect engaging Learning Labs led by world-class facilitators and interactive peer group meetings
Start Your Aspire Journey
Apply Now
Learn More
Connect with our Enrolment Team
Certificate of completion
The Faculty & Team
Bronwen McConkey
Chief Product Officer
Sam Kimera
Facilitator
Caroline Karangi
Facilitator
Kirsty Tudhope
Lead Learner Success
The Aspire Business Growth Programme is also available in French:
Latest Updates
About AMI and Stanford Seed’s Collaboration
Stanford Seed is collaborating with African Management Institute (AMI) to provide an exclusive offer for early-stage founders and business owners. The goal of the AMI and Stanford Seed relationship is to help your business achieve its aspirational growth objectives by blending AMI’s business growth programme with Stanford Seed’s expertise
Scholarship Support
For a limited time, Stanford Seed is providing partial scholarships for the Aspire Business Growth programme to qualified applicants.
FAQs
The next cohort kick’s off October, 2024
The program runs for 6 months each month you have;
- 120 min. live learning lab/webinar where the topic/concept for that month is introduced by AMI expert facilitators.
- An online learning platform where you will be expected to to download tools and resources for continuous learning and
- A pod this small peer meeting where founders meet to discuss and problem solve.
This cycle happens every month and your commitment is 3 to 4 hours per week.
During the 3rd month, we have a guest lecture from Stanford Graduate School of Business Faculty and after the 6 months of learning, you can apply for mentorship and project based consultants from the Stanford Seed, this comes at no additional cost.
Yes, there are live learning lab sessions every month.
The programme also includes accessing our learning platform where you can download resources and access courses on demand.
All the sessions in this programme are virtual, no sessions are done in person/face-to-face.
This is not an academic programme so there are no graded assessments, however, at the end of each phase there are tools and resources that you are supposed to review, download and implement on your business.
Once you complete your application, a selection committee reviews your application to check your eligibility. This process takes 1-4 days. We intend to respond to you as soon as your application has been reviewed.
We encourage you to check the eligibility criteria listed on this programme page before applying.
No. As the business owner and the key driver of change in your organization, you are required to actively participate in the programme .
However in certain circumstances, we allow senior team members such as co-founders, directors or C-suite executives e.g chief operations officer to attend of behalf of the business owner.
The cost of the programme is $650 per business. This fee covers 3 people i.e. the business owner plus 2 other senior members of their team. Nominating the 2 additional participants is optional . Meaning whether you decide to attend alone as the business owner, or accompanied by 1 or 2 team members, the price of the programme is the same. Please note that there will be no additional costs incurred by you during the course of the programme
The fee covers 3 people i.e. the business owner plus 2 other senior members of their team. Nominating the 2 additional participants is optional . Meaning whether you decide to attend alone as the business owner, or accompanied by 1 or 2 team members, the price of the programme is the same.
A 4th or other additional participants will be charges $217 USD per person for the full duration of the proramme
Yes . 50% at contracting (to confirm your enrollment) and the remaining 50% due one month after the 1st installment.
For a limited time Stanford Seed is offering further scholarships of up to 75% based on the organization’s needs.
Female -led businesses, businesses in agriculture, clean energy or those operating in small and rural markets are encouraged to apply for the programme.
Yes.
On enrolment we send you a payment link customized to your country. So you can pay in your local currency or in USD whichever is convenient.
Yes. On graduation you get a certificate of completion from both AMI and Stanford Seed.
AMI and Stanford Seed do not offer business loans or any direct business funding to participating businesses.
However as part of the programme you will learn how to access finance to grow your business. We have seen participants who successfully complete the programme leverage their skills to access funding.