Ziwani’s podcast series RISK tackles the practical realities of taking bold steps in business – reframing the conversation around taking gospel-inspired risks while being grounded in professional responsibility. In this episode, host Doreen Zaki interviews Elizabeth Ntege, CEO of NFT Consult – a highly regarded HR firm that has grown over the past 20 years to offer specialist recruitment, staff outsourcing and skills training services across 12 African countries.
You can listen to the full episode here.
Across Africa, the challenge isn’t a lack of talent. In general, it’s a lack of access. Recruitment sits at the centre of this gap, where businesses, systems, and people intersect. But operating in this space comes with real risk – from fragmented markets to regulatory pressure and corruption. What does it take to build a recruitment business that not only navigates these risks, but connects people to opportunity at scale?
Elizabeth didn’t start in HR. “I was born in the UK but raised in Uganda. Later, I went back to the UK and studied electronics engineering with a side hustle in computing. So my early career was in the technical world.” She worked as a technician in complex, high-performance environments (from D-Link Europe to British Telecom and Uganda Telecom), integrating and dismantling communication networks across countries and continents.
When she returned to Uganda, her role shifted into leadership. “I moved from being a technician to managing projects and teams, and over time, I was drawn to the human side of the business, especially when it came to leading young people. I became curious about what makes people thrive in certain careers, but not in others. So the transition from engineering to HR wasn’t as dramatic as it may seem.”
When NFT Consult started in 2005, the founders had a simple but urgent conviction – that Africa’s greatest resource was its people.
“At the time, the HR landscape across Africa was very fragmented,” Elizabeth remembers. On one side, many companies were struggling to find skilled talent, “particularly in the sectors I was coming from, such as the telecom and the information technology industries.” On the other, “a lot of young people coming out of colleges and universities couldn’t find employment.”
“We saw this as an opportunity to bridge the gap between companies and the talent we have in Africa, while improving the professional side of business.” Not just to fill jobs, but to build systems that connect skilled employees to sustainable work.
NFT started small in Uganda, but has steadily pursued its vision of unlocking human potential across the continent. “Today we employ about 60 permanent staff and manage about 1,500 outsourced employees at any given time.” But the real impact goes far beyond that. “In the last 20 years we’ve processed over 538,000 job orders for professionals. If you consider that in Africa, one professional typically supports six people, the ripple effect is enormous,” she explains. That’s not just employment – it’s the livelihood of whole communities.
Putting that into perspective though, Elizabeth also points out that the “combined population of the 12 countries where NFT is active is about 350 million people, of which about 230 million are employable. So what we’re doing is just a tip of the iceberg in terms of unlocking sustainable employment across Africa.” This is the scale of the opportunity – and the responsibility.
NFT’s growth didn’t come from aggressive expansion strategies. It came from trust. “Our expansion has been mostly client-driven,” Elizabeth elaborates. As clients expanded into new markets, “they’ve wanted us to go with them.” From Uganda into Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania, and eventually Southern Africa, the company grew by responding to client needs.
But that kind of growth comes with a different kind of pressure. “As a business, this is both flattering and terrifying, because we’re not expanding on our own timeline. There is a lot of risk involved.” Every new country brings its own complexity. Sometimes there is a local shortage of the skill sets required, especially in the sectors they serve. Often, “there are changes in labour laws we need to navigate, or political sensitivities that can derail how we operate. You have to be very aware.”
Perhaps most underestimated, however, is culture. “What works in one country can fail in another if you don’t adapt to the local business culture,” she cautions.
So how do you maintain consistency while scaling across markets that are so different? For NFT, the answer has been to build systems and culture in parallel – ensuring that as the business grows, its standards don’t dilute.
“Seventy percent of our recruitment processes are automated. Every workflow is documented,” Elizabeth says. This level of discipline isn’t just about efficiency, it’s about managing risk. In one instance, a major disruption hit their Burundi operations when two-thirds of the team resigned to start a competing agency while the business manager was on long-term sick leave. In many companies, that would bring operations to a halt. But for NFT, the systems held. “We sent someone to steady the ship, and because we had automated most of our processes, we were able to get everything up and running again within 30 days.”
But systems alone aren’t enough, especially in environments as diverse as can be found on the African continent. Corporate culture has to travel too.
“We hire locally, but train our employees centrally, especially when it comes to our values of professionalism, integrity, and service,” she explains. These values are clearly defined and embedded into daily work. “We even list the type of habits we expect because of these values, so that no-one can say, ‘Well, I didn’t understand what you meant by integrity.’”
These values are also enforced. “When it comes to our values, they make up 20% of your scorecard and they are non-negotiable. You can score high in everything else, but if you fail on our values, you can get fired, or your contract will not be renewed,” she emphasises.
Yet even the best values and strongest systems do not remove risk completely. For NFT, one of the most persistent risks has been the recruiting industry itself.
“One of the biggest challenges we’ve had is corruption in the job market. Traditionally, getting a job required knowing someone, which in itself is corruption,” Elizabeth comments. In some cases, it’s subtle. “People would submit their CVs in envelopes and include some cash in there.” In others, it’s more systemic. “We’ve had cases where the procurement manager told us, ‘Can you give me 40% of this invoice before I release payment?’”
Operating across multiple African markets means these pressures take different forms, but every time the decision remains the same: how should you respond?
In one country, the situation had escalated to the point where “every Thursday, members of the government or the revenue authorities were coming to our offices, harassing our local staff and threatening to arrest them. They were using issues like ‘you haven’t paid enough taxes’ or ‘you haven’t fulfilled this legal requirement’. And because it was Thursday, you had only Friday to resolve it, otherwise a staff member would spend the weekend in prison,” Elizabeth says.
“We weren’t going to keep putting our people in danger. It went against our values, so we made the decision to close the business.” The decision came at a significant cost. “We lost revenue of about $2 million.” For Elizabeth, it was a defining moment. “That experience shaped my view on risk forever.”
As you scale across markets, risk stops being theoretical – it becomes a series of real decisions about what you will accept, what you will walk away from, and what you are willing to protect.
“You have to be very clear on your risk appetite in a given situation,” she states. Risk can sometimes be transferred to partners or insurers, or managed through systems and processes. Sometimes it can be mitigated by diversifying the services you offer. “In this case we actually eliminated the risk by walking away from a $2 million business.”
The key, she explains, is clarity. “Be very clear on your long-term mission. Not just on short term profits.”
For Elizabeth, that long-term mission is deeply rooted in faith – and in a sense of responsibility toward people. “Proverbs 3:27 is my guide: ‘Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due when it is in your power to act.’ So I leverage my position to be able to serve people.” This reframes her work entirely. If the goal is to unlock human potential at scale, then every decision (even the costly ones) must ultimately serve that purpose.
It also reshapes how she understands risk. “Risk can feel terrifying because you clearly see what you may lose. But with time, you begin to realise that risk is also about what you stand to gain.” And in this context, what’s at stake is far greater than revenue. It’s livelihoods, dignity, and access to meaningful work. Which is why, as she puts it, “the biggest risk is often not taking any risk at all.” Staying comfortable may feel safe, “but while you stay there, opportunities may pass you by.”
The invitation is not to avoid risk, but to engage it with intention. “Start taking some small, calculated risks. This will help you build risk tolerance,” she smiles. Don’t wait for certainty. “Courage is doing the right thing despite the fear. When you step out with integrity, God will multiply your courage and protect the purpose that you have.”
In the end, risk in recruitment isn’t just about protecting a business – it’s about protecting people. The decisions you make shape who gets access to work, how opportunity is distributed, and what kind of systems are built. When risk is managed with clarity and conviction, it becomes more than a safeguard. It becomes a way to unlock livelihoods, strengthen communities, and move potential into real economic participation across Africa.
