Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF) has disclosed that its Founding Patron and renowned Harvard Business School Professor, Michael E. Porter, will participate in workshops and address the Foundation’s first class of interns, capping the inaugural African Markets Internship Programme (AMIP) that has placed some of the world’s brightest young business students in executive suites in African- owned businesses across the continent.

Professor Porter, recognised as the father of the modern strategy field and ranked globally as the most influential thinker on management and competitiveness, will speak at the TEF programme’s session-ending events on Sunday afternoon, August 7, 2011.

Professor Porter will lead two strategy workshops with the interns and the host business CEOs in which they will discuss their projects and lessons from the programme before the group and receive feedback, thoughts and strategic consultation on the way forward.

The sessions will include a focus on the industries represented in the 2011 programme-media, agriculture, private equity.

“Our African Markets Internship Programme combines two ingredients that could put Africa on the fast-track to transformation: top-tier students whose talents we bring to bear in the world’s fastest-growing markets and the world’s keenest business minds, such as Michael Porter, whose ideas have shaped national markets and triggered regional development,” said Founder of TEF and Chairman of Heirs Holdings Tony O. Elumelu, MFR.

“It is unique in Africa.” AMIP is a 10-week internship programme, pairing students from Africa’s top business schools with students from elite business schools in Europe and the United States. The interns participate in intensive, highly structured programmes at fast growing African owned firms.

In his keynote address, on “Creating Shared Value,” Porter will discuss his paradigms on operating business efficiently and solving social challenges, which can be applied to the 10-week projects the interns worked on, as well as work with the host businesses CEOs to think through strategies to overcome industry and environmental challenges in the different regions of the continent.

“Over the next few years, Africa will approach a turning point in its economic development,” Porter said. “Its key business leaders could reinvent capitalism on both a local and continental scale if they are able to unleash innovation to drive growth in this region’s economies. As such, the fate of Africa rests upon the shoulders of a new generation of entrepreneurs and visionary corporate leaders.”

According to Efe Odeleye, programme manager for TEF’s AMIP, “This new generation of entrepreneurs and business leaders can be found at both ends of AMIP, as interns and host businesses.

They represent the diversity and depth of African innovation and talent, and also demonstrate the interest of top business students from outside the continent in making contributions to Africa’s growth through the private sector.”