DARE TO SUCCEED ABYSSINIA BUSINESS NETWORK /ABN/ MAY 2022

Yetnayet Tamrat:Born with Entrepreneurial Mindset

By Samuel Teka /ABN/ Entrepreneurs help bolster economic development, create jobs, and invent products and services that can make the world a better place. Being a successful entrepreneur requires outside-the-box thinking and larger-than-life ideas. Most can come up with a new idea but converting it to a successful business around is the entrepreneurial challenge. The entrepreneurial mindset is unique in that one must be creative, communicative, and highly motivated to succeed.

In the journey of success and through exploring several approaches, tenacious female entrepreneurs could create strong waves in the business community thus laying a solid base for limitless creativity. In a country with limited number of female entrepreneurs, few have stood out to prove their potentials and achieve their lifelong dreams of owning their own businesses.

Yetnayet Tamrat AKA Mimi Tamrat is a mother, entrepreneur, philanthropist, and an artist who was born in the Addis Ababa in 1986 GC. She grew up with her two brothers in a very loving family. Being the only daughter in the family, she had to stand up for herself and learn to become independent at the earliest stage of her life.

She was raised to become self-sufficient and confident. She has learnt to mind her manners with strong self-discipline as nurtured by her parents. At early age, she used to travel to the countryside during holiday seasons to visit her grandparents. She still has the memory of the bliss and the smell of the flowers, the magical scenery of the magnificent landscapes and movements of the trees as if their symmetric movements have been choreographed by nature. Above all, she still remembers the heartwarming smile of her grandparents.

She enjoys living the now, connecting with nature, discovering different personalities from the countryside. These sparked thoughts and lead to develop some of her hobbies that is related to taking care of nature and helping others. Among the many hobbies she has, gardening is one that gets her connected to nature; she believes that every being on this planet has a way of communicating if one cares enough to listen. Walking In her garden she feels like her plants speak to her and help her transcend into the comfort and calmness. This experience also allows her to listen to herself and connect to her inner peace.

Yetnayet doesn’t usually take no for an answer. She always fights for what she believes in. she never sleeps until she sees her dreams come true. Every day she tries to learn new things from different people

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ABYSSINIA BUSINESS NETWORK / ABN /

YETNAYET TAMRAT

MEDIQUAI, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR AFRICA

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and experience to expand her wisdom. She believes ambition is her drive that leads her to overcome whatever challenge she may face on whatever journey she chooses to take.

As a mother, her children are her greatest source of joy. Motherhood has given her a different level of drive and has shown her another dimension of life. She is brave and protective for her children and conscious of her day-to-day steps cognizant of her children follow into her footsteps.

As a philanthropist and as a woman who wants to make impact, her life motto is “Being kind always pays back”. If we support one another, there is no challenge we can’t overcome and problems we can’t solve. Her conviction is to support people in whatever way possible. As part of a corporate social responsibility program, there are events that took place to support the community in different part of the country. Details of the program are listed on her website,

Yetinayet Tamrat is one of a handful of Ethiopian female entrepreneurs who have found fortune and success in Ethiopia. ABN reporter Samuel Teka talks to Yetinayet Tamrat on her life experience and professional journey as well as her engagement in filmmaking, entrepreneurship, and management.

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ABYSSINIA BUSINESS NETWORK / ABN /

Driven by the zeal to be financially independent and free to make her own decisions, Yetinayet established a plethora of variegated businesses over the years. She says that she is averse to the influence of superiors in the job world as it serves little to next purpose in realizing her dream of becoming self-sufficient and independent. As such, she had to eventually give up being employed to pursue her entrepreneurial passion.

Yetnaye has BA in Accounting and Business Administration along with Graphics Design, Interior Design then after management and other software trainings. Before earning her first degree, Yetnayet had started her professional career at Greenland Household Importer company around Kazanchize as an Accountant for two months. Then right after she graduated, she got another job offer to work at Veras Wonderland, the first children recreation center in Ethiopia which she got opportunity to meet most VIPS from in Ethiopia.

She started as secretary, but her boss promoted her as Assistant Manager due to her quick adapting and fast learning abilities. Yet again, after working for a couple of months in this capacity, she left for a graphics design and printing company called Image Advertisement where she learned the basics of graphics design. Yetnayet used her newly found set of skill and the network she built to establish her first private business in living room of her parents’ house. She expanded the business to eventually own a printing press company around Atlas Hotel. Few years later, together with her fiancée they bought a flower farm. Then after, Yetnayet got pregnant, and she went to the USA as the pregnancy was a bit tough on her. After a while she returned to home to give birth for her first child.

Yetnayet started a floriculture plant which she forfeited for a stint in the movie industry.

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She started working with renowned Ethiopian filmmaker Serawit Fikre as his Marketing and Business Development Director for about 10 months. While she was working with Serawit and his wife ,Yetnayet was cast for a movie entitled “Werq be Werq” which was a commercial success. Buoyed by the success of her acting career, Yetnayet established a production company called Spot film productions through which she has made numerous movies and international documentaries.

Currently, she is the owner of Spot Ethiopia. She is also a founder, shareholder, Board member and CEO of SDE (Swiss Diagnostics Ethiopia). SDE is an advanced medical diagnostics center which targets most African countries patients. The institution’s facility is now nearing completion and when it starts operation, it will perform diagnostics that are commonly carried out abroad. This special diagnostics center is established in

a joint venture with world-renowned Swiss medical Doctor Roger Gablinger who owns the first Private hospital in Zurich, Switzerland. Motivated by the philanthropic act of helping communities, he invested in SDE and even has plans to give free services of cervical cancer and urology. She explained about Dr Roger “Roger has a golden heart". He is a person who makes positive things out of negative circumstances. He is one of the few foreigners who fought against fake news made against our country’s situation and his role in this regard shoud not be underestimated. He has deep feelings for this country and its citizens. He was supporting our community even during Covid 19. Even though there had been discouraging advice given to him not to invest in Ethiopia, he demonstrated his perseverance with all the bureaucratic challenges around the investment and national bank policy. He believed in me

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ABYSSINIA BUSINESS NETWORK / ABN /

DR. ROGER GABLINGERFOUNDER, MEDIQUAI

Abyssinia Business Network / ABN / 2022

to bring the outstanding Swiss medical service and technology to Ethiopia so that nobody has to wait for 3 to 4 weeks to get a simple laboratory result. she continues…. “Roger believes that God is so nice and generous to him and therefore it's time for him to support the society. Then, he followed my dreams to my country helping me to achieve it and I'm so proud and thankful for that".

On top of her role in SDE, Yetnayet is currently working as Executive Director Africa for Mediquai Swiss. Mediquai Swiss is a medical institution established with the goal of making patients’ lives easier. It accompanies patients throughout their entire medical journey and becomes central point of contact for all medical needs arising throughout their life.

The institution offers a broad range of preventive healthcare services including medical checkups, genetic counseling and testing and access to the Swiss healthcare system with a revolutionary pricing system along with new and disruptive approach with predictable and capped prices. Its pricing system is tightly connected to the officially regulated Swiss healthcare pricing. Mediquai members get express access to inperson consultations and treatments at its exclusive medical partners. By keeping medical history and constantly updating their status of diagnoses, past treatments, current medication, vaccination status and allergies, it offers a second opinion for its members.

As Yetinayet explained, the motivation to work in collaboration with Mediquai came after she had to go through a lot for the medical treatment of her first daughter who had a bladder infection. At first, her condition was overlooked by local doctors as being a minor health mishap. But as the condition worsened, a CT-scan was sent to a Swiss health facility for a second opinion. Even though, the outstanding service of the health facility was commendable, Yetinayet was charged three times more than the usual rate as per

“

Roger believes that God is so nice and generous to him and therefore it's time for him to support the society. Then, he followed my dreams to my country helping me to achieve it and I'm so proud and thankful for that".

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Switzerland’s DRG price regulation system. Not only that the whole process was so complicated from getting doctors’ appointments to facilitating the laboratory test but also the language barriers and insecurity she faced was unbearable. She later learned from a friend, a Mediquai membership would’ve eliminated such unfair treatment. She'd have paid also less than 60% of the actual cost incurred and Mediquai would have handled all these problems in a reduced time, with less cost and in zero insecurity. Yetinayet contemplated about the prospect of saving unnecessary expenditures of non-Swiss international medical tourists through a collaborative work with Mediquai. She then sat down and pitched the idea to the founder of Mediquai Dr Gablinger. Initially, her proposal didn’t seem so convincing to him, as he was skeptical about the potential of Africa to provide an attractive market suited for the purpose of Mediquai. However, after several discussions he decided that Yetinayet would take on the role of director to oversee the activities of marketing and networking.

“

“Spot Ethiopia’s motto: “Inception of Greatness” comes from its vision for Ethiopia to exploit these huge opportunities and find riches in its deeply rooted diversity.”

“Spot Ethiopia’s motto: “Inception of Greatness” comes from its vision for Ethiopia to exploit these huge opportunities and find riches in its deeply rooted diversity.”

Her connection in the medical sector has earl age story that she was apprehensive about working on the medical field which she never had any experience. However, as a person who likes to face challenges head on, she decided to take on the role anyway. Yetinayet excelled in her performance which convinced Dr Gabling to promote her company Spot Ethiopia as a sole representative agent in the whole continent of Africa. Now she leads Mediquai gracefully in Africa.

The intrinsically motivated and tenacious businesswoman has also been determined to replicate the advanced diagnostics laboratory facilities of Switzerland in her home country Ethiopia where patients must endure long periods

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to get laboratory results and proceed to further medical procedures. Hence, she collaborated with the most Influential Entrepreneur and good hearted person, Dr. Roger Gablinger of Switzerland to establish Swizz Diagnostics Ethiopia which aims to reduce the time and cost incurred by patients and mainly to reduce patients risking their life in waiting for the accurate results to get their treatment or medications.

Established with over 200-million-birr worth investment, Swiss Diagnostics Center is the daughter company of Swizz Diagnostics International operating with fully automated state of the art medical laboratory equipment and highly skilled professionals. As Yetinayet contends, the facility will be a major diagnostics hotspot not only for Ethiopia, but the whole of Africa pulling in valuable foreign currency for the Ethiopian economy.

When it is functional, it will create job opportunities for talented medical professionals and provides conducive ground for knowledge and skills transfer. Swiss Diagnostics Ethiopia provides blood sample tests, pathology, wellness services, DNA analysis, and cervical cancer diagnosis, along with carrying out medical researchers in various areas.

Another investment in the Spot Ethiopia group is a real estate company. The Rescuers was established with the view to giving the capital Addis Ababa unique set of buildings. To this end, the Rescuers real-estate had the privilege of working with internationally recognized architect Mr. Santiago Calatrava who designed the World Trade Center Transportation Hub in New York city, Museum of Tomorrow in Rio de Janeiro, and several other iconic bridges, museums around the globe.

However, as Yetnayet regretted, implementing such design has proven to be a daunting task due to the bureaucratic system and regulatory approaches of business making in Ethiopia. Many investors working with her have found the bureaucratic complexities of Ethiopia inferior to their investment capacity and therefore tend to cancel their partnerships and ventures. She believes the current trend in change is a great start that still needs focus and attention of law makers in creating conducive investment conditions for foreign direct investment.

Elaborating on the various business opportunities in Ethiopia, Yetnayet noted that Ethiopia is endowed with numerous business opportunities. While some are exploited to a fair degree; most others still remain untapped. Spot Ethiopia’s motto: “Inception of Greatness” comes from its vision for Ethiopia to exploit these huge opportunities and find riches

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ABYSSINIA BUSINESS NETWORK / ABN /

Abyssinia Business Network / ABN / 2022

“

Roger believes that God is so nice and generous to him and therefore it's time for him to support the society. Then, he followed my dreams to my country helping me to achieve it and I'm so proud and thankful for that".

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ABYSSINIA BUSINESS NETWORK / ABN /

in its deeply rooted diversity. According to Yetnayet, if institutional incapacities and impeding regulatory measures are lifted and smoothened, the possibilities are endless,

In her future plan, Yetnayet envisions to implement projects that are on the pipeline and to further create more job opportunities for communities. She strongly believes in supporting each other and looking after those who are really in need and straggling to get a single meal a day. She has great respect and love from her surroundings and society on her humanitarian works.

Her journey and achievement thus far are spurred by her will to push the boundaries to try new ways that many others have shied away from. It is a testament of persistence and determination that envisages creating opportunities by simply daring to succeed.

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