Logistics Industry

Miishe Addy is Taking Over Africa’s Logistics Industry

Ghana-born entrepreneur, Miishe Addy, has always been curious about leveraging technology. Living in Texas, United States, Addy tasked herself to identify problems and find tech-driven solutions.

After moving to Ghana in 2017 to teach and mentor software entrepreneurs through the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST) programme, she met her co-founder Solomon Torgbor.

With his vast knowledge spanning eight years in the crossborder shipping industry, he enlightened Miishe on the pros and cons of the industry.

From their discourse and research, she realised the unstructured state of the continent’s supply network, which leaves it in fragments.

This, in turn, makes the importing and exporting business expensive, thus, affecting the distribution and reducing returns on exports. She said, “It is more expensive for people to cargo across Africa than it is to do anywhere else in the world”.

The beginning

With the opportunity to solve the industry problems through technology and human expertise, Miishe Addy delved into the logistics industry despite being male-dominated.

This, to her, was not a factor to be considered. She said, “From the start of my career, I have always worked in fields that I find interesting, and I have had challenges, but I don’t view them from a gender perspective”.

Instead of perceiving it from a gender perspective, she stepped into the industry with her business mindset. To her, “Logistics is a relationship business. You cannot move cargo from Lagos into Amsterdam or Johannesburg into Cairo without partnering with a minimum of nine logistics companies.

Relationships emerge with those logistics companies or define how faster cargo moves. There are benefits to being in great relationships with these providers on the ground. I find that both men and women who are good at working with others tend to excel in this field”. With this mindset, she founded Jetstream, a logistics company with cross-border trade in Africa

in 2019 with Solomon Torgbor.

Jetstream, as a logistic company in Africa exporting to the United States or Europe requires an exporter to have an entire loaded container; however, Jetstream provides an alternative.

Through this, Miishe Addy set the company apart from its competitors.

With its Groupage service, it offers a regular Less than Container Load (LCL) service for agricultural exports. It combines items such as raw honey, vegetable oils, cassava products, and spices to enable different exporters to export their goods together.

This makes it the only logistics company in Ghana that renders such a service. This way, business is promoted. Leveraging technology, it makes door-to-door shipments to and from businesses in West Africa.

Milestones of Jetstream

Miishe Addy’s Jetstream has had a significant influence on the logistics industry in Africa since its birth in 2019, especially in the area of promoting people’s businesses.

For instance, the company’s trade finance programme makes funds available to clients who want to export or import but can’t due to financial limitations.

Since its mission is tailored to the continent, Addy’s expansion initiatives are focused on African gateway markets. Already, approximately 78% of containerized commerce purchases are from eleven African nations.

Although some African countries are surrounded by land, the Ghanaian-American plans to expand to the shores of those countries.

She said, “We aspire to build a presence in these markets – Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, Egypt, etc. We want to be the preferred provider of technological supply chain services at each of those gateway markets”.