Why I Write at the Intersection of Business and Academia

I'm often asked why I'm pursuing a PhD, especially when I already have two master's degrees and thriving businesses. It's a question that has challenged me to articulate my motivations, even to those who are intelligent and well-meaning. But I've come to realize that my decision is best understood through the lens of strategic risk-taking, as Adam Grant explores in Originals.

Adam Grant describes original thinkers as those who take calculated risks, balancing bold ambitions with a steady foundation. Business, for all its rewards, is a gamble — fraught with uncertainty and volatility. Pursuing a PhD and, eventually, the possibility of tenure in academia isn't just an intellectual pursuit; it's a deliberate strategy to hedge against those risks. It's about creating a portfolio of security and innovation, where the stability of academia provides a counterweight to the inherent unpredictability of entrepreneurship.

Living at the Intersection

This path allows me to live at the intersection of thought and action. It's not just about managing risk; it's about honoring my curiosity and intellectual drive while ensuring that my contributions, both academic and entrepreneurial, are sustainable over the long term. For me, a PhD is more than a credential — it's a cornerstone in a life built on growth, purpose, and balance.

Most of my peers chose one path. Business or academia. Practice or theory. Africa or the West. I chose the intersections — deliberately, and not without cost.

This is not a comfortable position. Academics sometimes question whether someone who runs companies can be a serious researcher. Business people wonder why someone who could be closing deals is spending evenings reviewing systematic literature. And people on both sides of the Atlantic occasionally ask where I truly belong.

Why the Tension is Productive

But I have come to see the tension itself as the point. The most important insights I have encountered have emerged precisely at these fault lines. My research on water insecurity and health behaviors directly informs how we think about community development at Urbane Holdings. My experience managing teams, negotiating with stakeholders, and building systems shapes how I approach research methodology — always asking not just "what is true?" but "what is useful?". The vantage point from Tamale challenges assumptions made in Kingston, Ontario, and vice versa.

Grant writes about how the most creative breakthroughs come from people who maintain breadth — who resist the pressure to specialize into a single lane. The entrepreneurs who keep a day job while launching ventures. The scientists who play musical instruments. The pattern is consistent: a foot in two worlds produces ideas that neither world could generate alone.

The Challenges Demand It

The challenges facing Africa — water insecurity, disability inclusion in schools, land governance, health systems, sustainable enterprise — do not respect disciplinary boundaries. A child with a physical disability navigating an inaccessible school latrine is not a "WASH problem" or a "disability studies problem" or an "education policy problem." It is all of these simultaneously, and solving it requires someone willing to sit at the intersection and hold the complexity.

That is what my PhD work at Queen's University has taught me. Under the supervision of Dr. Elijah Bisung, I have learned to approach questions with methodological rigor while keeping my eyes fixed on real-world impact. Concept mapping with stakeholders. Art-based methods with children. Scoping reviews that bridge social protection and water security. None of these fit neatly into a single discipline, and that is precisely why they matter.

A Portfolio Life

I think of my career the way a prudent investor thinks about a portfolio. Entrepreneurship offers high upside but carries volatility — markets shift, clients pivot, entire industries can be disrupted overnight. Academia offers something different: the slow accumulation of credibility, the security of institutional affiliation, and the privilege of deep, sustained thinking about problems that matter. Together, they create something neither could alone — a life where I can afford to take meaningful risks because I have built a foundation of intellectual capital that no market downturn can erase.

This is not a hedge born of fear. It is a hedge born of ambition. I want to build businesses that transform communities across West Africa. I also want to produce research that shapes how governments, NGOs, and international organizations think about water, health, and inclusion. Doing both requires operating at the intersection, even when it would be simpler — and more socially legible — to pick a lane.

Writing as Thinking

I write at this intersection because writing is how I think. When I sit down to draft a blog post about behavioral nudges in public health, I am not performing expertise — I am working through ideas, testing whether the frameworks from my research hold up when applied to the realities I see on the ground in Ghana. When I write about land governance and technology, I am drawing on both my master's degree in Land Management and my experience building software tools at FacioTech.

This blog, these insights, are my attempt to think out loud at the crossroads. To share what I observe from this unusual vantage point and to invite others — scholars, entrepreneurs, development practitioners, and anyone curious about Africa's future — into the conversation.

Because the intersection is not a waypoint. For me, it is the destination.