Transcript - Paul Akrofie
Season 4, Episode 4
Conversation with Paul Akrofie, CEO, Real Peoples Company
Joshua Williams: Retail Revolution, a unique podcast that features in depth conversations with guest experts in omni-channel retailing with myriad perspectives, technology, consumer engagement, data analytics, merchandising, and more. We pay special attention to current sociopolitical issues and challenges and their implications on fashion retail, as well as opportunities to innovate and rethink retail's future.
Visit retailrevolutionpodcast.com for more information, including full transcripts and follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn @RetailRevolutionPodcast. Retail Revolution is produced by Joshua Williams and hosted by Christopher Lacey. Both are assistant professors in the Fashion Management graduate program at Parsons School of Design.
Christopher Lacy: Paul Kweku Akrofie is the founder and CEO of Real People's Company, a Ghanian design and manufacturing brand that currently produces quality bags and accessories in Accra. With a passionate belief that quality comes from Africa, Paul uses creative mix of locally sourced materials to create forward looking designs that are locally inspired and globally oriented. Through his leadership and enthusiasm to create dignified and meaningful jobs for Africa's youth, Paul serves as a business training coach in partnership with the Impact Hub Accra and is providing local tailors with skill sets and jobs through his contracts, which would have been outsourced internationally. Being a true revolutionary, he is also a member and alumni of the Global Shapers Community of the World Economic Forum, and currently heads The Ghana Committee for sustainable fashion in partnership with Fashion Revolution in Accra.
Today, Paul speaks with me about the power of developing economies and the evolution of sustainable manufacturing. I'm Christopher Lacey, and this is Retail Revolution podcast.
Hello, Paul, welcome to the show.
Paul Akrofie: Hi Chris. It's good to hear from you. It's a pleasure to be here.
Christopher Lacy: I have to tell you; I’ve emailed it to you. I've told it to you, is, I am so excited to have this conversation with you for so many reasons. And I feel like I'm going to get a ton of knowledge as well and being able to share just information between each other and for the listeners. This going to be a blast.
Paul Akrofie: Likewise, likewise, Chris, I mean I've been a fan of the show since its inception, like you rightly said before, I've listened to almost every episode. So, so it is an absolute pleasure to be on here.
You guys are doing a fantastic job. Yeah.
Christopher Lacy: We're going to talk about you really quick. And I would love for our listeners to, I know I talked about the things that you're doing in Ghana right now, but I'd like for you to kind of put some more color into that. What have you been doing?
How did you get to this point of doing it and why has it been important for your career trajectory?
Paul Akrofie: Yes. So, my story has been quite interesting. It hasn't been the linear path that I thought it would be initially. So, I studied computer science at school. I narrowed down to information technology and then I did a BS in multimedia. So, the plan was actually to go into advertising and branding, because I was passionate about creativity. And honestly the other thing was to go into the army as well. So, that's something people don't know about me. Cause yeah, cause my family was just all army.
Just people who have careers in the army. And I was very excited about that and design as well. I guess I just was always try and figure out how do I fuse the two?
Christopher Lacy: Well, you could've designed new uniforms for the army.
Paul Akrofie: I know, right. That would have been an interesting path to take.
The army didn't happen. Yeah, the army didn't happen. And then I decided that, let me pursue this passion for design and creating interesting products that got me excited. So, in high school, a couple of friends and I just started printing t-shirts.
Cause I was drawing and, I was sketching, and people liked the designs and they're like, it'd be really cool to have this on a t-shirt. And so, I did that, but then I went to secondary school and the problem with secondary school was you're not allowed to... so we have uniforms and so there was a certain dress code you had to adhere to. And so, people couldn't really purchase the design we were making on t-shirts. And we decided to start with bags. And that's what actually started that journey of RPC, of us designing bags and accessories and so, initially it was my name and the other person who I started with, he was called Ronnie.
I was Paul. And that's why you have like the RPC. So, RPC stuck, and people actually calling me RPC back in high school and went on to university. And I think right now, if you actually meet someone from my high school, they probably wouldn't remember my name.
They're just the RPC, yeah, yeah, yeah, RPC. Yeah. So, that developed, so after university I decided to take that a little more seriously and the time was ripe as well because Ghana had just came to a point where we were, let's just say there was just a crop of people who believed that we could offer more to the world.
Instead of just being consumers of whatever was brought over here. And so, it was just a wave of people coming from the diaspora who were looking for quality products and were just having a sense of pride of being African and being Ghanaian as well. And that was just a time where I looked at the products over here and I felt like.
Yeah. Most of the things that were made here were just made as a show of patriotism, right? There was no effort into quality, into consistency. And a lot of things that were made here, were just kind of sold as touristy. If I could put it like that, like touristy products. And so, we were really struggling to sell the made in Ghana brand and it was for good reason as well because these things just weren't attractive.
And probably because, if you've grown up in Ghana and you've seen these things your whole life, and you realize that nothing had changed for a really long time. And so, you found people, I mean, a certain demographic who wanted to get cool looking products, they would always buy brands from outside.
They would go for the Nike's and the famous brands that we'd see in the music videos. And I just sort of grew up thinking, I don't know, but I think we can make this over here. I think we can create exciting products for ourselves. And just basically, because I saw talent all around me, I saw, tailors and artisans that you could take things to and they could create almost an exact replica for you.
And so, I was like, well, why don't you create an original then? And then, brand it properly and just figure out how to create something that we could all be proud of. And so that just for me, that was the starting point for my journey for RPC. And I jumped wholly., I jumped wholly into it after university.
Well, I did spend some time in a marketing company for a while. I did some branding and marketing just about a year for my national service. And then after I was done with that, they partnered with me to start the brand and then that's the journey of RPC. So, over the years we've been making bags and accessories.
And it's been quite an interesting journey because we set out to accomplish a task, which was for us just to show that quality could come from this place, right, we could create products that would last long, that would be stylish, that would just evoke a sense of pride wherever you took it to. And so, and that's why for us we said, "built here goes anywhere", right?
You could create a product here in Ghana and it could compete anywhere in the world. And it would just also carry that sense of, this is coming from a part the world where you don't expect things like this to come from. So, that was the vision and that's how we started with RPC. Over the years we evolved, we realized there were different needs and challenges around us that we had to solve.
And then we kind of, changed our strategies from time to time to sort of deal with the challenges that were coming up. And there, there were challenges because there was a reason why a certain level of quality and consistency wasn't coming from this space. And so we realized that we had to backtrack a bit, we kind of turned into some sort of a social enterprise, train artisans over here, to produce quality in a consistent way.
And all of that. And that's been it's, it's pretty, it's a pretty long story, but that's been, that's a summary of it so far, right?
Christopher Lacy: What I want to understand from that is, you said something that's really important, which is, the idea that, most Ghanians, they were very used to the product they were seeing.
So, when there was the desire to buy outside of Ghana. And this is, probably, this is true of, many different countries, especially countries where I would say there are times that they have their manufacturing processes are exploited. So, there is this kind of idea that what is being produced from there isn't as good as what's being produced somewhere else.
Paul Akrofie: Exactly, exactly. Yeah.
Christopher Lacy: How did you navigate that?
Paul Akrofie: Yeah, so for us to realize the truth Chris for, I think in Africa, it, really is an identity issue that we struggle with. It is the truth and the roots go a little further back than we probably would like to acknowledge because it stems from just a sense of just not being good enough with what we're able to do.
Right. I think, comes from colonialism and just being able to like shed of our identities and losing our history. And sometimes even just from our culture, was inferior. And so that has just seeped into a lot of things that we do like up till now, to be honest with you up to now, there are a lot of people, if you put like a Ghanian made product, which was equally as good as one made in Europe and America, like a consumer might readily go for the brand that's made outside because they feel like they can't trust the one that was made here.
It really is a struggle that we're trying to solve. And to be honest with you, though, because that's the issue. A lot of people have taken up the challenge and softened that in very creative ways. And so then figuring out really understanding what it means to build a brand and what it means to, carry a value strongly and communicate that clearly we're building a sense of pride to who we are and what we are capable of, and also just reconnecting with our history and with our stories as well.
So that, in this rediscovering the value that we were told it wasn't important. Right. And it cuts across in lots of ways. Right? I mean, you'd have people who live in Ghana and can't even speak their local language because they feel like, well, what impact does it have on me?
And yet you lose so much of your identity and when you go down that route. And so it really has a long and deep history and it takes a conscious effort to decide to handle that and tackle that because the impacts, the repercussions are serious. Yeah.
Christopher Lacy: There's so much that sits at this intersection of design product development, manufacturing, the fashion industry, retail. When it pertains to, and I actually shouldn't even call Ghana a developing country, it has great economic power or is moving in that direction. But I would say looking at Africa as a whole and understanding that, China is putting money into Africa and its infrastructure is because they understand that they want to do manufacturing in Africa.
The US is doing the same thing when it comes to technology. And we know what it looks like when a developed country starts wanting to do manufacturing in one that is not so developed. I mean, we've seen it, it's happened over and over again. What role do you want to play? And what role are you playing right now to make sure like, we're going to protect the country of Ghana from this.
And I actually want to bring up something that quite interesting was, China had gone into Cameroon. And offered to build them a soccer stadium. Okay. Cameroon is oil rich and it has phenomenal natural resources. So, they agreed to it.
And so now Cameron has a soccer stadium that is being built, or it's actually completed, and I've never seen a soccer or football match happen in Cameroon. Right. But they're now in this contract of giving away natural resources. Right? So, I'm asking you this question to go, all right.
For what you're doing, the initiatives you're doing through real peoples and other things, do you feel like you're able to kind of protect Ghana's future?
Paul Akrofie: Yeah, I mean so we are in, in some ways it is, to be honest with you, the conversations have just begun. Just because of certain let's just say certain revelations that have come to light quite recently for us.
And so because of that, so like I'm a part of the Global Shapers Community, we've been having constant dialogues. So, we have these things called our Accra dialogue where we invite policy stakeholders to come and just basically speak on different issues concerning some of these trade issues that you've spoken about and all of the impact of, these things are on us.
And basically what's just happened is through education, we realize that we just need to get a little more enlightened and take a step towards speaking to our politicians and just be more proactive in asking for understanding of what some of these decisions and choices that you make, like the impact will have on us.
Because to be honest with you, for a very long time, the youth haven't really engaged in politics because there's just this perception. I think it's not just in Ghana, probably, it's also in the world that it's far removed from us. They're just a bunch of old men who have ingrained in their ways.
And so, they take all these decisions by themselves and we don't know how it affects us and all of these things. But more and more, we're getting very vocal and we're holding them accountable. And so, for us at the Global Shapers Community, this is what we're doing. Right. We have all these people in different industries that we've brought into the community and we're having these discussions, like I said, and we're basically putting our findings out and saying, "Hey, look, these are the possible repercussions of some of these decisions that these guys are taking and do we want to go down this route?". And it's yielding results also because with social media and so, we're about to put some of these findings out and make a lot of noise about it and say, "Hey, look, we're not interested in this choice or this sort of deal you guys want to make." Yeah, and then also through Fashion Revolution, part of w we're educating people who are in various industries as to basically about their rights. Right? And how to ask for proper compensation for the work they do. And basically just how to look at the space we are in and to figure out, okay, look, is this deal or is this sort of opportunity well, is this really going to be beneficial to us because we've had situations where certain groups have come. I don't want to name any, but you have certain groups come into the space to set up, to set up initiatives just because they want to come and exploit whether it was a free trade so on or it was export tax benefit or something over here and then not really stuck to. So, to also add on to the, tag of being ethical and being sustainable, but not really doing those things properly as they would have done elsewhere and just taking advantage of the local people.
And so, these are all for us right now, it really is an education thing, because to be honest with you, we are also in a spot where sometimes people feel like they don't have a choice, but to accept whatever it is, that's coming to them because at least it's something. And that's the challenge that we're tackling.
And also stepping up to the challenge by coming up with initiatives ourselves to tackle these things. And so that you're not looking for somebody elsewhere to come and save you, but we are solving the problems for ourselves and looking at ways in which it would benefit us, not just us right now, but also future generations.
Right? So, I don't know, that's a long answer, but that’s how we've been looking at it collectively. Yeah.
Christopher Lacy: I'm thinking about what you've just said, and it brings me to want to talk with you about how would you advise a designer, someone who's where you were before and they're in a country that thinking of the four pillars of sustainability that human capital aspect and that social aspect, are subject to the, arbitrage strategy. So, the, exploitation of, the people there. Yeah. What would be their first steps? Like, I know for you, it seems like when you told the story, like it kind of came to you quite easily, but it sounded like that, I have to be honest, you made it sound very easy so.
Paul Akrofie: Well, hindsight is 20/20!
Christopher Lacy: So, that's great then, because, we have people listening from all over the world. And, what were the, little steps that you took? I mean, obviously you can't boil an ocean, so you take things off in pieces. What did you kind of do and what advice would you give to someone?
Paul Akrofie: Yeah, so, I mean, with, every situation, right? I mean the best route to take is low hanging fruits. Right? So, just figuring out what space you're in. And for me personally, let me just say, I had to connect back to my values and what I felt like, because essentially I was looking at sustainability and the problems of sustainability and what the values are of sustainably as something that I connect deeply with as a person.
And as a result of that, I realized that it wasn't just, yes, I wanted to create exciting products and well-made products and all of that. And that was set into my business strategy, that was set into my vision for the brand, right from the start, which is to make a product that will last long term.
And so then, the person could be confident that they could use this product and it wouldn't break down. But I hadn't really, really figured out the human side of things, the human capital side of things. And so, basically in terms of compensating workers well, we come from a culture where we bargain and bargain deeply for everything, we bargin the last city.
And so, unfortunately, I think came with that mentality as well, that I was going to get the best possible product, best possible price for the production of my, my products. And it took a lot of self-reflection. Just to realize like, hey, you know what? These guys can do a good job and since they're doing a good job and you're, selling quality from Africa. Then I think that that quality should cut across every single thing you're doing in the company. And maybe even the way you're treating your workers, how much you're paying them a living wage. How well are they doing? Then sometimes they might even say, and because, you know, we live in a culture where we bargain for everything. They expect you to bargin so sometimes they start from almost a ridiculous price point. Right? But to be honest with you, even sometimes the price when they started from, when I looked at it, probably I figured, this makes sense. This is really what the cost of living in Ghana.
I don't see how this person could do better for themselves. If they charge you any less, for what I'm asking for them. And so, it really took a bit of self, no, not a bit like a lot of self-reflection with my values and saying, look, going forward, this is what I want to do. And then also just when I realized that, first of all, my products were doing well, because people are getting excited about it.
I looked at an opportunity and said, well, what could I do on the corporate side? And what was happening on the corporate side was that people were going outside to get products made for their brand activation. So, for their Christmas giveaways and for their conferences, et cetera.
And I was like, we can do this year. So, why don't we just do designs that can show that this is a possibility, incorporate local materials and pitch these, so that we constantly have a steady stream of work for our tailors and artisans and these offerings when you're doing corporate work, it's a lot more than when you're, doing B2C.
And so it was quite exciting to see how that developed and also for them mostly to build their skillset through training and just exposing them to, different quality checks and controls and just seeing how all of that came together into working with them and building good relationships with them as well.
And as a result, because they knew that they were going to be fairly compensated for what they were doing. So, my advice it's a long one, but my advice is low-hanging fruits. Right? You say something a lot on this podcast and I think I'll just say that back. It's like, be kind, right? Be considerate, have empathy for the people that you work with. And then I think when you look at it through that lens and you ask yourself, if I was a person sitting on the other side of the table, how would I want to be treated? Would I want to be treated this way? I think that informs that, but really informs your decision as to how you treat the people who make stuff for you. Yeah.
Christopher Lacy: I want to ask you as you've gone through that whole process and thought that out. And thank you for, sharing that with, our listeners. When you think about the world stage, where you are and in Ghana, your mission, and you go home at night and you're thinking about the next day. What is something that goes through your head that you go, this is a misconception that the rest of the world has about Ghana.
And I want to change that narrative. Do you feel like there's a misconception that's out there?
Paul Akrofie: Yeah. I mean, I, yes, there is a misconception. There are a number of them, but the ones that really come to mind some of them are quite ridiculous, yeah. It's just very ridiculous, but I think slowly I think-- I hope that's changing with exposure and access to information and all of that. People actively looking for information about different places, they can find that, right? But I think what's one of the misconceptions is that, we don't have much to offer the world except like I don't know our culture or something, but, I beg to differ because a lot of creative, at least the fashion space, there are a lot and not just Ghana, right. Let me just say Africa. Because more and more, we're starting to think of ourselves as one people and starting to operate like that. And it's important for us to do so because then it's only coming together and having just that united force, that united face that will be taken a lot more seriously.
Right? And so the misconceptions are, we don't have, in terms of what we have to offer, like the creativity and all of that. And that's not true. There's a lot of amazing things that people are doing here on the continent. And sometimes you don't hear about it or it doesn't really come out because unfortunately people don't have that many opportunities to be discovered or to, put your work out. And so outside, whereas you have, like, let's say a lot of full fellowships and you have opportunities for like mentorship and grants and all these things.
They're far spread and wide between Africa, right? It's only a certain group of people who often can access some of these opportunities and be able to put out your work. And some of them you've heard of them. Right. And that's why we tend to celebrate people who step out and sort of make a mark.
Right? So, you have David Adjaye Architects. And we have, Virgil Abloh whose Ghanian; and Mimi Plange. So, we tend to celebrate all of these designers who make it, but because we kind of say, so, you know, that space that you hardly think about, well, all of these guys are coming from there.
So, imagine what else is on the continent yet to be discovered. Right? And we're not just about hunger and starvation and the one fly that's on the child's mouth that you see from the NGO campaign. That's you that's right. Feed the child and save a starving child like that. Unfortunately, it is part of the story, but it's not the whole story.
Africa is a very diverse place, right. With multiple stories happening over here. And there's a lot of good things happen on the continent and if people pay attention they will see and be thoroughly amazed what's happening here. So, yeah, so there are misconceptions, but I think that just takes a person to be intentional about doing their research and they will discover some pretty amazing things that happening on the continent. Yeah.
Christopher Lacy: Do you think you've, and for me, I think having you on here and having this conversation for me, even when I said earlier, was really special to me, because for me it was very, very difficult navigating the fashion space and the executive space as a black male. I did not have other black male mentors. I didn't have that guidance in this space. It came from other people, but there weren't other “me’s” in the space really and we are very far and few between, and even doing this podcast, it's almost difficult for me to find other black men.
And I want to know, do you feel as though you found your space and your voice to create the change needed in this industry.
Paul Akrofie: Well I…
Christopher Lacy: I know. I feel like I'm Oprah right now, let’s just say that.
Paul Akrofie: No, I'm just, I'm laughing because I feel like the sentiment are the same, even though it's a little it's a little different over here, but it's the effect that it has, right? Which is feeling a little bit isolated is still the same because for me or at least in Africa, traditionally, so fashion design, well, I think we're starting to see now is fashion designing because initially it's always been seen as a, it was not a respected space.
Let me put it like that. The arts and crafts are not respected in Africa just to put it bluntly. And so it always has been a struggle if you're creative to pursue your creative passions, because then people are looking at you and your family's looking at you. Like, do you want to die? Are you sure you don't want to make money in life?
Why are you going down this path? Be a doctor, be an engineer. And I think, especially over here people sort of think it's a frivolous thing, sort of space to get into. And also traditionally it's always been reserved sort of, for people who haven't pursued education properly, let me put it like that.
It's been an informal sector, right. And so you have the dress makers and you have the tailors and you have the artisans and she's in her small shop or under a shed somewhere, making clothes, making custom clothes, and that's how people have traditionally have seen the space and still see the space up to now, right up to now when my, when my mom tells somebody I went to fashion school, they're like but why ,they thought I'd be in a bank somewhere or something.
And so I came up in that space and there weren’t too many people, too many mentors to look up to. They were just a few people in this space and they themselves were just trying to establish the industry. And it's still in its infancy, to be honest with you. It's a growing space just because in the last couple of years, especially in the last three or four years, that's just when fashion schools have started establishing themselves probably in Ghana.
And so they're about, let's say, even if you're going to about like well-respected fashion in schools, there's just probably like three or four in Ghana at the moment, who are churning out, like students who are doing really interesting and groundbreaking work. Right? And so, it's in there, when the people are now starting to see the value of fashion design as a good space to be in as a respected area to be in.
And so, they're, looking at you like you're school dropout, because you're a fashion designer or you couldn't do anything else with yourself. And so now you're sewing clothes for people sort of thing. But you're starting to pay attention to the creativity and innovation that designers who are well-trained in their craft are putting out and then sort of thinking about the local industry and figuring out how to revamp it and revitalize it and rebrand and repackage it so that people are excited about it because in lieu of that, people don't realize how much it's costing us as a country.
Right? Because then if, people are making well-made clothes, and yet you have people who want to wear well-made clothes, they're going to go to the stores and buy imported products, right? And that's happening all over the place where, you go into a boutique and almost everything over there is imported.
There's nothing made locally whereas the tailor, the artisan on the street is reserved for like occasions where you need an African styled clothing or African print clothing, and nobody cares too much about the details. And so, then you go to your street side corner seamstress to get that done for you.
So, but then you go to the malls and the shops and the boutiques when you want something fancy and classy, you're definitely going to pick something from outside because those are the only options available to you. And so that's a lot of foreign exchange, right? That's money, that's leaving the country and all of that.
And so this new crop of fashion designers coming up and now creating designs that are really fashionable and exciting for us and the boutiques are starting to change, you’re starting to see clothes in the stores. The secondhand market has been questioned over and over again as the impact has had on our local industry.
And that's, that's a really big issue for us because, I mean, I don't know if you heard the story of Kantamanto, but it's where a lot of fast fashion products that gets discarded in the West, all get dumped over here. And it's been one of the major challenges we have to deal with as designers.
Just trying to figure out how do we work with this. How do we solve this problem and how can it be tackled properly? So-
Christopher Lacy: Is that what's next for RPC? That's a big project.
Paul Akrofie: Yeah. It is a big project. And there are different people who are tackling it. Currently, in terms of bags and accessories, I've really been wondering what way to approach it, but for clothes in terms of apparel yeah, there are some creative ideas that we have, but we're going to test them out and see how that goes. But to be honest with you, there are a number of local brands starting up or finding creative ways to repurpose and upcycle the clothes that are in the markets, the secondhand clothes. But even that it's still not enough, right?
Because, you should check out the figures online, but the sheer volume of clothes that get brought over here, it's quite staggering , and we really have to figure out very creative and sustainable ways of tackling that so that it makes sense. Yeah, it makes sense. It just doesn't end up plugging our seas and our drains and landfills which is something we're fighting against. So, yeah.
Christopher Lacy: I think you, and I will definitely have to have more conversations, on air, off air because to your point. I mean, we, can't treat any part of our earth as, the dumping ground. So, we really have to work quickly to, get this figured
So, how can our listeners stay up to date with what you're doing?
Paul Akrofie: All right. I was quite enjoying this.
Christopher Lacy: Me too. I know.
Paul Akrofie: Yeah, we definitely have to do this again. So, they can connect to with me LinkedIn. So, Paul Akrofie on LinkedIn. So, you can just send me a message on LinkedIn and I could basically share with you what I'm up to.
And then you can also just go to our website, which is www.RPCdesign.co.
Christopher Lacy: Fantastic.
Paul Akrofie: And then, we've been a bit slow on our social media pages, but we are going to get that active again this year. Last year hit us a bit, a little badly. So, we slowed down, had to rethink a couple of things in the direction we're going, yeah.
Christopher Lacy: It's okay. I feel like everybody kind of had to do that with social media, so you're fine. You're right with most of us.
Paul Akrofie: Right.
Christopher Lacy: And most of us weren't doing anything that we wanted to show, so you're all right.
Paul, thank you so much for being on today. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. I'm looking forward to conversations in the future and seeing how we can really work together between Retail Revolution podcast and what you're doing at our RPC to create some change out there and, and I'm looking forward to it.
Paul Akrofie: That will be amazing Christopher. That would be amazing.
Christopher Lacy: Yeah. Thank you so much.
Paul Akrofie: Thank you too. Thank you too. Talk soon.
Joshua Williams: Thank you for listening to this episode of Retail Revolution. A very special thank you to everyone who has helped make this podcast possible. If you'd like to support the work we're doing, please visit our show page at retailrevolutionpodcast.com and click on the donate link. Our theme music was composed by Spencer Powell. Be well and stay tuned for our next episode
