Leadership Lessons with Daniel Eric Kemdeng Djoumessi

Hello everybody. And a very warm welcome to Cultural Communication Confidence with me, Victoria Rennoldson. And I’m really excited to be welcoming a guest here to the show today. We have Daniel Kemdeng Djoumessi with us, who I met a few years ago and I was really excited to invite the show because he is VP at JP Morgan Chase, but also the leader and founder of his own business, Amero Coffee. And I think we’re going to have a fascinating conversation here today about leadership, cultural intelligence and communication. So Daniel, a very warm welcome to the show, thank you for joining me. Good morning, Victoria. And thank you very much for inviting me. I’m very excited to be here today. Excellent. Well, first of all, I think you know, I’ve introduced you incredibly briefly, but you’re obviously a leader in many different capacities and I think it’d be great for the listeners to understand a little bit about your path to leadership. How did you come to be in these dual roles that you are today?

So I would say my path started with community, family and vision. So I was lucky to be born and raised in a small village, of farmers in Cameroon. And because I was part of a community where even though we didn’t have access to education and a lot of simple things, my family was my family and my community, leading by my dad, was very, I would say, wise. And my dad always think that education is the best weapon against poverty. So with all that, I was lucky enough to be – to receive the right support, from the family and community, to be able to move from my village in Cameroon to France, where I studied. And after a few years I graduated with a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering. Then just after an MBA in Finance, I started my career in Paris with a French bank. I spent six years with this bank in Paris. And then when my dad passed away in 2012, I decided to move on, because I had to take over his legacy and because he was very active within the community, so I had to take over his legacy. And one of the things that I had to do was to move in an environment where I can be successful in my career in finance, and looking around the region, the best place to be was in London. And I also wanted to be in an environment where people are very open to business, where I can build my career in banking, but also be able to to develop this, this business which is something very important for me, for my community. Because the idea was to really to create a bridge between those farmers and the world, the Western world today, where people consume a lot of coffee. I was like: what’s the best way for me to regenerate the local economy and make sure that everyone is financially independent? Because what I used to do before was spending my personal income to support families, to support students that go to school, supporting a local hospital and so on and so forth. But I realised that the best way to do things will be to set up businesses, transform what they do, and what we do on a daily basis, to something that will generate revenue for everyone, for them to be independent. And also because it’s difficult, it’s very difficult to always rely on others. Difficult for them, but also very difficult for me, because whatever level of income I have, I would not be able to, to sustain them on a long term basis. So that’s why I, I decided to do that and at the same time continuing developing my career. And today I’m very, I’m very happy, I’m very proud of what I’m doing with JP Morgan Chase.

Wow, there’s so much in there, and what a journey you’ve been on. I mean I appreciate that very brief summary, but obviously there’s a huge amount that’s gone in there from your roots, which clearly are very important to you, through to your education. You talked about that education being the unlocking of poverty and in the region and not just you know, opportunities for you, but obviously others around you, but also that sense of giving back, and I can see how much it matters to this sense of giving back to you know, your roots, and making, but also just- not giving, but enabling. Is that how I’ve understood it?

That’s correct, that’s correct. I think, I think we are all –we all come from somewhere. We are all part of a community. So wherever we are, whatever environment we are in, we’re part of a community. And what we become is a result of, I would say, the work of the community. And when you achieve your goal, it’s important to look back, it’s important to go back and support others. And my mission is really to make sure that a lot of people who come from, from my background, should be able to do a lot more than what I did. I would be very proud, because my, my personal, my personal purpose today, since my dad passed is fighting against poverty. And you will see that everything I do around me is with that in mind. And that’s a – that’s a, I would say, that’s where I get all my, all my energy, either in a – and you will see the impact in my career with JP Morgan, and also in the business I do. I love that. And you obviously have that real determination and focus and vision on this. So do you think this is coming back to the idea of leadership – you are a leader in different, different ways, in JP Morgan Chase and then also in your business. Do you think that’s a vital ingredient to this, having that purpose and focus?

I think it’s very, very important. Having a purpose really drive everything you do. And I feel like without a purpose, I would have never been able to do everything I’ve everything I’ve done so far. So that purpose in leadership is crucial for me, is really, really important. I love that. And that obviously is a vital success ingredient for you specifically. But I’d love to also just dive into a bit more about what Amaro Coffee is really about. Could you just tell us a bit more about the concept? And I understand it’s obviously – community is a key part of this, but how does it actually work, the business that you’re running? And how is it giving back to the community? So because I was born and grown up in this, in this farming environment and one of the things that we, we were producing is coffee, and my community have been doing that for many generations. And when I did my career in banking, I was understanding the financial world. I was looking at the best way to connect the two worlds – like the farm, and the financial world, to be able to connect the two population, together. So what I did, since 2017, I just went back to the farm, because one of the best thing that – one of the things that I know the best is farming. And that’s the reason why you will see me every few months, you will see me flying back home, spending few days in the farm and really spend time there with my people, with the younger generation and so on and so forth. So what we do is really produce coffee from the farm. I set up a factory next to the farm where everything we harvest is processed in the farm and then ship it to our customer around the world, or to supply our brand Amaro coffee. Or we ship it in the UK, get it roasted and deliver to different client and customer – to different client and customer in London. So, the idea is really to develop my own farm but at the same time bringing the entire community together. So for those who want to work in my farm, I will make sure they have good and sustainable income to be able to financially – to be financially independent. For those who want to regenerate their own farm, I will give them the support that they need to be able to trade their own small farm. And with that, you end up in, you end up in an environment where you have so many different people. Everybody come with its own little part of land. We implement the same techniques, the same production techniques, and when we harvest at the end of the year, everything is collected, bring it to the – to the local factory which is set up and processed exactly the same way. So we end up with a very – we end up with a ground crew product which is very unique in, in term of quality. So if you love coffee, I will definitely, I would definitely advise you to try. So we produce a 100% arabica. Everything is organic. So we think about sustainability every single step of our process.

Amazing. And I love that fact that it’s the process but also the, the heart that goes into that, so for sure we’ll share the links to where to buy the coffee, because I’m sure lots of people will want to try that. But I’m really kind of curious because it is unusual to be at such a high level of leadership within a very large global corporation, and at the same time being the leader and founder of your own business. And I can imagine that is something really, probably quite unique to you. So how do you manage that? Because obviously those are quite, both quite demanding roles as a leader, how do you balance that in your life or how do you manage that and, and be the best kind of leader you can be in both of those roles?

I think it’s very important to be, to be very well structured in everything, in everything you do. So I’m very well structured. I’m very well organised either with, with my company, J.P. Morgan Chase, or with the business. So I wake up every day, I wake up at 5am. Oh wow. The first thing I do when I wake up is to go to the gym. So I spend some time in the gym to make sure that I keep myself fit, and also is the best way for me to release the pressure, to release the stress and get all the energy that I need for the day. When I finish the gym, I will get ready and then at the same time, spending one or two hours working on the business before then moving to the office. And when I move to the office, I am committed to what I’m doing there 100%, until the end of the day. And when I come back, if there’s anything that I need to check, on a business side, I will do that, when I come back. So I would say it’s very important to be very well structured, but working hard, we all have to work hard today to, to be able to, I would say, to be able to survive in this very difficult, difficult world and very challenging, challenging environment we live in today. But it’s not just about working hard, but also working smart. Because if you work hard and you don’t have the right strategy around it, you could completely miss the point. So, the combination of working hard and working smart definitely, makes sure that you can deliver whatever you want. And I believe that – some people don’t understand, but I love being busy. I feel like the more I’m busy, the more I can execute and the more I can deliver. And I always make sure that I’m reviewing everything I’m doing on a regular basis to see what I can do different, what I can do better. So it’s important to, to be checking, to be checking on a regular basis to see what can be adjusted, what, what’s the streamline you can do around with, what you’re working on.

I love that. And if I’m just sort of taking some of the ideas around that, which are really about your success and how you make it work for you as a leader, it sounds like it’s about active choices, so structuring your time in the way that works for you, so be very smart about the way you work. It sounds like, also you talked about the gym and how important energy is to you, that idea of you’re setting yourself up for success on your day and you know what it is that you need to manage, whether it’s stress or energy in your day. And then I love that idea, you talked about reviewing and learning as you go, and so you’re knowing what you need to do differently. And with that last one, I’m really curious because, you know, in theory I think most people listening would kind of go, ‘yeah, that makes sense’. But how do YOU do this? Is this a practise that you do, I don’t know, frequently or how, you know, how frequently would you be looking back and reviewing and thinking about: ‘okay, how do I improve here?’

So if I take my JP Morgan part, I make sure that on a weekly basis I will set up a time in the calendar for myself. I call it my ‘Me time’, connect with myself and review what I’ve been working on recently and see what can be done differently. What can I improve? There’s always a room for improvement. So I check in on a weekly basis and I work with many different talented people around me, which I rely on to learn more on a daily basis, to give me the right feedback. And I love receiving feedback, especially the constructive feedback, because that’s the way I grow, that’s the way I continue learning. I remember I said to one of my, my boss, that like, you should feel free giving me the feedback, giving me the right feedback, the constructive feedback. I don’t care about the way you communicate that feedback. What I care about is the feedback to be really honest, because the way I analyse constructive feedback, for me constructive feedback is like a gift from someone who wants to see you growing. So when you’re lucky enough to have great people around you who can give you that right and constructive feedback, you will continue learning and you will continue developing different skills, your communication, the way you influence people around you and so on and so, and that’s how you would keep, you will keep growing.

And I think that’s a really good point actually. Sometimes people ask for feedback but actually they want to hear the good points, what they’re doing well, but they’re not so, perhaps easy, it’s not so easy to hear some of that more challenging feedback or where to improve. And you make a really good point here. You asked for very honest feedback from your manager to shape your leadership journey. And that is, you know, not everybody wants that honesty. So you know, for me that’s quite interesting, because that’s about emotional intelligence, right? And having the right approach, understanding, you know, how you can be better, even if there are hard messages to hear. So I’m really curious, you know, how do you think about emotional intelligence in your worlds? I’ll say plural worlds, you know, how do you, how do you approach thinking about, you know, what is the best way to use emotional intelligence as a leader?

Well, I think emotional intelligence is a key thing in leadership, you cannot be a good leader if you are not emotionally Intelligent. So it’s really important to not just focus on the technical aspect of what you’re doing, but also be able to take into account everything going on around you, be able to understand, to get to know people you’re working with. And the more you, the more you know people, the more you can influence them, the more you can then get the best of what you’re looking for, and the more they will be supporting you, because, they get exactly what they’re looking for from you. And when they are influenced the right way, they will give you everything you need. So it’s really important to always keep that emotional intelligence in mind all the time when you’re dealing with people. And the way you interact with one specific stakeholder will be, might be completely different from the way you interact with another one. So it’s important to take into account all those aspects and be able to, to tailor your communication depending on who you’re talking to.

Yeah, absolutely. Couldn’t agree more. And that’s, you know, very much in line with how I think about things, about adapting communication. And of course that’s where cultural influences come into this as well. And so I’m really curious. You’re somebody who has multiple cultural influences from your roots in Cameroon, to obviously lots of time in France, and your career building in France. You’ve been in London a long time now. I’m really curious about how you think about cultural communication, and how you adapt your communication for different people like when you’re working in different global teams.

I would say I’m very lucky to be in a very diverse environment, like from, from a professional – when it comes to JP Morgan Chase, it’s a very diverse and very inclusive environment, where you deal with different people from different environments. So I think all that is a great asset that everyone can really tap in. And also living in a city like London, very diverse and very rich culturally. So I leverage all that, and I try to learn as much as possible. Every time I see somebody I know straight away that I’ll be learning something. So I’m curious. One of the thing is curiosity. So, because I’m very curious, I would try to understand the culture, the background, your religion, what, whatever they have that is different from me, because I know that I will be learning from that difference. And I then leverage all that, all those learnings to be able to continue progressing as a, progressing as a leader. And when I look at my journey from Cameroon, France, UK today, and also when I travel around the world, by learning from all those different cultures, it gives me a lot, kind of brings me to a different level, where if I’m talking to someone in London or speaking to someone in the US or talking to someone in Paris, well the way is
I will adjust my communication, it will be completely different, or if I’m talking with a colleague in India or things like that. So it’s really important, because we live in a world where, we live in a world where we have to be inclusive. We have to be inclusive. Our environment is very diverse and it’s important to be able to bring everyone in, bring everyone on the table and be able to get different aspects from people. That’s how we end up developing a great product, providing great services for our customers around the world.

I love how you think about this, and obviously this is your reality every day, and so it sounds like it’s very natural to you, but I think what you very clearly said there was curiosity is the starting point for you, understanding others and their roots and their background and how they think about things. So I love that, love that advice. And I’m really aware that also communication for you has also been a journey during your career, and I wanted to talk about something that you kindly shared with me, and you kind of said you were very happy to talk about here today, but I think it’s very inspirational as well, which is your own journey from somebody who struggled with stammering, and found it very difficult to communicate, through to now clearly being an incredibly senior leader in a huge organisation globally, and speaking in front of, I think you said hundreds, if not thousands, of people, and that journey is really quite remarkable. And I know that sometimes people who are listening are struggling with their own different types of communication challenges and find it difficult to speak like a leader. So, I’m really curious about that journey and how did you manage to move through the challenges you had, to what you do today in your communication?

Yeah, thank you for bringing that point. Yeah, I think as you said, a lot of people suffer from stammering, or different conditions that definitely impact the day to day communication. For me, like, I wasn’t – so I was born – I started stammering since I was, since I was a child. So, always been part of myself and when I then started thinking about my career, and how to grow and so on, I realised that it was a very big issue. And I definitely had to find a solution. And like everything we do, there’s a problem, we acknowledge the problem, accept it, and then start looking for, start looking for a solution. And it’s not, it’s not always easy. You will try different things. I’ve tried many different things. I even met different specialists, when I was in France to try to figure out what could work for me. But unfortunately, I wasn’t able to

To get the right solution. Until one day, I started working on myself. So I realised, for example, that when you are – when I’m singing. So let’s say, if I start singing, I will not stammer at all. And as soon as I stop singing, I would go back to stammering very hard. So I started then being curious, like learning about myself. And I realised that the more I am relaxed, the better I can control the flow of my speech, the better I can control the flow of my thoughts and be able to really synchronise my thinking with my thoughts. And I also realised that the breathing is something very powerful. Breathing is the, the breathing and the pausing is very powerful, because for someone who speaks normally, who doesn’t have an issue – you just talk. You don’t realise that every time you’re talking, you have to inhale just before, and then when you’re talking you remove, you remove the air. So for those who stammer like me, so you talk, you talk, you talk. And then at some point there’s no air to put out. You don’t know how to pause, breathe again and restart. That’s where you block. And then you
start struggling. So I managed to understand all that and be able to always be thinking when I’m speaking, when I realised that ‘oh, okay, I’m getting to the end of my, to the end of the air that I can put out, I will stop, breathe, and then continue’. That’s how I kind of progressively learnt. It took me many, many years, to be able to overcome that. And I think it’s important to share with people, for them to understand that yes, it’s a struggle, but we can definitely, we can definitely fix that. It’s not something that will disappear completely, but it’s something that we can manage and be able to communicate effectively in front of thousands, thousands of people. And one of the things that I do is, so I mentioned going to the gym every morning, because it’s all that, it’s the best way to kind of make sure that I keep my mental health in the right shape, because the more I’m mentally okay, the better I can manage, I can manage my stammering, and be able to deliver effective communication.

Wow, thank you so much for sharing that story and your personal story so honestly and vulnerably, because I understand that that has not been an easy journey and although you’ve very kindly shared, you know, obviously the steps you took, that as you said it took years, it wasn’t a quick fix solution. And you know, I really appreciate you sharing that, because although there may be some people who are listening who also experience stammering, actually there are lots of people who have other challenges, either ways of speaking or they have fear of speaking or fear of presenting or speaking in front of a lot of people. And if I just summarise, what I sort of heard you really talk about, there was actually having the self awareness to start off with, recognising that was something you could do something about. You talked about the power of relaxation. So realising it’s also about an energy state, which is interesting, because that’s something definitely I talk about in my programmes, in my work with people, and the power of breath, which I absolutely agree, we forget sometimes our speaking, our communication relies on good breath flow, so that we can manage that. But, I ultimately heard you talking about managing. So this idea of, you know, it’s not that you’re suddenly, it’s disappeared or you’ve deleted it, it’s actually just about managing it, and that you’re, even your gym sessions are part of this. So I loved how you’ve, you’ve thought about this and approached this, this idea. So thank you so much for sharing this. Thank you. Thank you. So I’m really interested, I know that many of the listeners will have found, you know, parts of your story so inspiring here today, but I’m sure there’ll be people here thinking ‘okay, like so what can I learn from this? What are the key things that I can take away to become a better leader, whatever stage I am on that journey?’. And there’ll be people who are early career, some are middle career and some are already senior leaders like yourself. But when you think about leadership and people listening here today, what sort of advice, or final thoughts would you love to kind of give them to think about?

Well, the first thing I would say is the importance of learning. Whatever you’re working on, it’s important for you to really understand what you’re doing and be able to explain it to people and explain it in a very simple way. So whatever technical thing you’re doing, you should be able to explain it to somebody who is not from that environment. That really helps you learn, understand, get to know your thing, get to know what you’re working on. That’s important. And also, it’s important to acknowledge the fact that we always navigate within a community, so you cannot grow alone. So it’s really important to leverage people around you. It’s important to, to connect with people, as much as possible. So that word connection is very important. Some people will say networking, but I love the term connection. So the more you connect with people, the more you will learn from them, the more they will, they will give you the right support that you need to be able

To be able to progress. And also we mentioned feedback. When you have, when you’ve, when you’re working with the right, with the good people, very talented, we all have very talented people around us. So we, we should be able, we should be able to leverage all those people. And you will be amazed to see – you’ll be surprised to see how people react when you, when you knock at the door. Because sometimes we feel like, ‘oh, we just need to be on our side, if we reach out to this person, he’s too senior, he doesn’t have time for me’. No, we are all very busy, but we always find time to be able to support others. So leverage that, reach out to people and make sure that you learn from them. That’s brilliant. I love that, and I think those are very kind of wise words. Particularly, also at this time we’re recording this, a time of great change in the world, great, sort of changes economically, but also great uncertainty. So I think these threads are very important for now, and for the future. Daniel, I sort of have a sort of final question for you, which is I hear how important roots and community are for you. And you used the word right at the beginning, which was legacy. I’m really curious about what would you love your legacy to be?

Well, my legacy – I would love my legacy, if I have that power to, I would say to impact this world. I will love to be, to be among those that have reduced the level of poverty around the world. Because, it’s sad to say, but you will be surprised to see the level of poverty that we have everywhere in any country. Even in the UK. I was surprised to see the level of poverty that we have in this country. So I think my main legacy will be try to reduce it as much, as possible, and inspire other people to be able to do the same. Because I feel like, everywhere we are, we can, we can do something. We can do something. Even if it’s a very small thing, we can do something to change people’s lives. And when you put together all those small actions, we end up with a very big impact and a better world for everyone.

Brilliant. I love that. That’s a fantastic, legacy to have. And I think you’re doing amazing work, as a leader in multiple capacities, but particularly in your work as leader of the Amaro Coffee. So for sure we’ll share that. Yeah. And one thing I would say is from a business standpoint, I, so, I don’t measure the success of my business on the P&L or the level of revenue that the business generates, but I measure the growth and the success of my business on the number of people I get out of poverty, and for them to be financially independent, for- To be sustainable and financially independent for the rest of your life. So that’s how I measure the, I would say, the success of my business.

Wow. What a brilliant way to measure success. And I can see that you are having great impact with this already. Daniel, thank you so much for joining me here today, for sharing your story, for sharing your leadership lessons, and inspiration for others to learn from, but really importantly, also sharing kind of what you see as important as a leader today. I really appreciate you being here on the show, thank you so much for being here, and I look forward to seeing everybody next time on the show. Thank you, Victoria. It was a pleasure.