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Dr Joseph Siaw Agyepong - The CEO of Zoomlion

Zoomlion has become a household name in the country. This is mainly because staff of the company are seen almost everywhere in our communities clearing waste to ensure that our neighbourhoods are clean.
have you ever thought about the person behind this organisation on which we call when sanitation has to be upheld in the country? He is called Dr Joseph Siaw Agyepong, popularly known as Jospong by his close associates.

Like many children, while Joseph was growing up, he wanted to go into one of two professions — piloting or marine engineering. However, his plans changed as he progressed in life.

Sharing his story with the Junior Graphic, Dr Agyepong, who was born some 40 years ago, said he had his primary and middle school education at the Teshie Nungua Preparatory School. After his basic education, he continued at the Royal Technical Institute at Nungua, a suburb of Accra. There, he studied for the City and Guilds of London Certificate, which he successfully completed in 1990, graduating with an Electrical Engineering Technician (Part II) certificate.

After his graduation, his intention was to pursue a Diploma programme at the Accra Polytechnic to enable him to achieve his ambition of becoming either a pilot or a marine engineer.

“Indeed, at a certain point I picked up an application form from the Ghana Nautical College and Accra Polytechnic but later I changed my mind,” he recalled.

According to him, while thinking of what to do next, his mother, who used to sell exercise books in a small shop in Accra, was taken seriously ill. Under the circumstances, he was forced to take over the running of his mother’s shop and exercise books business. Within a relatively short period, the business had grown rapidly, beating everyone’s imagination.

As a result, his father insisted that Agyepong abandon his engineering interest and focus on business. With that kind of encouragement, in 1997 Agyepong ploughed back his profit from the exercise books business and, with additional support from his mother, who was by then better, established a printing press called Jospong Printing Press in a small room at Jamestown, a suburb of Accra.

That served as the bedrock of his success story.

Today, by dint of hard work, Dr Agyepong owns about 32 companies, mainly in oil and gas, mining, construction and real estate.

Some of them are Appointed Time Screen Printing, J. A. Plant Pool, J. A. Quarry, Creator Digital and Zoomlion Ghana Limited.

With his engineering background, he was able to introduce the tricycle concept in waste management which the Chinese had employed with success.

“With this innovation, the company has controlled waste management in Ghana and offered jobs to as many as 3,000 Zoomlion staff and over 65,000 people working on various projects for sister companies,” he disclosed.

He is a seasoned Ghanaian entrepreneur and industrialist who has received many awards and honours in his career. It is, therefore, not surprising that Dr Agyepong, who is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Zoomlion Limited, was adjudged the Overall Best Entrepreneur of the Year 2011 during the Ghana Entrepreneur Awards which were held last month.

Dr Agyepong was also awarded the Order of the Volta in 2008, the Millennium Excellence Award for Leadership in Industry, the Most Marketing Oriented Company by the Chartered Institute of Marketing, Ghana (CIMG), among others.

Dr Agyepong, who is God-fearing, is an elder and executive member of the Church of Pentecost, Grace English Assembly in the Nungua Nshorna District.

He is married to Mrs Cynthia Araba Agyepong and they are blessed with five children.

He said he loves reading the Bible, Christian literature and inspirational books by Christian authors and motivational speakers.

“It will interest you to know that the fear of the Lord, hard work, dedication, zeal and faithfulness to God and men are some of the values which have propelled me to greater heights,” he said.

For Dr Agyepong, his greatest aspiration is to see Ghana become a filth-free country and, therefore, urged schoolchildren to endeavour to keep their surroundings clean all the time to reduce the outbreak of certain diseases and also prevent the incidence of floods, especially during this time that the rains have begun.

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