Managing a brave new world
by Michèle Nardelli
Leaving Sudan as a young boy is not something Vincent Okumu likes to talk about. As orphans he and his brother fled the war that took their parents’ lives.
At 16, he found a "family" of sorts when he entered an Augustinian seminary in Kenya.
"As a young seminarian I had a strong sense that I was part of a brotherhood and they looked after me in place of a normal family," Okumu says.
One enormous benefit of his rather strict Catholic existence was the opportunity for education. After high school he completed a Bachelor of Theology at the Catholic University of Eastern Africa and showing an interest in and aptitude for management, he took on some specialist studies in project planning and management.
"It is not an obvious connection but up to a point, the Catholic church was happy to support me to get some management education," he says.
Last month, just two years after arriving in Australia, Okumu graduated from UniSA with an MBA. The journey from priest in training to entrepreneur in waiting has given the 23-year-old a disarming depth and drive.
"In my life all the opportunities that have come my way have been a part of the Catholic world," he says.
"I could not see myself as a priest, but letting go of that world was a very big decision. I suppose I realised I wanted the freedom to study and think freely and to experience life from a broader perspective."
Like many refugees, Okumu is in a hurry to succeed.
"Of course I am," he says, "I feel I have wasted too much time deciding where I want my life to be. A lot of my studies in theology were fascinating but not very useful in this new world."
Right now he is working in a bakery – the job he relied on while he was studying.
"It is honest work but I want to do so much more," he says. "I am scanning the environment to see what opportunities are around. Ideally, I think I would like to become a consultant for small import/export businesses.
"There will always be a need for that kind of expertise especially to support the business goals of new migrants to Australia from Africa, Asia and some of the many other places people come from."
In the meantime, Okumu says he hopes to find the kind of job that will give him business and management experience and the chance to build some capital.