Naa Latiorkor Senah joined MTN Ghana fresh out of university back in 1999 – when the business traded as Spacefon.

Since 2011 the Senior Manager: Organisation Development, Naa’s first job at Spacefon was anything but digital. She worked in the company’s bill dispatch unit. Back then, Naa’s responsibilities included overseeing a team that folded invoices and put them into envelopes, for dispatch to customers by a team of motorcyclists.

At the time, the postal service took too long to deliver bills and so MTN took upon itself the job of getting invoices out. Some customers, on the other hand, wanted to come and collect their invoices personally, and pay on the spot, so it was Naa’s job to ensure that the whole process of invoicing worked smoothly.

A graduate in business administration with a major in HR, Naa was soon running a fleet of riders and drivers numbering over 100. And she also took on the job of managing the travel and fleet requirements of the business. One notable project for her included sending more than 200 customers, staff and partners to Germany, to watch Ghana’s fabled Black Stars football team compete in the 2006 FIFA World Cup.

In 2007, MTN’s ownership of the Ghana operation became effective following the Investcom deal the previous year. One of Naa’s outstanding memories was being one of the winners of an MTN Group competition on what the merger meant to employees. Naa put together a short video comparing the business merger to the evolution of a butterfly. This earned her an all-expenses-paid trip to South Africa where she attended the Group Leadership Gathering.

Naa then moved into a more conventional HR position, as a talent manager responsible for the smooth functioning of the company’s leadership talent management programme, ensuring that the business developed and grew its leadership to their full potential.

After two years, Naa moved into the organisational development space at MTN Ghana, a task that entails understanding how people, processes and systems work (and how they can work better) and coming up with people solutions to enable individuals and the organisation to flourish. Part of her core areas of work include performance management, talent management, organisational design and architecture, culture management and internal communications.

Today heading up a team of five, Naa’s exposure to all facets, and levels, of the business over a quarter of a century means that there is probably no-one better equipped to speak about the culture of MTN Ghana and what makes its people tick.

Never tired of being at work

“MTN is quite simply a unique place to work,” Naa says. “It’s never stagnant, always evolving – and so is the work. Every day there is a new challenge – and MTNers are always up for the challenge because the business encourages them to be self-starters, to believe that they ‘can do’. I never get tired of being here.”

Since she began at the predecessor to MTN Ghana, the headcount has increased more than three-fold, to over 1 300 and Naa says she feels like she’s always been part of “a family that has grown up in business”.

In 2024, she’s not the only University of Ghana graduate from the “class” of 1999 still working at MTN; almost every day Naa bumps into fellow students at work.

And MTN Ghana, she insists, is a great place for women. “Whatever career you want in MTN, you can have it. The business doesn’t discriminate; it empowers and it invests in your growth and competencies, every step of the way.”