I come from a legal background. I’d worked at large law firms, the kind of places where everything is carefully calculated and the consequences of every decision can be predicted with reasonable accuracy. Then one day, I left it all behind to start a business in Senegal, in an environment where improvisation was part of everyday life and nothing ever went quite as planned. I didn’t do it because I had a brilliant business plan. I did it because something inside me needed to take that leap. Looking back, I realise it was the first major decision I made driven by passion rather than numbers.
Years later, when the opportunity to join Kategora came along, I knew absolutely nothing about real estate. And yet, I think that was precisely why they put their trust in me. I didn’t arrive with the industry’s established ways of thinking already ingrained in me. I arrived wanting to challenge them.
Over the years, I’ve become more of a numbers person, that’s true. The job demands it. You have to base your decisions on data and defend them with figures in front of a committee. But I still believe, more strongly than ever, that the decisions that truly matter aren’t made by spreadsheets. They’re made by intuition. Numbers alone can never give you the whole answer. What makes the difference is listening to yourself, trusting that gut feeling shaped by experience, by mistakes, by having been through something similar before. Then, of course, comes the hard work of backing that instinct up with facts and data.
That, to me, is what passion at work really means. It’s not loud enthusiasm or walking around with a permanent smile. It’s the quiet energy that drives you to stand up for an idea, even when it seems absurd at first, because you sense there’s something worth exploring. It’s the willingness to challenge things, to say “this doesn’t make sense” even when it makes people uncomfortable, because you genuinely care about the outcome. Companies that lose that spirit, that no longer have people willing to raise their hands and question things, eventually all start to look the same. Those that preserve it are the ones that continue to surprise us.
After so many years at Kategora, what still amazes me most is our ability to attract young people with the same spark I had when I first arrived, knowing nothing about the industry. People who, despite having more conventional and secure options, choose Kategora because they sense there’s something different here. You can’t achieve that with a good salary or a well-designed organisational chart. It comes from passion that spreads from person to person, from one generation of people to the next, each joining with the desire to challenge convention.
If there’s one thing I’ve learnt from my time in Senegal, in law firms and throughout my years here, it’s that passion doesn’t mean abandoning method or discipline. It’s what gives you the patience to let things develop, the resilience not to lose heart when chaos seems to be taking over, and the courage to take the leap even when the numbers haven’t quite confirmed what your instincts are telling you.
Think outside the box.
That combination, intuition tempered by experience and discipline, is, to me, the true passion that has driven this company from day one.
