In 2005, only 41% of Ghana’s population had access to electricity. Much of that electricity was generated by the Akosombo and Kpong dams on the Volta River, but relying on hydroelectric power made Ghana susceptible to climate fluctuations that affect water levels. Recalling how much his MIT thermodynamics class (then called Heat and Mass Transfer) with Ernest Cravalho had stayed with him, Asiamah-Adjei realized that perhaps delving into energy was not such a wild idea.
“The seed had been sown,” he says. He took a year off from McKinsey to go to Ghana and explore. Baafour Asiamah-Adjei ’03 (right) reviews a section of Genser Energy’s natural gas pipeline network with construction superintendent Stephen Ayisi. BISMARK ADAMAFIO ARYEE That year led him to realize that Ghana desperately needed a more robust power supply if it was going to industrialize and expand economic opportunity for its citizens. He also saw an opportunity to create infrastructure that reflected the values he believed in—systems built with precision, scaled with care, and grounded in the local context. If he could help build a power company that worked not only efficiently but ethically—by training Ghanaian engineers, choosing technologies that made long-term environmental sense, and reinvesting in the communities it served—then he could turn his skills into something larger than profit: He could invest in Ghana’s future.
But first, he had to turn a profit.
By 2007, he had founded Genser Power Ghana (a partner to Colombia’s Genser Power), a company committed to providing efficient and reliable power systems—fueled initially by natural gas and eventually by sustainable sources—throughout Ghana. He and Tribin, along with their fathers, led the board of directors. They also created a US holding company to support Genser’s expansion and attract private investment.
It appeared that Asiamah-Adjei had found his purpose.
The mission and values of the company now called Genser Energy are rooted in the two institutions that shaped its founder’s approach to business and to life. From MIT (which inspired a commitment to “be fact-based at all times”), Asiamah-Adjei gained not just an engineering education but also a way of dealing with the unknown—with humility, curiosity, and a willingness to experiment. MIT instilled in him the confidence to say “I don’t know” and the discipline to find out. “MIT teaches you that you actually don’t know enough yet,” he says. “You need to be doing research and finding out more.”
At McKinsey, he learned how to turn inquiry into action—and to distinguish between facts and judgments. His time there also inspired the idea that Genser’s team should “maintain an obligation to disagree”—that is, to speak up when warranted.
MIT roots and modular thinking
Asiamah-Adjei says that learning basic coding at MIT in 2.001 (Mechanics and Materials I) opened a whole new way of understanding how systems work. “One of the first things I learned in my sophomore year was that you can build computer software in modules and then let the modules talk to each other,” he says. “As a concept, that didn’t exist in my young brain until that class.”
This idea of breaking down complex systems into interlocking components became the philosophical and physical backbone of Genser’s operation, inspiring both Asiamah-Adjei and Tribin to reimagine power-plant construction. Instead of building plants from scratch on site—often in remote areas—they develop replicable, factory-built sections and transport them to the site, where they are assembled like Lego structures. Genser worked with companies such as Caterpillar to reengineer their standard generator systems into modular skid-mounted units that are easier to scale and deploy. Asiamah-Adjei also collaborated with a team of US engineers to design other skid-mounted modules, such as gas-control units (which include such things as instrumentation, control systems, valves, and piping) that are fabricated in China. These modules can be stacked and adapted as needed to build 30-, 60-, or 120-megawatt power generation systems. This approach also makes it possible to offer smaller, incremental contracts in place of massive one-size-fits-all power deals, ultimately benefiting both Genser and the emerging economies it serves. The result is an energy infrastructure that’s less expensive and easier to scale. And that, he claims, is the fundamental difference between Genser and its competitors. Modularity allows Genser to build infrastructure at about a third of the typical cost.