Ronald Phillip - Lessons from Working on $1T of Infrastructure Across Emerging Markets (Frontier Markets Episode #19)

Frontier Markets Podcast

Ronald Philip is an international business leader with over two decades of experience in real estate and infrastructure strategy and investment in emerging markets, having worked on over $1 trillion of capital projects.

He currently heads strategy for the largest developer of industrial real estate (warehousing) in the Middle East & Africa - Agility.

Prior to Agility, Ronald worked at McKinsey & Company for several years, serving Ministers and CEOs of developers and institutional investors in real estate and infrastructure.

Earlier in his career, Ronald worked with the World Economic Forum, PwC’s infrastructure practice, GE Capital and the World Bank. Ronald holds an MPP from the Harvard Kennedy School, an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Kozhikode and a Bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering.

In this episode, we discussed:

• Ronald's personal backstory, growing up in Zambia, England and India, going to the Harvard Kennedy School and a career criss crossing emerging markets across continents.
• The big picture of the massive investment and roll out of transport infrastructure and real estate investment across Africa, India, and the Middle East.
• Data centers being the next big infrastructure and real estate asset class.
• A primer on the biggest opportunities and markets in Africa, India, and the Middle East.
• Building a winning strategy for emerging markets
• Lessons for students and young professionals looking to build a career in emerging markets (career philosophy and strategy).

This was phenomenally fun to record - and I always learn an immense amount when I speak to Ronald. I hope you enjoy this as much as I did.