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Born March 20, 1971, on a farmland in Assin- Amoabeng in the Central Region, Felix as he was named then by his mother, is the 6th of 17 children to his father, who later changed his name to Joseph years later.
The difficult upbringing only strengthened Agyepong’s resolve to succeed. With the help of his elder brother Daniel, Agyepong and his siblings were relocated from the village to Accra. Agyepong had dreams of becoming either a pilot or a marine engineer but fate left him in the street.
Joseph started an engineering course and completed it in 1990, but his father said he no longer has the money to contribute to his education, so left with no option he had to go into business. His father suggested that he should go and assist his mother who had a little shop where she was squatting in front of somebody’s business. he helped her like a petty trader selling exercise books on the streets.
That was the first step on a journey that has led to one of the most diversified holding companies in Ghana. Agyepong is today responsible for the strategic vision of the Jospong Group of Companies, with operations in Africa as well as Asia and the Middle East.
The company has business interests in many sectors of the economy with its biggest operations in Waste management, ICT, and banking. Agyepong’s strategy is slightly unorthodox. He believes he is guided by a higher power with the right direction at the right time. At the age of 22, Agyepong would go early in the morning to his mother’s little shop and pack exercise books in boxes and walk off with them on his head to sell through the busy streets of Accra.
His persistence paid off and very soon Agyepong was selling enough books that he could invest in other businesses. That ushered in the birth of Jospong Printing Press in 1995.
The following year, Agyepong stumbled on an opportunity in construction. A client was looking for a contractor and the resourceful entrepreneur pitched and delivered the contract by outsourcing the various building activities to local tradesmen and in the process, Agyepong established his construction business, Extended Builders.
In 1998, during the Ghana elections, he saw yet another opportunity to print t-shirts for the election campaign, and Appointed Time Screen Printing was born. Since then, the company has established a holding company with subsidiaries in oil and gas, logistics, quarry and mining, manufacturing as well as agro-business. In 2006, there were difficulties in managing solid waste in Ghana.
It became an issue of great concern to Ghana’s citizens, mainly due to its environmental health implications. The United Nations Conference on Human Settlement report stated that between 33% and 50% of solid waste generated within most cities in low and middle-income countries are not collected.
Instead it is illegally dumped on streets and open spaces. Furthermore, a 2002 report by the African Development Bank stipulates that Ghana generated about 3.6 million tons of solid waste per year, made up of predominantly organic compost, such as food, plastic, and wood waste. These critical challenges presented yet another opportunity the serial entrepreneur could not ignore, one that would prove to be Agyepong’s most lucrative business to date.
Dr. Joseph Siaw-Agyepong is the founder of the Jospong Group. It is one of the largest conglomerates in Ghana with over 32 subsidiaries. The Jospong Group currently operates in eleven industries in Ghana. He is a self-made multimillionaire.
The Jospong Group of Companies has generated over 200,000 jobs under various innovative collaborations with governments and the private sector in Africa.
The Jospong Group of Companies currently has 8 companies in other parts of Africa and the Middle East and represents 16 Chinese companies, 8 Indian companies and 5 European companies in Ghana. Its trade volume with these companies was worth $4.36 billion as at 2013. Some of the subsidiaries within the Jospong Group include; C A Nzema Oil, Great Consolidated Diamond, J. A. Quarry, J A Plant Pool Limited, JA Vehicle Assembly Plant, Jubilee Tractors, J A Spare parts, J SA Logistics, Royal Heritage, Contrago Trans, J W Transport Company Limited, Accra Compost Limited, Soil Services, Zoomlion Domestic Services Limited, Zoom Angola, Zoom Liberia, Zoom Togo, Zoom Equatorial Guinea, Zoom Sierra Leone, Zoom Zambia, Sierra Leone Press, Appointed Time Screen Printing, Jospong Printing Press, Pro- writing Publishing, Subah Information Solutions, Sino Africa Development, Creator Digital, Millennium Insurance, and Union Savings & Loans.
Joseph Siaw-Agyepong constructed a steel plant in Ghana at a cost of more than $40 million. J.A. Plant Pool Ghana Limited is engaged in the sale, rental and leasing of earth moving equipment, heavy-duty trucks and machinery and Yutong buses in the country presently.
The company has executed $100 million worth of contracts with its overseas suppliers; J.A. Plant Pool has imported about 1,000 Yutong buses and 900 heavy-duty equipment and trucks into Africa. Great Consolidated Diamond Limited (GCDL), a subsidiary of Zoomlion Ghana Limited (ZGL), acquired 100% shares of Ghana Consolidated Diamonds (GCD) Limited at Akwatia in the Eastern Region at a cost of $80 million. Union Savings and Loans currently has total assets of about GHC 40 million.
