My parents abandoned me when I wanted to read Pharmacy – Rokmer Pharma CEO

Richard Okyere Acheampong, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Rokmer Pharma Limited, one of the leading pharmaceutical companies in Ghana, has urged goal getters not to lose focus and strive hard to grab the success they aspire in life.

Mr Acheampong, who was adjudged the Most Promising CEO in the maiden Ghana Pharma Awards in March 2018, pointed to perseverance and hard work as the way one can get to their goals.

Speaking to Neil Armstrong Mortagbe on the BIG INTERVIEW on Radio XYZ on Wednesday, Mr Acheampong who says the path to where he is “has not been easy” recounted the hardships he had to go through before becoming the fine pharmacist the world has known him to be.

From Achimota School, he wanted to be a pharmacist, obviously an inspiration he drew from his mother who was a distributor of pharmaceutical products.

However, that was not the family’s wish. why would he want to take up from her mother and be her duplicate?

“That was my passion. My mother was the sole distributor for Dannex,” he revealed and recounted how he would follow her to distribute cosmetic products and would come across “fine” pharmacists.

He just loved to be one, but “no way” his Dad would always say.

“They (his parents) are the same people who had forgotten that they had introduced me to the pharmaceutical industry,” he told Neil.

After the back and forth, he proceeded to the University of Ghana to read medicine, did his first year exams and passed, but he was not comfortable.

“I passed the exams, we were about 70 and 50 passed,” he narrated and said he was one of the 50 who passed but had to quit.

I was among the After one year, Mr Acheampong says he discussed his passion for pharmacy with his friends and quit school to chase his dreams.

Before he landed at KNUST to go and read pharmacy his parents abandoned him.

“I got abandoned and, maybe, forgotten, by my own parents when I took that decision. That was a very turbulent time in the family history where I think I was 20 or 21 and my parents having married for nearly 25 years, decided to call it quit and separate out… That is when I took the decision… So they would want to have nothing to do with me when I went to the KNUST,” he said

Asked how he managed to finish his course in Kumasi, He said: “I did everything some.” He had to do menial jobs to sustain himself in school.

He and a friend, Abankwa of Sharp pharmaceuticals set up a campus construction firm to work for their colleagues to see themselves through the university education.

He noted that at the start of the semester they would paint the rooms and hostels of students for money to support themselves through school.

He said sometimes, during vacations, he had to organise buses for students to Tema, Accra and Takoradi to support himself.

He had to work with some pharmaceutical companies anytime he was on vacation to acquire skills, advising the youth to learn to serve people even if it is for free.

He had to rely on the help of others while keeping hopes alive in the midst of the hardships, to get to where he wanted to be.

Even after school he “served” in some companies for years before setting up a small pharmaceutical company, Rokmer Pharma, in the year 2000.

He said financing it was torrid till he had to go in for small loans from friends and other people, focusing on integrity and honesty.

To him, the journey has not been easy to a point when the police had to chase him to church for money he never had.

In all, Mr Acheampong said he worked hard, prayed and followed his passion till things became quite mild.

The Managing Director of Rokmer Pharma was grateful to Bishop Charles Agyinasare, the founder of Perez Chapel International who he described as one of the “pillars” behind him.

Mr Richard Acheampong is a professional Pharmacist with an Executive – MBA in Marketing from the University of Ghana Business School (UGBS) and B. Pharma (Hons) from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology (KNUST).

He has 18 years working experience in the pharmaceutical business. As CEO of Rokmer Pharma, he is responsible for the overall running of the company.

He is in charge of establishing and developing short and long-term goals and objectives for the company that imports, retail and distribute pharmaceutical products.