Let's portray Ghana well to the outside world - Lucy Quist

Co-Founder of Executive Women Network (EWN), a non-governmental group, Lucy Quist has admonished women and entrepreneurs to be people of high integrity as it influences the perception of foreigners about the country.

She said Ghana can only be branded by its citizens regardless of the tagline Ghanaians choose which will be the first impression an outsider may have about the country and its brand.

“Somebody may meet me as the only Ghanaian they will ever meet in their lifetime and what they think of me is going to set their view about brand Ghana forever everything else will add to that or take away from it,” she said.

Speaking at the EWN annual conference Thursday, October 20, 2017 at the Movenpick Ambassador Hotel in Accra on the theme, “Rebranding Ghana to drive business growth: The perspective of women leaders”, the former Airtel Ghana CEO said the negative tag given to Ghanaian citizens affects Ghana brand.

According to her, Ghanaians have been branded by the outside world as people who lack integrity because citizens themselves keep labelling each other as corrupt.

“We have talked so much here about Ghanaians are so corrupt and I was recently pained. I was having a business discussion and the subject of integrity comes up and my response is; isn’t it so sad that as business leaders when we talk about my country we have to ask about integrity?”

She urged citizens, particularly business leaders to consider personal branding as the basis of wiping out the negative brand Ghana is believed to have and to also be circumspect about how the country is projected to the international market.

“The subject of integrity should be part of our brand. People should say the people of Ghana have integrity so we shouldn’t even be discussing that,” she stressed.