Marc Gono Is Building the Expertise Behind African Investment
Marc Gono is building the expertise that helps African businesses pursue investment and growth.
A promising business can struggle to grow even when a market opportunity exists. Financing, regulatory requirements, financial management and investment risk can all stand between an entrepreneur’s plans and the next stage of development.
For Marc Gono, these challenges represent a business opportunity of their own.
Based in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, Marc is the founder of Aziel Consulting, an advisory firm supporting businesses, entrepreneurs and investors through agribusiness consulting, financial and tax advisory, business development and political risk assessment.
His work centres on a question that extends beyond agriculture: what capabilities do businesses need to navigate complex markets, make informed decisions and pursue sustainable growth?
Through Aziel Consulting and his involvement in YAFRICA INVEST, Marc is building a career at the intersection of business advisory, investment facilitation and regional economic engagement.
From geopolitical risk consulting to entrepreneurship
Marc Gono began his professional career as a geopolitical and political risk consultant. This experience gave him a foundation for understanding how political conditions, regulatory environments and economic uncertainty can influence commercial decisions.
In 2019, he transitioned into entrepreneurship, with an ambition to support businesses operating in Côte d’Ivoire’s agribusiness sector.
The move presented challenges. The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted his early business plans and created financial difficulties, requiring him to reconsider his approach.
Rather than abandoning the venture, Marc refined his business model around the practical needs of entrepreneurs and investors. His focus shifted towards providing advisory services that could help businesses navigate financial, operational and market-related challenges.
That direction led to the development of Aziel Consulting, a firm designed to help clients assess opportunities, strengthen business operations and make better-informed decisions.
His experience illustrates a significant transition: applying expertise developed in consulting to the task of building an enterprise that provides professional services to other businesses.
Aziel Consulting: Supporting business decisions across African markets
Aziel Consulting is a business advisory firm based in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire. Its services include agribusiness consulting, tax advisory, financial advisory, business development support and political and market risk assessments.
These services address different aspects of business development.
An agribusiness may need financial advice as it prepares to expand. A company entering a new market may need to understand regulatory requirements and political risks. An investor assessing a potential opportunity may need a clearer picture of the commercial environment.
In each case, informed decision-making depends on access to relevant expertise.
Aziel Consulting brings these advisory capabilities together to support businesses and investors navigating such decisions. Its work places financial knowledge, commercial planning and risk assessment within a single business proposition.
The firm’s focus on agribusiness is particularly relevant to Marc’s original entrepreneurial ambition. Agricultural enterprises must manage challenges beyond production, including financing, taxation, operational planning and access to markets. Advisory support can help businesses identify these requirements and plan accordingly.
However, advice alone does not guarantee financing or commercial success. The value of an advisory relationship ultimately depends on the quality of the analysis, the suitability of the recommendations and the client’s ability to implement them.
The Tony Elumelu Foundation and the development of Aziel Consulting
Building a professional services firm requires more than technical expertise. It also requires operational structure, client acquisition, financial management and the ability to translate knowledge into a sustainable business.
In 2024, Marc Gono participated in the Tony Elumelu Foundation Entrepreneurship Programme, receiving US$5,000 in seed capital, alongside business training, mentorship and access to the Foundation’s pan-African entrepreneurial network.
The support provided an opportunity to strengthen Aziel Consulting’s operations.
According to the supplied business profile, Marc used the seed capital to formalise the company’s operations, establish a professional office in Cocody Angré, Abidjan, and invest in client outreach tools to support business development.
These investments addressed practical requirements for a growing advisory firm: establishing a professional operating base and improving its capacity to reach prospective clients.
The business profile also reports that Aziel Consulting’s annual revenue increased from approximately US$20,000 to more than US$45,000, while its workforce expanded to 10 employees. The team includes specialists in legal services, finance, business development and investment advisory.
These figures indicate growth in the company’s reported revenue and staffing. However, the period covered by the revenue comparison was not specified in the source material, so the pace of growth cannot be established from the available information alone.
The Foundation’s contribution should be understood within this context. Seed capital supported specific operational investments, while training and mentorship formed part of Marc’s entrepreneurial development. The available information does not establish that the programme alone caused the company’s subsequent growth.
Beyond advisory services: Marc Gono and YAFRICA INVEST
Marc’s interests extend beyond the day-to-day requirements of individual businesses.
In 2022, he co-founded YAFRICA INVEST, described in the supplied profile as a pan-African lobbying and investment platform operating across 25 Sub-Saharan African countries.
The initiative reflects a broader interest in regional investment engagement and economic collaboration.
While Aziel Consulting focuses on advisory services for businesses and investors, YAFRICA INVEST operates at a wider regional level. Together, the two initiatives reflect Marc’s work across enterprise development and investment-related engagement.
Marc has also undertaken investment banking training through the New York Institute of Finance, adding to the financial knowledge relevant to his professional work.
The distinction between these activities matters. Business advisory, investment facilitation and policy advocacy involve different functions, even when they intersect around the same broad objective of improving commercial opportunities. Their effectiveness depends on the services delivered and the outcomes they produce.
For Marc, developing these capabilities offers a way to engage with African business growth at more than one level: through the needs of individual enterprises and through relationships spanning regional markets.
What investment readiness means for African businesses
Access to capital is an important consideration for entrepreneurs, but it is not the only requirement for business growth.
Advisory services can help businesses identify gaps in these areas and prepare more effectively for expansion or financing discussions.
For agribusinesses, the requirements can be especially varied. Businesses may need to plan around production cycles, changing input costs, logistics, taxation and market access. The relevance of each consideration depends on the business model and the market in which it operates.
Aziel Consulting’s services address several of these areas through financial, tax, agribusiness and risk advisory.
Marc’s experience therefore points to a practical lesson for entrepreneurs: building a business capable of attracting investment involves more than presenting an attractive idea. It requires the financial discipline, operational systems and commercial understanding to support that proposition.
The extent to which advisory services improve investment outcomes must ultimately be assessed through evidence, such as financing secured, operational improvements achieved or successful market expansion. The available profile does not provide those client-level outcomes, but it establishes the business focus around which Marc is building his firm.
The next stage for Marc Gono
Marc’s stated ambition is to develop Aziel Consulting and YAFRICA INVEST into influential organisations in agribusiness advisory, investment facilitation and economic policy advocacy across Africa.
For Aziel Consulting, that ambition involves expanding its capacity to support businesses and investors. For YAFRICA INVEST, it centres on strengthening regional engagement and connections across African markets.
Both ambitions will require more than a wider geographic presence. Sustained growth will depend on the quality of the services provided, the expertise available within the organisations and their ability to demonstrate value to clients and partners.
Marc’s entrepreneurial journey also offers a reminder that expertise can itself become the foundation of a business. His transition from geopolitical risk consulting to building an advisory firm shows how professional knowledge can be developed into a commercial service when it responds to identifiable business needs.
Marc Gono is building Aziel Consulting around that proposition: helping businesses understand their operating environment, make more informed decisions and prepare for the opportunities they want to pursue. The next measure of its progress will be how effectively the firm translates those capabilities into demonstrable results for the businesses and investors it serves.
