DESERTS, DREAMS, AND DIGNIFIED CAPITALISM

Sep 7 , 2025.

They arrive from different corners of the nascent capital-market frontier, but when Hana Tehelku, Wolde Bulto, Zemedeneh Negatu and Tewedaj Gezahegn speak, a shared preoccupation surfaces. Survival seasoned with purpose.

Hana, the regulator forged in courtrooms, swears by faith and hope alongside a canteen of water; Wolde, the community-minded banker, grabs shelter and a plan for rationing; Zemedeneh, the pan-African dealmaker, refuses to be lost without GPS; and Tewedaj, the quietly trenchant adviser, travels nowhere without ample provisions. Strip away the sand-storm metaphor, four architects bracing for the domestic economic wilderness of lean years, regulatory pitfalls, and reputational heat are visible, armed with the essentials they deem non-negotiable.

Their first paycheques read like a ledger of changing Ethiopia. Hana’s 2,000 Br research stipend in 2015; Wolde’s 832 Br trainee wage back in 1991; Zemedeneh’s Saudi riyals as a teenage shipping clerk; and, Tewedaj’s 4,000 Br auditing salary trace the widening arc from a command economy to a marketplace where graduate analysts now contemplate IPO pipelines. Each remembers the figure with surprising tenderness, proof, perhaps, that money’s meaning is as much emotional mileage as numerical value.

These sums tell a second story of how quickly local pay scales, ambitions and currencies of status have inflated in the sprint toward liberalisation. Career epiphanies are softer, more human. Hana recalled two female defendants (one elderly, one traumatised) whose resilience upended her prosecutorial instincts and nudged her toward capital-market justice. Wolde’s hinge moment was a high-school transcript. A 3.8 GPA still powers his moral compass three decades on. Zemedeneh credited the quiet and cumulative faith of his parents and sisters. And Tewedaj counted the capital-market law itself, which finally aligned her corporate-finance passion with national policy. In a sector obsessed with hard data, these origin myths reveal a heartbeat of empathy, affirmation, and legislation, each pushing the protagonists out of their comfort zones and into the public arena.

Yet, compromise, they warn, is perilous. Hana vowed never to violate servant-leadership ethics; Wolde will quit before forsaking community impact; Zemedeneh rejected mediocrity with evangelical fervour; and Tewedaj protected “peace of mind” like an audited balance sheet. Ask them for useless financial frippery, and none torches an entire product class; instead, they indict the human tendencies (short-termism, imbalance, and self-important theorists) that corrode any system. Even their culinary confessions run on this track. Hana shunned slimy textures, Wolde distrusted unfamiliar spices, Zemedeneh abandoned escargot for a Big Mac, and Tewedaj prized a rustic "Duba We't". Taste, like investment, should honour context, caution and an occasional dash of humour.

Love, too, appears on the balance sheet. Wolde described marital affection as “restless”, a forever-credit in life’s ledger. Zemedeneh’s tribute to his late wife Julie is a 23-year dividend of loyalty, grief and gratitude. The others are economical — Hana leaves a dash and Tewedaj a succinct “Yes” — yet the pattern persists. Private bonds steady public risk-takers. And when gifts enter the narrative, none cited stock options or luxury pens; instead, Hana treasured quiet recognition, Wolde his parents’ blessings, Zemedeneh his post-cancer health, Tewedaj a live hen boxed by mischievous dorm-mates. For them, capital may be mobile, but value is stubbornly intimate.

PUBLISHED ON Sep 07,2025 [ VOL 26 , NO 1323]