From his childhood in Côte d’Ivoire to his Church mission in Ghana and a year-long stint in China, Stéphane Akoki had seen a lot before he even started college. Yet this 2018 information systems alum discovered that coming to BYU Marriott widened his world—and his impact.
“I have loved computers my whole life, and I consider myself pretty technical,” Akoki says. “But I discovered later in life that I also really enjoyed business.” Akoki’s interest in technology led him to China to study computer science, but the school he had planned to attend turned out to be a scam. Broke and stranded in a foreign country, Akoki learned to speak Mandarin, found work, and began strategizing his next move.
While attending a small branch of the Church in China, Akoki learned about LDS Business College, which later became Ensign College. Once again he took a leap of faith and moved to a new country for his education. But this time it wasn’t a scam—it was a pathway to his associate’s degree and onward to BYU Marriott, where Akoki found a perfect fit for his interests in technology and business.
“My favorite aspect of BYU was the dedication of my professors,” Akoki shares. “Professor Shane Reese, now President Reese, would often take walks with me to discuss statistics concepts I was struggling with.” Attending professors’ office hours at BYU Marriott was also a highlight. “We discussed not only grades and class concepts but also life, focusing on how to be our best selves both inside and outside the classroom,” Akoki says.
Akoki appreciated the diversity he found at BYU Marriott. “There are different ways to interpret diversity,” he explains. “At BYU, you get people from different backgrounds. They’ve served different missions and experienced different ways of life.”
BYU Marriott also equipped Akoki with a diverse skill set that immediately proved valuable in his first job at Deloitte. When he took the initiative to make a flowchart as his team consulted a major client, his boss was impressed and surprised. “That was the theme of my first couple of months at Deloitte,” Akoki recalls. “They kept asking, ‘Where did you learn that?’ They were quite surprised that I came out of school already knowing how to do such complex tasks. It’s a testament to how incredibly well the program was designed.”
After a few years at Deloitte, Akoki accepted a job at software company Lucid, where he continues to apply his degree in his role as a product manager. “In terms of what I learned in the business school and what I do in my career, it’s a 90 percent match. Almost every single thing has been applicable, which is pretty incredible.”
But Akoki understands that his education has a purpose beyond just advancing his own career. “The level of knowledge and education that I obtained at BYU puts me in a position where there’s so much more I can do for my people,” he explains. During the past several years, he has founded and grown Elevate Côte d’Ivoire, a nonprofit that aims to address poverty through creating sustainable jobs and providing access to quality education.
Just as Akoki had experienced so much before even starting college, his first five years out of school have been a whirlwind of professional and personal growth. Akoki is grateful for a degree that helps him create impact within his company and his home country.
“Looking back on the last five years, I am so glad that I completed the information systems program,” Akoki says. “I’m using everything I’ve learned.”
