African businessman and philanthropist Desnos Toussaint Yed was born on 1 November 1968 in Becede in the province of Sikensi in the Ivory Coast.
Demonstrating a knack for entrepreneurship as a student in the mid-1980s, Yed was supplementing his income running a lucrative games arcade to ease the financial burden on his parents.
Yed later started the firm Yecor International in 1997, with huge success. In the aftermath of the Ivorian political crisis, in June 2000, Yed announced the relocation of his head office to Johannesburg, South Africa.
Best Known For
Known as one of the wealthiest and most respected Ivorian businessmen, an art collector and philanthropist, Desnos T. Yed is Chairman and President of YEDCOR International, Chairman of the company’s mining, carrier and agricultural division Geb & Nut, and a board member of Desnos T. Yed Organisation.
Early Life
Born Desnos Toussaint Yed on November 1, 1968, in Becede, a village in the southern Ivorian province of Sikensi, Yed’s father, Atenou Yed Andre, worked as a teacher and later a professor.
His mother, Adele Assa Yed (nee Edjeme Assa Adele), grew up in a relatively privileged household where her father was famously once received as a guest in the home of Cote d’Ivoire’s president Houphouet Boigny during the country’s post-independence campaign in 1960. Adele also started out as a teacher before becoming a social education worker. Yed was the third of five children.
Yed demonstrated an entrepreneurial nous for financial and business matters early on in his adult life when as a student he started a lucrative games arcade to supplement his meagre income.
Friends and family have said the young student displayed a natural entrepreneurial instinct and tenacity, and was able to spot opportunities – a talent he eventually turned into a thriving African business venture with global ambitions.
Yed began his education in Abidjan and Daloa in west central Cote d’Ivoire, where his father had been transferred for five years.
At age 14, Yed returned to Abidjan after a difficult stint in primary school, where he candidly admits he “was not a very bright student”.
Even as a child, Yed displayed an unusual interest in the social value of money – an exemplary quality he attributes to his grandfather, Atenou Yed Pierre, who at the time was one of the biggest cocoa producers in the Sikensi region. Yed’s interest in business dated to his childhood, to the days he spent listening to his grandfather’s philanthropic wisdom and business counsel during school holidays.
Higher Education
After moving to Daloa, Yed finished high school and set his sights on university where planned to study Political Science.
Yed entered college in France in 1985. He studied there for three years before graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science.
His student life in France, particularly in the social and cultural realm, exposed Yed to conversations and ideas which he successfully assimilated into his goals and ambitions and earned him the sobriquet, “philanthropist” – a character trait he describes as “the best of both civilisations”.
First Entrepreneurial Venture
As a student in his late teens and early twenties, Yed was running a thriving games arcade and working as a waiter on the Cote d’Azur during the holidays. The success of the business, combined with his aversion of academia, convinced him that a career in business was the best route to financial self-sufficiency and personal success.
After completing of his undergraduate studies, Yed moved back to Cote d’Ivoire in 1995 to be closer to his roots. His return to Cote d’Ivoire after a ten-year stint in France was an uneasy process of acclimatisation and adaption to onerous conditions. Bristling with youthful exuberance, ambition and vision at age 25, the young Yed began the next stage of his entrepreneurial journey.
Using what he had learnt from his grandfather and his stint in France, Yed felt confident enough to launch his first business venture, Imtradex & Partners, in 1996. The trading company was stragically positioned to exploit a lucrative opportunity in the Ivorian market, exporting tropical fruits to Europe. However, the modest success of the business was a side investment for Yed, who felt he needed a bolder game plan. He later cited his first investment as a learning curve in a business career that evolved into Morgan Brothers which specialised in mergers and acquisitions.
Desnos Toussaint Yed 