Konektid International
We develop and implement business strategies based on local insight in high opportunity global markets.
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Approach

Konektid believes successful design and implementation of a global business strategy requires a thorough understanding of local market needs and strong, collaborative relationships with key local stakeholders. Konektid ensures our clients’ global business strategy integrates these essential elements and that every step of our work is informed by trusted local perspective from Konektid’s global on-the-ground network.

A strong global business strategy should include partnerships with governments and international banks to mitigate market risks, through leveraged financing and local brand management. Konektid’s team has decades of experience designing and managing more than $1 billion dollars of government-funded investment in global markets. This uniquely positions Konektid as a trusted broker and seasoned implementer of these partnerships.

Services

Konektid designs and implements international business strategy for emerging markets. The scope of our work ranges from introductions to local stakeholders, to launching full-scale operations in a new market. Konektid is experienced in identifying how to capitalize on international business opportunities, while mitigating risks.

Local Insight

Konektid has an on-the-ground network of trusted local partners and experts in more than 60 emerging markets. Our network’s expertise covers more than ten industries, including healthcare, energy, technology, financial services, agriculture, and environmental services. Through this network, we access actionable local market insight, customized to our clients needs, to inform business decisions in new markets.

Konektid’s experience:

Client profile: Global Public Policy Research Organization

Challenge: Access trusted, in-country sources to provide local perspective for a regional conflict research article.

Result: Konektid introduced and facilitated communication between the organization and local sources. We ensured sources were from different ethnic groups involved in the conflict, in order to provide a more complete on-the-ground perspective. The final research article was shared online more than 5,000 times.

Stakeholder Mapping

Successful implementation of international business strategies depends on building collaborative relationships with key local stakeholders and business partners. Konektid designs and manages the stakeholder outreach strategy for our clients. Key stakeholders can include local business partners, government officials, civil society organizations, and individuals. A stakeholder connection strategy goes beyond simple introductions, to advise our clients on the local context, and how to strategically build relationships with each key stakeholder.

Konektid’s experience:

Client profile: Fortune 500 Technology Company

Challenge: Connect with the Ministry of Environment of an Eurasian country to contribute to the development of an electronics recycling program.

Result: Konektid built a team with decades of experience working with the target Eurasian Ministry, and designed a strategic outreach plan to build a collaborative relationship between the Ministry and Konektid’s client.

Strategic Immersion

Konektid designs and leads immersion experiences to target emerging markets. Each immersion experience is customized to our client’s needs, including access to local market intelligence, building relationships with key stakeholders, brokering partnerships, local recruitment, and establishing local operations. During the immersion experience, Konektid’s in-country team travels alongside our client and advises them on messaging for each meeting. Every step of the immersion experience is focused on meeting our client’s needs and goals in the target market.

Konektid’s experience:

Client profile: U.S. Investment Firm

Challenge: Identify new markets with demonstrated potential to generate investment of more than $10 million.

Result: Konektid remotely assessed market potential in several Eurasian markets, then designed and led immersion trips to two high potential markets to further assess market potential through meetings with key local stakeholders. Based on the immersion trip, Konektid designed the market entry strategy for each market for our client and put the team in place to implement the strategy.

Partnerships

Governments and international banks invest $150 billion annually in development projects in emerging markets. Konektid’s team has decades of experience designing and managing these projects and we use this knowledge to help our clients access these resources through partnerships. These partnerships allow our clients to capitalize on opportunities in emerging markets and mitigate market entry risks through leveraged financing, deeper integration into the local market, and improved local branding.

Konektid's experience:

Client profile: Fortune 500 Healthcare Company

Challenge: Access new medical device innovations in emerging markets that are target to local needs and are ready to be brought to market.

Result: Konektid brokered a partnership between our client and a government-funded organization investing more than $20 million of non-dilutive capital annually in new medical innovations in emerging markets. The partnerships allowed our client to connect to successful recipients of this investment to identify the highest-potential business opportunities for our client to scale up commercially. In addition, Konektid secured a commitment of up to $1 million of additional leveraged financing to bring these innovations to market.

Strategy Implementation

Konektid accelerates business growth in emerging markets by designing and implementing business models that meet identified local needs. These include strategies for increasing available financing for customers, development of a local distribution network, and securing access to key agricultural products and manufacturing supplies. Konektid supports the launch of these business models through locally-targeted marketing initiatives.

Konektid's experience:

Client profile: Fortune 500 Healthcare Company

Challenge: Increase access to financing for local customers to purchase our client’s products and services.

Result: Konektid structured a framework to create a revolving credit fund that leverages our client’s investment by a magnitude of 20, creating millions of dollars in available credit for purchase of our client’s products in the target market. The framework included identifying and vetting a local lending partner, structuring a revolving fund of credit, and providing guarantee against loan defaults.

Partnerships

  • What is a Konektid Partnership?

    A Konektid Partnership brings business and international aid together in order to identify and meet their needs in emerging markets. Both have unique relationships and strong interest in emerging markets, and Konektid uses our experience to facilitate communication between both groups and lead the partnering process to develop a partnering scope of activities that meet the needs of both partners.

  • How does the partnership benefit businesses?

    Konektid Partnerships are an emerging markets entry tool that can provide businesses with a partner who understands the local context and has established relationships on the ground. The partnership can be used to create access to new markets, train local workforce, build relationships with local partners and governments, improve local branding, develop locally-targeted and appropriate products and processes, achieve a positive social impact through your work that can be shared with your customers, shareholders, and employees, and reduce financial risk through cost sharing and co-financing of activities.

  • How does it benefit international aid?

    International aid sees the value in partnering with the businesses to leverage resources to achieve international aid’s goal of eliminating extreme poverty around the world. International aid benefits from the private sector’s market-driven approach, access to global supply chains and markets, skills and services, experience bringing proven innovations to scale, and financial resources.


    "We are excited about this latest landmark in our relationship with Walmart. Our global partnership is emblematic of USAID’s new model of development and our commitment to work with private sector companies to end extreme poverty around the world," - Rajiv Shah, USAID Administrator

  • What is the value of a Konektid Partnership?

    Konektid partnerships are structured to provide three key values:


    1. Meet your identified business needs in emerging markets.


    2. Identify cost savings and co-financing opportunities to reduce your financial risk.


    3. Achieve a positive social impact that can be shared with your customers, shareholders, and employees.

  • Who has been successful doing these partnerships?

    A long list of the world’s largest corporations have created emerging markets business solutions through partnerships with international aid. In Mexico, Starbucks secured access to high-quality coffee, while also achieving significant savings in R&D and fighting deforestation. In Angola, Chevron is part of a $50 million initiative that supports education, workforce training, and small business development, which improves workforce productivity, and strengthens relationships with government officials. In Kenya, General Electric worked with USAID to make millions of dollars in credit available for the purchase of its medical devices. You can find more successful examples on our Twitter page.


    “Who you assign [internally] to these partnerships is really critical.They have to be able to build relationships. And if they don’t have an understanding of those other organizations, this is very difficult to achieve.” — Dennis Flemming, Chevron

  • What is the key to a successful partnership?

    What is the key to a successful partnership? The key to a successful partnership is having a broker leading the process who understands how both businesses and international aid organizations work, and has the time to dedicate to clearly understanding each partner’s needs and brokering an agreement. Konektid serves this crucial role throughout the identification, brokering, and implementation of the partnership.


    "If you want to work with USAID, finding an organization with an existing relationship or track record with them is extremely helpful." — Dr. John Owens, SC Johnson

About

Our story
During the decade Mike Shanley spent working in international aid, he saw a disconnect between businesses growing in emerging markets and the governments and international development organizations investing $150 billion a year in those same markets. In 2013, Mike founded Konektid to bridge this gap and share the value of international aid investment with the private sector. He began by consolidating his local network in 60 emerging markets, and building a team of private sector and international development experts, with expertise across six continents in a variety of industries. This idea quickly evolved into the global business strategy consulting firm that Konektid is today.

About Konektid
Konektid International is a global business strategy consulting firm that combines the experience of our global team of private sector and international development experts with our network of local consultants and partners in more than 60 emerging markets, to create new market entry and growth opportunities in emerging markets.

We use our knowledge of doing business in emerging markets, along with our experience working with government and international bank investment resources, to build and implement strategies that meet our clients business needs in emerging markets, achieve a cost savings, and have a positive social impact.

We have managed investments ranging from multi-million dollar projects, to small-scale community-level initiatives. Our clients have ranged from the Fortune 500 to grassroots organizations, all aiming to grow in emerging markets.

Konektid’s work is focused on high opportunity international markets, sometimes known as emerging markets, where there is a combination of a growing economy and significant government and international bank investment. The map below shows the GDP and annual international development investment in each market. These high opportunity international markets include:

Konektid’s work is focused on high opportunity international markets, sometimes known as emerging markets, where there is a combination of rapid economic growth and significant international development investment. These high opportunity international markets include:

o Africa: Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Sudan, South Africa, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Zambia.

o Asia: Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Maldives, Nepal, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam.

o Eurasia: Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Republic of Georgia, Kazkahstan, Kosovo, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan.

o Latin America: Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela.

o Middle East: Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Turkey.

Our name
In selecting Konektid (“connected”) as our name, we chose a phrase with a positive connotation across the diverse countries we operate in. Konekti comes from the Esperanto language, created in the 19th century to be a single language that bridges cultural and linguistic barriers. Konekti connotes connections and partnerships. The “id” at the end of Konektid is from international development, and represents the unique value Konektid provides to our clients by leveraging international development resources through partnerships as a market entry tool.

The Team

Mike Shanley

Founder & CEO

About Mike
Mike Shanley has more than a decade of experience leading business development and project management activities across five continents. He has designed and managed projects of up to $30 million for governments, businesses, and civil society organizations, in more than 25 emerging markets. He has an exceptional ability to identify market entry opportunities, and is experienced in building and implementing multi-stakeholder partnerships in emerging markets with the public sector, private sector, and civil society organizations. Mike’s experience ranges from boardrooms of multinational corporations to community level projects in the Peace Corps. He speaks English, Russian, and Spanish.

Mike’s past work includes:

Designed and led in-country immersion trip in the Philippines to design market entry strategy for $20 million water resource management project.

Led local recruitment of top talent for ten person team for $11 million energy project in the Republic of Georgia.

Facilitated leadership transition from an expatriate-led to locally managed team on an environmental services project in Bolivia, with a $10 million budget and 20 staff across three offices.

Our team
Konektid’s team’s experience extends from leading strategy development in Fortune 500 boardrooms to building consensus among community level stakeholders in emerging markets, and from the White House to remote villages. We have advised governments, built global partnerships with multinational corporations, and helped civil society organizations increase their social impact. Our global team on the ground in more than 60 emerging markets is experienced working with government officials, civil society organizations, and local and multinational businesses, which uniquely positions us to lead design and implementation of emerging market strategies based on trusted, local insight. Our team includes native speakers of the ten most widely spoken languages in the world, including all six official UN languages.

Konektid’s team’s experience includes:

Developed and executed partnership strategies for major Fortune 500 companies, and with government agencies such as USAID, U.S. State Department, and the White House.

Managed more than $1 billion in government and international bank investments in development projects across more than 60 emerging markets, by building collaborative relationships with key local stakeholders, recruiting top local talent, and finding trusted local business partners.

Led video storytelling projects in more than 20 countries to help organizations and companies like National Geographic, ESPN, and Marriott share their work around the world.




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