Birtukan Abebe Fetenesa needs no introduction, for those who have lived in Addis Ababa, Bole area

Birtukan Abebe Fetenesa needs no introduction, for those who have lived in Addis Ababa, Bole area, (which she calls her community). In being a very friendly and people-oriented person, Birtukan gives credit to her family, friends, and to the whole village who has shaped her to be the person she is at present.

Birtukan was born in Wollo and lived there until the age of twelve.  Then she moved to Addis Ababa, where she attended her secondary education at Bole comprehensive secondary school and went to India to study business administration for her higher education, at Puna University.

In her interview about employment, she stated that it never crossed her mind to be employed.  Although, she had all sorts of business ideas to start up her own, she had no specific plan or had no particular interest in one.  Birtukan realized that she needed some kind of guidance to make her dream come true. That was when; she came across Dr. Werotaw Bezabih and joined the entrepreneurship training program he provided.

Birtukan then established a company called, ALBA Business PLC., which manufactures aluminum, and leading it as the CEO.  The company has been operating for more than seventeen years and reached a capital of thirty million birr.

Birtukan stated, “In the last seventeen years, I have personally and professionally grown up immensely. ALBA has given me the opportunities to explore ways of dealing with people in general and clients, staff members, and government offices in particular.

Apart from running ALBA, Birtukan is engaged in a number of community service activities; mostly in her church, where she spends most of her after work hours and weekends. She enjoys doing exercise and watching soccer in her leisure time.

When asked what keeps her going, Birtukan replied, “When I wake up in the morning, I know that I have a choice to deal with life challenges.  Thinking creatively to meet my life issues positively energizes me for it serves humanity and that brings joy to my life.”

Birtukan graciously says, I am grateful to have developed virtues of being caring, forgiving, understanding and a positive person. “We always encounter different incidents bad or good,” Birtukan says, “when people do some unpleasant things to me or tarnish what I have built, I say to myself, “Thank God I’m not acting viciously, and yet, at the same time I try to open my big heart to really understand them. I think, we need to live to understand, care, and love others.  As a leader we need to adopt the golden rule of leading by serving others with open-mindedness.”

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