Business Times Africa Magazine 2017 /vol 9/ No2 BT2Edition2017_web | Page 26

ENTREPRENEUR
The Yoghurt Bar
…Zenobia’s quintessential innovation
When it was time for her to choose a
career in life, people suggested to Zeno-
bia that her natural beauty could earn
her everything she wanted in life. Some
advised her to participate in beauty pag-
eants, enter the movie industry or even be
a broadcaster. But Zenobia was not swayed
by these flatteries. She chose to produce
yoghurts—a drink, which when absent in
her meal, she will never eat as a child.
About her
Zenobia Bou-Chedid, the CEO of Zeno’s
Yoghurt Bar, is the only child born to a Leb-
anese father and a Ghanaian mother. She
attended the Jack and Jill School located at
the Airport Residential Area in Accra, and
also a product of Wesley Girls Senior High
School in Cape Coast.
24 Business Times Africa | 2017
Her passion for learning could not make
her stay for a whole year to await her re-
sults when she completed SHS. So, she
took a year’s programme in American Field
Service (AFS) in Switzerland. There, she
learned German.
When she returned to Ghana, she was
not too sure what she wanted to study in
the university. And then again, she trav-
elled outside, but this time, to France and
studied courses in French cuisine and hos-
pitality for eight months.
At this moment, she had fallen in love
with the hospitality industry and decided
to take a programme in hospitality at the
university. She gained admission to the
University of Nicosia in Cyprus to study
Hospitality Management and graduated in
2012 as the best student in her department.
Even though her parents sponsored her
education to the very best, she did two to
three part-time jobs at some point to sup-
port herself rather than rely on her parents
for every little thing. Then, after university,
she moved back to Ghana to do her nation-
al service at Ewutu Senya West Municipal
Assembly, Kasoa, in the Central Region,
where she worked at the social welfare de-
partment.
Why she chose the hospitality industry
Zenobia didn’t plan to be in the hospi-
tality industry from the beginning. Growing
up, she wanted to study law. But she was
passionate about travelling, enjoying good
food and drinks, meeting people from dif-
ferent cultures, among others. That moved
her to enter the hospitality industry as she
felt that was the only industry that could