2016 Global Entrepreneurship Summit Delegate from Mauritius

Jessyca Joyekurun, founder and managing director of Xpand Human Resources, has been selected as one of the global attendees of the highly competitive 2016 Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES), from June 22-24, 2016 in Palo Alto, California. This was announced by the U.S. Embassy, Port Louis. Jessyca will be joining more than 700 entrepreneurs from around the world along with top investors, speakers, and leaders in the entrepreneurship sector and President Barack Obama will address the audiance. This year’s edition is the 7th Summit, previous editions of which were hosted by the United States and the governments of Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, Morocco, and Kenya. In bringing the Summit back to the United States, President Obama is highlighting his commitment to building bridges that help all nations tackle global challenges together. Jessyca Joyekurun was a 2014 Mandela Washington Fellow in the Entrepreneurship field and found the 6-week learning experience in the United States life changing. “The Mandela Washington Fellowship (MWF) built credibility for my career and my company. I managed to secure a contract with a Tanzanian company and I have also partnered with other HR outsourcing companies in Kenya and Tanzania for a joint delivery of services to serve the East African market. I am also helping a company in Italy and Kenya to expand their operations in Tanzania by accompanying them in terms of the employment law, income tax law, culture of recruitment and immigration laws. Being a MWF and being endorsed by the Obama administration definitely boosted my career,” says Jessyca. Since her 2014 Fellowship, her schedule has been packed. She was invited as a Speaker at the GES 2014 in Morocco and a Speaker at the Annual Human Resources Conference in Zanzibar, Tanzania in August 2016 to discuss corporate governance in HR. While her clientele has doubled in Mauritius, Jessyca also shared her knowledge with fellow entrepreneurs through a training program, in collaboration with the US Embassy. There, she shared the concepts of Human Resource Outsourcing and Employment Law Advising as the backbone of Small and Medium Enterprise structure. “I have been through a really bumpy road last year in my business but the knowledge and mentorship acquired from the Fellowship helped to pull myself through, when I could have easily closed down. But luckily 2016 has been a breakthrough for my company in terms of ‘upping the ante’. I am currently helping a company previously on receivership, which has outsourced its whole human resources to us and helping to rebuild the engagement, HR and employment law structures and image of that client.” Jessyca is excited about her participation in the GES 2016. “I love that this time, it will be more focused towards boosting the core aspects of entrepreneurship, as it will be in the birthplace of modern innovation, Silicon Valley. I personally enrolled in participating in a one to one coaching session from a successful entrepreneur who made it in Silicon Valley.” Jessyca is already thinking about how to share what she will learn with fellow Mauritian entrepreneurs when she returns. Other high-level U.S. Government officials attending the Summit include Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, Administrator of the Small Business Administration Maria Contreras-Sweet, Administrator of USAID Gayle Smith, Ambassador at-Large for Global Women’s Issues Catherine Russell, and Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs Richard Stengel.