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Yacoub A. Sidya
Yacoub Abdallahi Sidya is a business owner, investor, entrepreneur and philanthropist. He is the Founder/CEO of MSS Security Services, and Founder/CEO of Phoenix Precious Metals (PPM). He was noted as Forbes “Forty Under 40 to Watch in Africa” in 2019. In 2020, his company PPM was noted as one of the “50 Best Companies to Watch 2020”, for advocating responsible gold mining in Africa. PPM and MSS are both part of the Phoenix Group of companies with a service offering that ranges from Gold Mining, Gold Trading, Cash In Transit, Security, Aviation, Foreign Exchange, Logistics and Consulting.

Early Life

Sidya was born in Nouakchott, the capital city of Mauritania, West Africa and was raised by a middle-class single mother. It was his mother's idea to attend school in the USA. In his first year of school in Florida, Sidya was scouted by NKU after the coach noticed his skill as he played recreationally on the soccer field; he then received a soccer scholarship from Northern Kentucky University. Three years later, Sidya achieved a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration.

Career

In his mid-20’s he continued his soccer career, playing recreationally and professionally for an arena team, The Cincinnati Kings. He also worked for Town and Country Sports complex in Northern Kentucky where he coached young kids, refereed games, and worked the concession stands.

Simultaneously, he worked for an American telecoms company looking to hire a French-speaking employee. He worked remotely for Discoverytel, a telecoms service provider headquartered in Hartford, Connecticut as a Voice Terminator. Terminators are those who own VoIP GSM gateways. With the help of this equipment, it becomes possible to terminate calls, that is, to convert the received VoIP signal to GSM format and pay for the international call at the local tariff. The terminator earns on the difference between the cost of international and local calls. With his salary and commissions, Sidya was earning close to $30,000 a week. A few years after he joined Discoverytel, the company made an investment in a Nigerian subsidiary and lost hundreds of millions of dollars. In financial distress, Discoverytel had to downsize and Sidya was laid off. He was 24, jobless, and yet a millionaire.

With this newfound fortune, he began investing, first focusing on his passion for soccer. He became the owner of Town and Country Sports and The Cincinnati Kings, the organizations where he spent many of his early years. Using his college degree in Business Administration, his budding contact list, and altruistic intentions, Sidya began seeking his next investment.

In 2003, he received a distress call from his sister; there was a coup d’etat attempt in Mauritania, and for 48-hours, Mauritania did not have a functioning government. There were a series of robberies all over the country, and his sister’s home was affected, illegally burglarized and looted of assets in his hometown of Nouakchott, Mauritania, even though the property was under security guards at the time. He grew increasingly discontent with how corrupt the security company seemed, and how inappropriately the case was handled. After investigation, the truth uncovered that the two security guards stationed at her house were the culprits, they were the guilty persons who robbed her on the night of the coup attempt and took off with her valuables. Sidya advised his sister to hire a more reputable security company to man her home, she brought attention to the fact that there was only one security outfit in town, there was no other option than the company that had just failed them. In dealing with this personal burglary situation, Sidya had an epiphany - his next big investment would be starting his own security company in West Africa, ridding the corruption and reinventing the industry for the country of Mauritania.

MSS

In 2005, Sidya founded MSS Security Services, (originally entitled “Mauritania Security Services”) beginning with 46 employees, most of whom were manpower guards. He anchored his business on hiring trustworthy individuals, providing character-building training and education, and holding every employee to an extremely-high expectation of professionalism. Sidya also elevated how the brand and personnel portrayed themselves - professional attire, impressive vehicles and cutting-edge technology from first world countries, far surpassing West African technology at the time.

MSS’s first contract was with Schenker Mauritania, a major logistics company, to position security guards at the front of their office. As time went on, and a deeper trusted partnership grew, Schenker Mauritania began entrusting MSS more complicated security assignments such as skilled drivers, security cameras, access control, and more.

MSS grew to earn a contract with United Nations offices in Mauritania to provide 400 security guards, handling various security issues for the organization. With such a credible client as the U.N., Sidya no longer had to seek out business; businesses were the ones seeking out MSS. Soon, contracts were in place with U.S. Marines in Mauritania and other major international agencies.

By 2008, the company grew to become the largest private sector employer in Mauritania with 3,000 staff, and began expanding to many other countries in West Africa: Niger, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Guinea. Likewise, they adjusted their business name to “Managed Security Services” to account for their geographic change beyond just Mauritania.

MSS had clients in the gold mining industry, as partners in their logistics. Sidya became increasingly interested in the gold mining industry, seeing firsthand the inefficiencies of the supply chain, and he knew it needed to be better. He began investing his time and funds into gold mining. Because of his local knowledge, he was able to streamline operational costs and make processes more efficient. And so, PPM was born.

PPM

In 2015, Sidya founded Phoenix Precious Metals (PPM) with a focus on trading precious metals and precious stones. In 2016, PPM initiated their own gold exploration, and in 2018, the company began gold extraction and production. As the company invested time and funds, they saw a bigger vision: a grand opportunity to integrate the supply chain, streamline operational costs and make processes more efficient for the end-user and investor. PPM has grown into a major stakeholder in the West African gold market as they continue to acquire mining permits. PPM now operates from 8 offices across the African continent and UAE. Videos describing operations can be found here. and here.

Other Investments

Sidya owns and/or contributes to other investments as well, including ownership of the [4.1] Nouakchott Kings Soccer Team and contributor to the Nouakchott Kings Soccer Academy,

and Town and Country Sports.

Defamation Attempts

Business ownership in Africa doesn’t come without scrutiny and slandering by corrupt governmental organizations. There were a select few incidents in 2014, attempting to defame Sidya personally, and also attempting to undermine his company MSS. Because of the defamation attempts by low-tier media sites, MSS faced a battle for their reputation, as Sidya addressed here in the Forbes interview. Since 2015, Sidya has recovered from any attempted scrutiny, proving and providing all legal certifications for his company operations and transport of funds.

Views - African Economy

Sidya has a clear vision of the future of Africa through job creation, fair trade policies and development of local communities. He has turned around economies evidenced by his notable results. He has a personal pursuit to boost West African economies and bridge Africa with the rest of the world, by providing jobs and developing local communities.

Sidya’s email signature has stated a motto of his since 2005: "Law is the only thing capable of making people equal" -- all of his staff know him for this motto. Sidya’s view is that law is number one. For order, for fairness and equality.

Philanthropy

NKU Scholarship

In support of undergraduate students from the West African nation of Mauritania with preference given to students who have extracurricular involvement with the Nouakchott Kings Soccer Academy in Nouakchott, Mauritania “The Yacoub A. Sidya Endowed Scholarship”.

External links section
Forbes Article

How We Made it in Africa

The Silicon Review

The Business Wire

Africa Key Partners