Spotlight on Cynthia Bakah, a Mentor on the Brighter Mentoring Program

Cynthia Sefakor Bakah is a Cement Laboratory Technician with Halliburton Ghana. She studied Petroleum Engineering at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) and began her professional journey as a B2B Commercial Sales Representative with Shell Ghana (now Vivo Energy).

As a National Service Personnel who doubled as a B2B Commercial Sales Representative with Shell Ghana, Cynthia was responsible for the sale of bitumen, lubricants, and fuel to organizations like GPHA, Ghana Bauxite, and GREL. After her National Service, Cynthia was maintained as permanent staff and promoted to the position of Aviation Operations Superintendent. In her new role, Cynthia managed the distribution of aviation products to airlines at the Kotoka International Airport.

A year after, Cynthia had the opportunity to join Halliburton Ghana. Six months into the job, she was promoted and ended up leading the company’s team of laboratory technicians. She was responsible for equipment calibration, routine maintenance, training new hires, and quality control.

While growing up, Cynthia nursed the dream of becoming an engineer. However, after opting for Petroleum Engineering at the university because of her love for Organic Chemistry in high school, she realized that Petroleum Engineering more Geology and Physics. Although Cynthia is more into the science part of engineering, she ambitions to delve a bit into the art aspect of it. According to her, she aspires to become a Sales Engineer. She believes the best person to sell an engineered product to a customer is an engineer who understands the ins and outs of the product. For this reason, she is very excited about the customer relations aspect of her job and is currently building skills in the area of sales, marketing, and customer relations.

When asked what advice she will give to her younger self, Cynthia said she will tell her younger self to never be afraid of deviating from the course she studied in school. According to her, many graduates in Ghana are fixated on being in an industry that is directly linked to what they studied in school. She opined that individuals should possess multiple skills and should be able to venture into diverse terrains.

Cynthia chose to be a Brighter Mentor because she wanted to impact someone much younger than herself with the knowledge, skills, and experiences she has amassed over the course of her life’s journey. True to her word, Cynthia began mentoring Johnson in 2018 and the impact she made and continues to make in his life is tremendous. Through Cynthia, Johnson got to travel from Navrongo in the Northern Region to Accra for the first time and had the opportunity to take several job assessments and partake in interviews with big multinationals. Before graduation, Johnson secured a position with an international organization and ended up not being unemployed for a single day after graduating from the university.

Johnson is the first of twenty (20) children. Johnson became a Brighter Scholar in his third year at the university after his father’s farms got burnt. In his fourth year, he lost his father and according to him, Cynthia was there all through encouraging him and giving him reasons to never give up. Today, Johnson is the first graduate in his family and has become the breadwinner of the family. He realized his potential and through his mentor’s help and constant support he knows that the sky is but his starting point.

Apart from work and helping young people like Johnson attain their full potential, Cynthia is a full-time wife and mother. She puts God first in all that she does and values integrity and family above all else.

Her advice to young people is to never stop dreaming big but to actively develop skills that will make their dreams a reality.