Before Presbyterian Boys’ Secondary School (PRESEC) achieved the famous back-to-back NSMQ Title win in 2008-2009, the “Blues” had pulled off back-to-back Southern Sector championship wins in 1995-1996. Back in the day, the NSMQ was organized at two levels (Northern and Southern Sectors), with the Sector Champions facing off in the Champion of Champions Contest to crown the overall National Winner.
Coming into the 1996 edition as then reigning National Champions, PRESEC-Legon became the first school to appear in 2 consecutive NSMQ Champion of Champions Contests, a laurel that remains theirs in perpetuity due to the discontinuation of the Sector Championship format in 1997. The PRESEC-Legon team that achieved this feat included Edem Dzakpasu, famed for his unique buzz cut and speedy calculations.
University Education
After his heroics in the NSMQ, Edem proceeded to study Electrical & Electronic Engineering at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science & Technology (KNUST). From 2005 to 2007, he pursued a Master’s degree in Electrical Engineering at Texas A&M University, where he doubled as an Electrical & Computer Engineering Teaching Assistant.
In 2013, he earned an MBA in Finance, Economics, Entrepreneurship & Strategic Management from The University of Chicago Booth School of Business. In his time at Chicago Booth, he was a Co-Chair of the Chicago Africa Business Group where he led a group of classmates to pay a courtesy call on the Vice President of the Republic of Ghana to learn more about Ghana’s economy; as well as the Founder and Co-Chair of the Chicago-Booth Formula 1 Club.
Career
Currently, Edem is a Venture Capital Investment Principal at Chevron Technology Ventures where he makes investments in early-stage startups with groundbreaking technologies that enable the ongoing energy transition. Since joining in 2013, he has worked on business development and commercial opportunities spanning Upstream, Midstream and Downstream segments of the Energy value chain. Prior to Chevron, Edem had a stint with Credit Suisse in their Technology Investment Banking group and was a Semiconductor Manufacturing Engineer at Applied Materials before that.
Live Chat on Thursday 10th February, 2022
Hear more about Edem’s days at PRESEC, the wonderful trajectory his life has been on since he first graced the NSMQ Stage in 1996 and much more on Thursday’s #NSMQLiveChat. The #NSMQLiveChat is a LIVE virtual conversation featuring some of the most notable names on the NSMQ Stage since its inception. Every fortnight on Thursdays, we spotlight and interact with the myriad of brilliant minds who have made the NSMQ the programme we all love and enjoy.
